For our topic of the week this week I am having Maranda Butler on here. Thanks Maranda and enjoy guys!
My Ode to Social Media
I am a fan of social media. In fact I am so addicted that I want to
dedicate this whole post to my love for it.
I experience cold shakes and nightmares when I am away from social
media for too long.
At night I can hardly sleep because I am impatiently waiting to get up
in the morning and log onto Facebook or Twitter.
When I am sad or mad about something I post a Tweet, it makes me feel better.
In social media world everyone is special. Popularity is measured by
your number of followers or friends (as on Facebook)
I desperately rack my brain for ideas to come up with new social media
sites. It is so much money in them.
In social media sites I do not need friends. Who needs real friends
when you can have the perfect relationship via the internet.
Some of my best relationships have been built on social media sites.
Without social media I would not be able to talk to celebrities like I
know them. I often tweet Ciara and other Celebs my thoughts, I know
they are not going to respond, but its fun anyway.
If I had to go on an island I would bring food, water, and internet
access for social media.
I look at my blackberry apps for my social media sites often
throughout the day. I probably look at my phone once every 5 minutes
unless I am physically unable to.
If you were a boy, I would kidnap you and lock you in a closet so that
you could be mine forever.Yes, these simple phrases may seem like slightly delusional symptoms
of a crazy person. But this is my life after social media. It has been
a pleasure ..
You now have the right to know!
Wednesday, April 14th, Twitter problem prevented the PR expert panel from recruiting from the #PRStudChat community, they decided to move the event to Wednesday, April 21st.
The April 21st #PRStudChat will begin at noon eastern and focus on helping spring graduates with their job search. Along with the #PRStudChat professionals and educators, students will engage with the full original panel.
Jessica Porterfield, a recruiter with Fleishman Hilliard. Jessica has eight years of experience in the Biotech/Pharma industry and now recruiting in PR.
Jessica Bayer, a Public Relations recruiter at Qorvis Communications. Jessica specializes in Public Affairs, Government, Crisis, Interactive, Creative, Consumer and International relations.
Laurie Bartolo, a recruiter at Ogilvy. Laurie’s career spans almost 20 years and covers a wide geography, from Florida to Washington DC to New Mexico and now Michigan.
Lindsay Olson, a recruiter, founder and partner with Paradigm Staffing who spends her days helping companies build public relations and communications teams nationwide.
Rachel Kay , President and found of RKPR. Rachel, whose firm is currently hiring, is an award-winning public relations expert with experience spanning a multitude of industries including consumer technology, food, beauty and fashion, the Web and more.
As planned, student guest moderator Brittany James, will join co-founders Deirdre Breakenridge and Valerie Simon, to facilitate the discussion, which is open to all PR students, professionals and educators. More information about the conversation (including planned questions) can be found in this post on Breakenridge’s blog, PR 2.0 Strategies.
There have been a few theories over the years on how Twitter was going to turn their free site into a profit earning entity. According to an article from PRSA.org, the solution is here and Twitter debuts sponsored tweets.
Twitter will now be charging for ads that appear when a user searches on the site. The top results is an ad that “is a tweet that users can “re-tweet” to others, mark as a favorite or reply to.” The advantage is to use these inquires as a chance for the company to begin a conversation with those customers.
The top ranking result is bid on by advertisers for the keywords on a cost-per-thousand basis. Eventually they hope to sell the keywords based on click-through, retweets and how many it’s times marked as a favorite.
Ch. 11 is ” More Social Tools”. In this chapter, other social media tools that had not yet been discussed are introduced here. Some other media tools mentioned are:
Social Calendars
posting events in social calendars can get you extra exposure.
upcoming.org is a good example to search and publish upcoming events in your area.
Social Pages
these are sites where you create a page about a particular topic, usually “how to” pages
Wikis
a collaborative website that allows anyone to update its content
comes from the Hawaiian work “wiki” which means “fast”
Social Search portals
offer visitors a unique search experience at your blog or Website
Virtual Worlds
these sites are 3-D created by participants.
Ch. 12 is “Putting It All Together. The focus of this chapter is using your social media tools to optimize your existing website and making them all work together to minimize your efforts of maintaining your presence. Here are the authors tips for an optimization plan:
add a blog or RSS feed to your website and optimize it
offer several ways for others to subscribe to your RSS feed or blog
if your blog or social media portal is external to your website, add a prominent link to it on your website and show the link on every page.
add badges or widgets that link to your profile and pages on other social networking sites
use widgets that let visitors share your website on social bookmarking and crowd-sourcing sites
feature your shared images and videos from media communities on your website using widgets and badges
use widgets or badges to highlight the other tools you utilize on the social web
Our Career Services at Georgia Southern University does a great job, especially Dorsey Baldwin the Assistant Director of Employment at the Office of Career Services. Mrs. Baldwin held a workshop titled: ” Using LinkedIn to Launch Your Career”.
