Teaching PR

This morning my second Campaigns team made its presentation on a campaign for the American Cancer Society's new University of Georgia chapter of Colleges Against Cancer.

Three of their most visible projects were revamping the Web site, creating a Facebook group, and interviewing Katherine Richt -- mom, water girl, and wife of UGA's football coach -- about her experience with cancer. A PSA recorded after the interview is posted on the Web site and on YouTube. They also set up a detailed plan for next year's Great American Smokeout. I hope the chapter decides to use it.

I think it's safe to say the team learned a lot this semester, but not in the ways they probably expected before the semester started. Working in a team, working with a client, dealing with change in the midst of their project -- all things they'll definitely need to know while working in PR!

Labels: campaigns, classes, public relations, social media, students

The Connect conference client presentation I mentioned last week is available now on SlideShare. My students used Josh Hallett's Flickr photos as the background and used the slides for their PR Campaigns class presentation.

Labels: campaigns, classes, client pitch, conference, public relations, students

7 Observed Twitter Archetypes, Will McInnes (via Judy Gombita)
PR Blogs List Update: November 2007, Constantin Basturea
The Pitch is Dead -- R.I.P., Brian Solis
Social Media is Not "the End of the PR World As We Know It," Heather Yaxley
Blogging's Double Helix, Dan Greenfield
Who Is Blogging and Why? Is the Blogosphere in a Digestion Phase?, Alex Iskold
Cleaning Up Your Twitter Stream, Julia Roy
100 Notable Books of the Year, New York Times

Labels: public relations, students, week's best

The event planning team for Connect presented their campaign to Diane Murray (Grady public service and outreach) and Karen Andrews (Grady event planner) today. They created a very cool PowerPoint presentation that used black-and-white versions of Josh Hallett's Flickr photos for their slides, and all in all their presentation went smoothly.


Among other things, their post-conference evaluations showed:

• 83% of attendees who filled out the post-conference survey say they will use blogs and 75% say they will use social networks and social media news releases in their professions (PR or education)


• Respondents would be highly likely to recommend students to Grady (6.6 on scale of 1-7)


• Two-thirds of the respondents planned to keep in touch with someone they met at the conference


• More than 70 media outlets and more than 600 individuals received information about the conference


• More than 50 blog posts discussed the conference (not including the UGA Connect blog itself, which had almost 1,000 visits in the month surrounding the conference), and 63 people followed Dr. Kaye Sweetser's class Twitter stream


• 45 people attended the Friday night dinner and 65 people (including speakers and committee members) attended Saturday's sessions.

All told, the team quite rightly concluded that they had met the conference's goals of promoting Grady as an expert in social media, teaching professionals and educators about social media, and providing networking opportunities for attendees.

After the formal presentation, I asked the students to sit down and discuss what went well and what didn't (including the fact that we were over budget by $907). We also brainstormed what we would do differently if we did it again. Will we?

Labels: conference, measurement, social media

Don't Get Too Comfortable At Home After Work, Penelope Trunk
Is Marketing to Blame for PR's Poor Reputation?, Heather Yaxley
Participatory Journalism in the USA: My Talk, Amy Gahran
It's About Building Relationships, Not About "Posing as a Typical User," Kami Huyse
Is Live Blogging Really Stealing?, Lauren Vargas
WOMMA Takeaway Points, Melanie Seasons

A few links from UGA's PRofessional CONNECTION of general interest to PR students:
Can't Decide If You Want to Go to Grad School? This Should Help, Lizzie Azzolino
Professionalism 101, Asha and Professionalism 101 Roundtable, Gentry
Preparing for the Interview, Katie Vandergrift

Labels: public relations, students, week's best

During the Connect conference, a bunch of UGA students got hooked on Twitter, so I thought I'd provide a few tips on how PR students can use microblogs like Twitter to the best effect.

1. Don't take "What are you doing?" literally, at least not all the time. Use it for networking by providing links to interesting posts, podcasts, video, news stories, etc. that others might also enjoy.

