Recent research conducted by PR Newswire and Crowd Factory found that Twitter is more effective than Facebook for sharing press releases. In many ways, that’s because Facebook isn’t really designed for this purpose.

“I’m not sure Facebook is often the ideal platform for sharing press releases,” Attention founder and partner Curtis Hougland told us during a phone conversation. It’s a sentiment shared by others we’ve spoken to.

Nevertheless, there are some ways that you can maximize Facebook ‘s ability to share your news.

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“Word of mouth is the single most important thing we do in marketing,” said Curtis Hougland, founder of Attention, during the Social Media Week panel “Social Media Myths: You Did WHAT? In Social Media?” (their punctuation, not ours). Most important, that is, other than facilitating sales.

Sitting on stage with execs from Percolate, Morgans Hotel Group, and Barbie, Hougland and his fellow panelists talked about a number of topics. Here are a few of the tips and ideas that the audience walked away with.

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First on PRNewser: Attention partner Colin Nagy is now Colin the Barbarian. Nagy accepted the newly-created role of executive director of earned/social media at the Barbarian Group. He will begin building the new department this Monday to focus on word-of-mouth, branded content and social media strategy for Barbarian’s clients.

Nagy has worked with partner and founder Curtis Hougland to build the firm over the past several years while focusing on media clients such as The Daily Beast and Newsweek. The Boston-based Barbarian Group is bigger than attention at roughly 75 employees.

Our colleagues at AgencySpy reported a small round of layoffs at Barbarian last month.

RELATED: MDC Partners Invests in Attention

[Colin Nagy (left) at PRNewser's social media discussion in 2009]

Well, maybe not. However, social media focused agency Attention — home to former PRWeek editor-in-chief Keith O’Brien — has taken to internet stunts lately as a way to get noticed, and their latest is a dig at Gawker Media.

The agency launched a web site titled, “What Would Nick Denton Pay For These Things I Found In A Bar.” It plays off the continuing lost iPhone saga, in which Gawker Media chief executive Nick Denton said the company paid $5,000 for Apple’s next iPhone version, after it was found in a Silicon Valley bar.

When visiting founditinabar.com, one will find the following messages, for example:

DEAR NICK – I FOUND
A PROTOTYPE OF MARK ZUCKERBERG’S PRO-MODEL ADIDAS SANDAL IN A BAR. HOW MUCH CAN I GET?

DEAR NICK – I FOUND
THE ZODIAC KILLER’S IPAD IN A BAR. HOW MUCH CAN I GET?

DEAR NICK – I FOUND
CHARLIE SHEEN’S AMEX STATEMENTS IN A BAR. HOW MUCH CAN I GET?

Asked about the site, agency founder Curtis Hougland said, “Talk is cheap. We learn by doing. We want to experiment with new ideas and technologies before we recommend them to clients. Also, we are trying to show that social media does not require a lot of money or production. Just good ideas, and the ability to say yes.”

Denton did not immediately respond to a PRNewser request for comment.

The interwebs where all aflutter last week with the campaign to get comedian Tracy Morgan to join Twitter. He did. But also last week, another celebrity, teen sensation Miley Cyrus closed her account on the micro-blogging service. “Everything that I type, Everything that I do, some gossip site makes it news,” she said, in a Youtube video she posted to mark the occasion.

It led us to thinking, are some celebrities too big for Twitter?

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Exclusive: Another journalist jumped to a PR agency today as Keith O’Brien leaves his editor-in-chief post at PRWeek to join Attention!PR. O’Brien will focus on the tech and media practices at the roughly 25-person firm when he starts the job on April 29th. The firm handles work for The Daily Beast, Consumer Reports, Bluefly.com, SocialMedia.com, and Mashable among other brands.

I took the opportunity to interview O’Brien to find out what prompted the move, and what he hopes to do and learn in his new life as a consultant. Incidentally, my co-editor Joe Ciarallo interviewed both O’Brien and Attention!’s founder Curtis Hougland in recent months. You can find those here and here.

PRNewser: How do you know Curtis and Attention? What attracted you to them?

O’Brien: I know Curtis through PRWeek. I have high respect for him, think the firm does great work, and has an impressive client list for a relatively new agency. I decided that I wanted to put into practice the things I learned while covering the industry. Attention was the perfect fit.

More after the jump:

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