I had recently joined LinkedIn before I went to the presentation, but I still got a lot of useful information out of it.
Here are some suggestions and information I found useful:
Fill out you profile to 100%- including a photo, headline, keyword-rich summary, and any and all experience you have.
join relevant groups I found Georgia Southern Universities (GSU) group, GSU Alumni groups, GSU PR alumni groups, as well as a lot of other PR related groups.
claim your custom URL-www.linkedin.com/in/YOURNAME
request recommendations
keep your profile up-to-date
tap into your family tree for connections: extended family, family friends, and family of your friends
use it to research companies and find out about a person who may be interviewing you: learn about interest or common topics you could potentially discuss with them during an interview, or just gather information about that person and/or company.
I have been hearing a lot about LinkedIn the closer I get to my graduation date. Going to the workshop helped me see it in action, as well as ask any questions. For anyone still confused about what LinkedIn is, think of it as Facebook for professionals.
Ch. 10 is “Social Media Newsrooms”. Social Media Newsrooms (SMNR) are a place where anyone can:
view all your major media coverage
see all of your past and present news releases
look up all of your past and future events
read and link to all of your book reviews
see and like to all of the places you are present in the Social Web
download multimedia
view bios
and etc.
SMNR are for individuals or businesses that get a lot of media attention, want to get a lot of media coverage, and put out news releases on a regular basis. So if your website already has most of these features, why do you need a SMNR? Here is why:
SMNR tells the members of the media and prospective clients that you are making a serious efforts to make their job easier.
SMNR means that each entry in your newsroom can be automatically indexed in search engines, RSS feed indexes, and social bookmarking services, since each entry is added as a separate entry that can be given its own key term.
It does not replace your existing website where you can blog, present information, and sell your product.
SMNR is a neutral place to present all of your media materials.
Ch. 8 is “Media Communities”. Media communities are social sites where you can save, share, and comment on multimedia items.
Flikr is an example of an image sharing site.
A flikr badge is something placed on your site that displays images from your flikr account as a small gallery.
YouTube is an example of a video sharing site.
Your public YouTube page is called you channel. You don’t have to upload you own videos but can also feature other videos on the site.
Ch. 9 is “Widgets & Badges”. We have already discussed what these are in the introduction to Survival Guide, but they can be useful in may ways including:
they help you show off all of the places you are in the Social web.
Twitter- you can show recent post or have people follow you by clicking on the widget and taking them to you twitter page.
LinkedIn can be used as a digital business card.
a blidget is a customizable widget that allows users to display your feed on their site.
Last time I talked to Stephanie Booker she was on her way to her interview with her current company, Beck Media & Marketing. I was really excited to talk to an up and coming PR person in the California area. Stephanie graduated from the University of Georgia in 2007 making her a fresh face in the PR world.
It is great being able to talk to someone who is just starting out in their career rather than a veteran of the PR profession. After all, it’s not that long ago she was in my shoes.
Stephanie’s resume includes New Media PR at Wolf Kasteler & Associates, Media Relations at “Entertainment Tonight”, “The Insider”, and Consultant for Publicity and Promotions at Fox Atomic.
Now, an Entertainment and Technology team member at Beck Media & Marketing, it was great to catch up with Stephanie. I asked her many of the same questions as I did last year, but it was great to hear about her new job.
Here is our interview:
ME: What’s a typical week like?
Stephanie: Working at an agency brings something new everyday because you have so many different clients. I try to split up my days in the morning with a to do list of every project I’m working on, then prioritize based on importance and time zone. Most major magazines and many major broadcast outlets are New York based so you have to keep that in mind when you work on the West Coast. I spend a lot of my days writing. I’m always writing a release, a pitch, an email, something. The good thing about my particular company is we have creative brainstorming sessions. So we will all get together and bring up different clients and bounce creative ideas off of each other so that we keep ideas fresh to our clients.
Me: Tell me about a project you worked on that you are especially proud of.
Stephanie: A unique one I worked on in January was for Robbins Brothers. They are an engagement ring store on the West Coast, and we decided to give a couple shopping at a Robbins Bros store a chance to do a surprise red carpet proposal (video below).