2. Don't Tweet too many times in a row (thanks, @AdamDenison) -- if you have that much to say, consider doing a blog post instead. Or updating your Web site (thanks, @ashleyb33).

3. Keep it professional. Like any other social media, use it to help build your online reputation.

4. Security measures apply here, too, just like on a blog or Facebook page.

5. Twitter helps create conversation, which means you have to follow (and be followed by) other people for it to work. Set aside some time to find people to follow-- start by adding PR educators like @prprof_mv, @rdfrench and @kmatthews (and, of course, @KarenRussell!), then look through the people they follow to find their students and professionals who are interested in PR education. In addition to the Twitterati mentioned throughout this post, I can recommend @vargasl, @paullyoung, @jspepper, @bryper, @LukeArmour, @prblog, @michaelallison, @ceubanks ... just for starters. Just read their most recent posts and see if they're writing about things you're interested in, and if they are, click Follow. And if someone starts following you, consider following them, too.

6. Twitter is unreliable (thanks, @kamichat). Learn not to be annoyed.

7. Read about why some people don't like Twitter and 17 tips for writing Kickass Twitter Posts, in which B.L. Ochman recommends asking and answering questions on Twitter, advice I followed to help me write this post!

Update (19 December 2007): 8. Use Tweetscan to make sure you've seen any posts replying to or concerning you. Just type in "@yourusername" and it'll search for all references to you.

Labels: microblogging, social media, students

If You're Not Hiding Anything, Why Mind the Light?, Mike Driehorst
You Define the Risks in Social Media, Toby Bloomberg (via John Cass)
Starting Small with Social Media: Georgia Aquarium Flickr Photogroup, Josh Hallet
PR Practitioners Should Put Up or Shut Up, Heather Yaxley
Apex PR's Credibility Survey Released: New Media Twice as Credible Among18-24 Year Olds, David Jones
Boiling Down Blogging Ethics: What Would You Do?, Amy Gahran (via Judy Gombita)
Finding, Following, Joining, and Creating Conversations Online, Bryan Person (podcast)

Labels: public relations, students, week's best

I'm going to give a 30-minute guest lecture on social media and decided to try something new. I'm linking to my slide show here and will start my lecture from this post to show how easily and rapidly information can be shared.

Labels: classes, public relations, social media, students

Grady College telecomm students filmed a couple of the sessions from the Connect conference, so those of you who weren't there can still join us. Download the first session, Advice from the Pros (Josh Hallett, Katie Paine, and Constantin Basturea, aka my social media dream team) here.

Labels: conference, social media

Did someone say it's November? No excuses about the end of the semester's fast approach; here are some thought-provoking posts:

How to Pitch to Bloggers -- 21 Tips, Darren Rowse
Reputation Management for Digital Natives :: My Conclusions, Christi Eubanks
10 Things to Remember, Dan Santow
How to Write Kickass Twitter Posts, B.L. Ochman
A Credibility Gap, Greg Hazley
What PR People Should Know About Social Media, Brian Oberkirch (via Eric Eggertson)

In addition, Chris Anderson created a blogstorm this week with his post, Sorry PR People: You're Blocked, so I recommend reading it and responses, including:
PR and the First Amendment and Keeping Your Job, Seth Godin
Dear Chris Anderson, An Open Letter to Make Things Right, Brian Solis
Won't Anyone Think of the Phone Calls?, Chris Edwards
No Need for Media Relations, Not When You Make the Blacklist, Bill Sledzik
Scaring PR: Chris Anderson, Wired, Copywrite Ink
Things Turn Ugly in the "Hacks vs. Flacks" War, New York Times

Labels: public relations, students, week's best

Went out of town for a few days and came back to discover that the spambots have finally taken notice of Teaching PR.

I've deleted about 20 so far but there are still comments with links that you don't want to click. So, if it looks suspicious, it is.

And yes, everyone, this might be what it takes to get me to migrate my blog to a new and better site. In the meantime, don't click here.