First, we went to Disney with this idea and they loved it because it brought extra publicity to the movie that they didn’t have to do themselves. We went through “casting” of sorts by interviewing normal looking guys that came in to Robbins Bros shopping for their girlfriends and told them our plan. We finally decided on this guy named Chad and basically told him that he would be able to surprise his girlfriend with an engagement on the red carpet. We would tell Audrey (his girlfriend) that he won tickets to walk the carpet from a radio station. It ended up being a huge success, we got a giant segment on E! News, placement all over the internet, including Entertainment Tonight’s website.
Me: What do you do to keep current in the PR industry?
Stephanie: I’m still a huge Twitter fan. It gives you the chance to browse through headlines from multiple sources you trust without having to go to tons of sites. I like to keep Twitter lists and separate my news interests into Twitter lists. Mashable is a GREAT website for social media news and it totally helps out. PR Week is also a great source.
Me: What do you wish you would have known before starting your career in PR?
Stephanie: It is not glamorous most of the time.
Me: How important is writing in your career?
Stephanie: Beyond important. I spend 75% of my day writing.
Me: What three tips would you offer someone just starting out in PR?
Stephanie: Read More: Start reading your mom’s Family Circle, read Fast Company in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Seriously, these outlets might seem boring to you, but guaranteed you will need to know what is in these magazines to pitch someone for it in the future. You have to make yourself versatile. Can you imagine how many people pitch People magazine everyday? Reading more also makes you a better writer. If I were you, I would immediately start following Mashable, NY Times tech blogs, @EW (over celeb gossip because it has industry and celeb news), @HuffingtonPost, and anything else you can get your hands on.
Write More: practice makes perfect. I’ll be honest, I used to be a really bad writer. Even the last time we spoke my skills were sub par. Since then I have written so much, and used the edits my bosses give me as a learning tool. Read the comments and take them to heart, and apply them to your next assignment
Network, Network, Network: Seriously, become best friends with everyone. Contacts are EVERYTHING in PR. I go to lots of after work events with local groups
Me: When you were looking for a job, what did you do to stand out in this scarce job market?
Stephanie: I relentlessly stalked my boss before he hired me. There were over 700 applicants per day for each job posted on this one website I was targeting. I found out the company I was applying for, then went to their website to find key executives. Then, I would search for those executives on LinkedIn and find out if we had any common connections. In the case of my current job, I had one common connection who I knew through this one project I did at my old job. I hadn’t talked to him in a year, but I sent him an email telling him how interested I was in the job at Beck Media, and he immediately reach out to my boss with my resume. I also found the Beck Media mailing address online and mailed a hard copy of my resume, so that I knew my boss had a good chance of physically holding it in his hand instead of just deleting my email. Long story short, I ended up getting my resume to Todd about 25 times that he knew about. When he brought me in for an interview, he said that PR is a job of following up until you get what you want sometimes, and he thought if I was driven enough to get my resume in his hands that many times, it showed a lot of persistence and determination, which is a huge part of what you need.
Thanks again Stephanie for your time, help, and the really great advice!
For my Social Media for Public Relations class we were to create and publish a podcast that pertains to social media. A few weeks ago, I finished reading Shel Israel’s Twitterville: How Business Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods (also check out my book review post for more information about this book). So this sparked my idea for this podcast. Twitter has become a huge phenomenon and has brought a lot of creative ideas for both personal and business use. I talk about 10 different twitter accounts that I think are unique and very insightful. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy!
Show Notes: (Here you can see a timed outline of the things discussed in the podcast)
Theme music (A-punk by Vampire Weekend) 0:00-0:27.8
Introduction to show and topic of discussion 0:27.9-0:42
Twitterville: How Business Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhood 0:42-0:58
**this podcast was created using Garageband and then uploaded to podbean.com. I was very inexperienced in creating this podcast, but surprisingly this was an overall easy task to create and share**
I discussed in my reading notes post, but to recap, they are graphic applications and icon links.
When school lets out I will be helping my sister create more of an online presence and traffic to her site. One of the things I will be doing is placing widgets on her website and blog. By placing a “follow me on twitter” widget, one hopes to increase their followers by those who read their blog. A LinkedIn widget can serve as an electronic business card. A blog roll can help nurture an online relationship. YouTube widgets can help promote your videos, or one’s you like. There are many ways to reach out to others with widgets.
Ch. 7 is “Social Bookmarking & Crowd-Sourcing”. The old way of doing things is keeping a bookmark on your computer. Social Bookmarking does the same thing, but instead, they are public so others can see what you are reading.
social bookmarking creates folksonomy-the taxonomy of the internet in terms of its users.
eliminates using search engines to find the best results, instead, a social bookmarking site can use your terms to find results others have ranked.
delicious.com is one of the most popular social bookmarking sites. After searching, other members tagged terms show up, along with the number of people who have bookmarked the site and comments that others have entered.
crowd sourced news sites allow its users to determine the popularity of a new story, blog entry, or website through voting or rating systems. Digg.com is an example of this type of news site.
College students can benefit from social bookmarking for an endless amount of reasons. Student’s can keep up to-date with recognized professionals, professors, and friends. Students working on group projects and research can be on the same page, for once, when working together. They can also share with family and friends the things they are learning, reading, and interested in.
Social Bookmarks are great for everyone. Say, you have an interview or meeting with a client. Check out their blog roll and you can count on having something to talk about. It’s a great way to start a conversation or conversation going.
Last year I joined PR Openmic, but have not been back since joining. For this week’s topic, I went back on the site and put more effort into trying to utilize this social network dedicated to PR people.
PR Openmic was developed by Auburn University’s Robert French and isn’t very complicated for the current social media user. If you take twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn all in one you’ll get PR OpenMic. The biggest advantage of PR Openmic is the accumulation of PR people, from students, Professors, and practitioners. This specialized medium is great for networking and learning about what is going on in the PR world from these 3 points of views.
On this site you can upload a blog post you have written, as well as, browse a plethora of PR people’s blogs. There are also forums in which, you can create and join in on conversations on everything PR. PR people are able to connect and become “friends” with people they already know, or network and become “friends” with new people. Members can also upload picture and videos to share with others. These pictures and videos are available to see on your profile, as well as, a concentrated area separated by tags : Videos & Photos.
This is a valuable tool for PR students and recent grads because of the concentrated information available for PR people. You can network, promote yourself or your work, and learn about anything and everything PR. For myself, I am currently on the hunt for an internship for the Fall of 2010. PR Openmic has provided another valuable tool for students, like myself, looking for jobs and internships. The tabs Job/Interns takes you a page with many links to internships and job opportunities and information. Another great tool is the Groups/Events tab which provides sub-menus to either. This is another great way to connect with people and stay up-to-date on everything PR. I joined the groups: Students and Jobs & Internships. I have found a few opportunities through this site that I would otherwise never known about.
I highly recommend for PR students, faculty, and professionals to join PR Openmic and begin utilizing a great PR tool.
****Internship advice, including comments/tips from at least one GSU and one non-GSU student who has already completed an internship.****
I am currently on the hunt for an internship and was glad to hear some great advice from two people who have done internships.
The first student I talked to was Kristen Kelley. Kristen and I were group members for PR Research. She has a great work ethic and always seemed to be the go-to girl when there was a problem in the group, she is great with problem solving!
Last semester, before I asked Kristen for her advice on internships, she told me about how awesome her internship was.
She strongly recommended CNN as an internship because they were very hands on and she got to do a lot of different things.
This semester Kristen gave me some tips on how to get the most out of your internship.
Take advantage of every opportunity. Don’t hesitate to ask questions. It is what you are supposed to do, because this is a learning experience for you. Show your internship advisor how much you care by getting involved in as much you can.
Take initiative. This shows your internship advisor how responsible and driven you are. They do not have time to baby-sit you and tell you what you should do next. It is up to you to figure out what you should do.
Build a portfolio. Keep up with everything you do during your internship. Make copies and combine all of your work into an organized portfolio.
Treat your internship like a job. You have the potential to get offered a job with the company or organization you are interning with. Consider it as a job interview or potential letter of recommendation.
Another friend of mine offered similar advice for a successful internship experience. Abbey Birsch, is a friend of mine from Virginia Beach that is a soon-to-be a graduate from Savannah College of Art and Design. She did her internship last summer at a small advertising firm in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Here is how Abbey made the best out of her internship that wasn’t always so great:
Do what your are told. At first, my duties included more of secretarial duties. I needed to prove myself and earn their trust, this was a smaller ad agency. So, I treated every task with the utmost importance.
Be willing to do more. For even the simplest task, I always made sure everything was beyond perfect.
Be professional. Both with jobs given you, as well as taking comments and criticism. This is a learning experience, but you are not in college anymore. The company has had to fire interns before for inappropriate behavior.
Be engaged, ask questions and always be helpful. Listen to the things people are saying and do ask questions, but there is such a thing as a stupid question.
Keep in contact after the internship. I have been to Myrtle Beach since then and I always try to see them.
Ch. 6 is “Social Networking & Micro-Blogging. The author regards social networking as “one of the most powerful social media strategies you can implement”. Social Networking is:
an effective outlet for finding new customers and readers. Choose 3 or 4 social networking sites that best fits your business and invest time to maximize your presence.
Facebook is the fastest growing social networking site.
LinkedIn is a great tool for people wanting to connect with other professionals, or for people seeing professional positions. Also ideal for consultants and service firms seeking clients.
Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, is a hybrid between a blog and social networking.
Social bookmarking naturally evolves into social networking sites because conversations and connection develop around common bookmarks.
If you have a larger readership or following you can consider creating your own social network.
Joomla, Drupa, and Ning are three CMSs you can use to create social network sites. The author regards Ning as the easiest one to use.
In February, I talked about the HAPPO event that debuted on Twitter to help leverage social media with employers and potential employees. Well, on April 30th, there will be a 2nd #HAPPO event on Twitter from 12 pm to 2 pm eastern time. This awesome event helps entry-level job seekers create new connections. The examiner article offers these tips to make the best of this opportunity:
Start planning your #HAPPO post now. Here are some great examples of creative posts from the February 19th event
Be sure to follow the hashtag #HAPPO and @helpaprproout and begin to engage with others who who are following. Remember, getting a job is often about who you know. The #HAPPO hashtag will begin featuring weekly discussion topics to help spark conversation that can help you start building relationships. This week’s question: what was the best career advice you ever received?
Think about how you can help someone else. See a job that’s not right for you? Who might be a good fit? Refer someone you are proud to recommend.
Be sure your digital imprint supports the message you want to send to potential employers. Review your LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, blog, etc.
PRSA.org has an article today talking about the ripple effect of social media sites (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and how they amplify coverage and exposure. In particular, the article discusses recent recalls and how once mainstream media covers the story, the “second wave” comes from social media. Bernhard Warner, “the who is editorial director for the consultancy Social Media Influence, says that all companies should fear the #recall hashtag on Twitter.
Warner also advocates for the presence of companies on these “forums” which they are discussed. Warner said, “many major brands should be applauded for building vast communities of followers in these social-media channels. But it makes no sense to use these forums only to talk about new brand launches, marketing campaigns or product giveaways. These are your most supportive fans congregating daily. Level with them. They’ll appreciate, nay, expect, the candor.”
This week we will be discussing podcasting. I always like to begin by explaining what the topic of the week is. So, according to marketingpr.sute101.com, “podcasting involves recording to a digital file that can be distributed over the net using syndication feeds for playback on a computer, MP3 player or iPod.
So, know that we are all on the same page on what podcasting is, lets discuss why an organization would decide to create a podcast as a way of connecting with its publics. The obvious benefit to podcasting is the ease and convenience to which listeners can listen to the program. When I began my student career into the world of public relations, I had no clue what a podcast was. Granted, this was still a new technology, about a year old. Sitting in my Barbara Nixon’s Intro to Public Relations class, I received one of my first assignments: listen to a Podcast. Professor Nixon was a big fan of podcast and gave the class a list of podcasts that she listened to weekly. She explained to us, podcast were her way of staying up to date with the PR world and was something she could do when convenient for her, like on her nightly walks or her 45 minute drive to school. It can be as simple as uploading your iPod and you decide when it “airs”. So, in other word it is an effective medium to communicate with you target audience.
“This new technology gives corporate communicators a way to bypass mainstream media filtration to take their message directly to market, “says Eric Schwartzman, founder and president of iPressroom Corporation.
Show notes, another important aspect of podcasting, “provide an outline of the content in an episode of your podcast. They are usually posted as an entry in your blog.” Show notes are an important aspect because of the information they convey to your potential listener. Here, potential listeners often decided whether they are interested in listening to the show or if they are not.
For PR students and practitioners alike, listening to podcast can be an essential part in keeping up-to date with whats going on in your industry. For professionals, podcast can help them learn about whats new, whats under discussion, and what other people are doing. So, I would suggest for people, in any and every industry, to listen to podcasts.
a podcast is a series of audio or video files that is distributed over the internet. A special characteristic is that you can download or stream the podcast from the internet because a podcast is an RSS feed.
Technically, a podcast can include both audio and visual file.
vidcast, or vlog, refer oi video feeds, but can also be referred to as podcast.
a webcast, also called channels, is online broadcast, and usually consists of a series of uploaded videos. You can embed them or view on a webcasting site.
Last time I talked to 
Last year I joined 
In February,
This week we will be discussing podcasting. I always like to begin by explaining what the topic of the week is. So, according to 
PR [student] Perspective 
