• Published:July 17th, 2008
• Comments:1 Comment
• Category:social media

Social networking sites fall in the category of social media when you consider that people use their Facebook pages, MySpace profiles and other social networking sites to publish and share information.

The interesting part about social networking sites is how people decide to use them.

One of the interns at the agency I work for asked me on Wednesday for some career tips for landing a full-time job. Among other things, I asked her if she had a LinkedIn profile.

She responded that she did, but was concerned about what to put in her profile. She said she also had the same concern about her Facebook profile

Now that employers can easily search for social networking profiles (although this can be turned off in the privacy settings for most sites) it is a concern that many young PR pros have.

In my experince, you basically have two options:

1. Make Everything Business Appropriate

This is the approach I take. From Twitter, to Facebook and LinkedIn, nothing on my social media and social networking sites divulges anything I would be embarrassed about if my boss or co-workers found the pages.

Sure, you can discover my favorite music, favorite books, favorite sports teams and see some of my friends, but you won’t find anything that would embarass me if discovered by a fellow professional.

The downside is that it I have to thoroughly consider whatever I post on my blog or Facebook page. This in a sense takes away from the personalization of my pages.

The positive is that I can make connections with any individual and connect with them across a variety of platforms. I don’t have to worry about refusing a connection via Facebook that I already accepted via LinkedIn because the content of my two profiles is different.

2. Try to Control Your Online Profile

This is a daunting task.

Most PR professionals I know have a LinkedIn profile. Many of the younger ones have a Facebook profile as well.

What do you do when you accept a connection on LinkedIn, but reject it on Facebook because of inappropriate items on your Facebook profile? Or what if you don’t have your privacy settings correct and anyone on Facebook can see your profile after a simple name search?

It isn’t only Facebook and LinkedIn. Through some simple searches, anyone can find most of your profiles and social media accounts including communication tools like Twitter.

It is much more difficult to try to control a multitude of online profiles. It seems almost impossible to me to successfully keep a personal profile and business profile.

Before you enter the business world, or enter the realm of social media as a professional, I advise you to decide which path to take.

Once you open up your profiles for all to see it makes it difficult to go back. And it only takes a few photos depicting you in an inebriated state on Facebook to persuade a recruiter or boss to look elsewhere to fill a position or give a promotion.

Remember, you may work for a company, but your name is essentially your personal brand. Be careful how you use it.

Have you successfully managed to keep a personal and professional profile online? Have you found that maintaining two profiles is more trouble than its worth? Does having to make your professional profile meet a professional standard prohibit you making  full use of social media tools?

• Published:July 15th, 2008
• Comments:2 Comments
• Category:social media, twitter

Twitter, Indenti.ca and Pownce. All microblogging tools that enable people to share information instantly. Part Facebook status, part blog.

My preferred format is Twitter. It seems to have most of the relevant social media and online public relations experts and is the most popular of the three. (You know it’s popular when journalists use it as a  a verb in The New York Times Magazine.”

And, yeah, nobody is quite sure how Twitter will make money. But I will enjoy the tool while it lasts.

Now on to the tool itself…

The dilemma for most Twitter users is “the follow.”

Who do I follow?

Who is following me?

Should I follow someone who follows me?

The answers to these questions depends on your preferences for using Twitter.

Some of the more popular users, such as @chrisbrogan of chrisbrogan.com fame, follow everyone that follows them.

This not only is advantageous in building relationships, and an audience, but you usually retain a lot of users this way. Some users will stop following you if you don’t follow them back.

The more users that follow you, the easier it is to find sources and conduct quick surveys. Not only does Twitter become a source for blog posts, it also becomes an extension of the user’s blog.

Thus the more followers, the higher the value of Twitter for users hoping to increase their audience.

However, the more users you follow, the harder it is to follow the actual conversations of people you find interesting. On Monday, @geoffliving purged his list of Twitterers he followed by 1,000.

This is where the second type of Twitter user comes in. Those that aren’t looking to build an audience, but would rather engage and communicate with people they really find interesting or already know.

If they happen to build an audience of people that think they are interesting, it is simply a byproduct. Their goal isn’t necessarily to grow an audience, it’s to use Twitter as a communication tool.

The downside is that these users often lose followers who do not get a follow in return.

Is either method right? Not really, just users with different goals.

In the end, the more followers you attract, the greater your online profile.

But attracting users isn’t easy. You have to be able to provide value. You can’t spam or constantly update, but you can’t take weeks off either. You don’t necessarily have to be funny, but it helps.

My goal is to come across as human, propose interesting questions and share information. I used to use my blog to post links to interesting articles. Now, I use Twitter to do that.

In terms of “the follow,” I follow about 20 users that don’t follow me, but are people I find particularly interesting. I do choose to follow almost any user that follows me, except for those that use Twitter for spamming purposes or those that aren’t relevant or interesting. You can follow me at @evanspatrick.

So who are the people that YOU should be following?

@chrisbrogan - Chris Brogan, chrisbrogan.com - The guy knows his stuff and is on top of everything. A model user on how to utilize Twitter to connect with users and build an audience.

@DougH - Doug Haslam, doughaslam.com - Funny tweets and useful links. Blends personality with professionalism.

@bmorrissey - Brian Morrissey, Adweek - If you are in PR and aren’t following Brian, you are missing out. Some of the most useful tweets for PR people come from his updates about interacting with PR people.

@geoffliving - Geoff Livingston, livingstonbuzz.com - Another user that blends humor and professionalism.

@skydiver - Peter Shankman, shankman.com - Breaking HARO alerts.

@mscharlotte - Charlotte Cavaretta - Always provides interesting, useful links.

Those are my Twitter All-Stars. They use, but don’t abuse, the tool and provide value without coming off as putting on an act.

How do you decide who to follow? Who are your Twitter All-Stars? How do you try to provide value on Twitter or Pownce?

• Published:July 11th, 2008
• Comments:5 Comments
• Category:social media

If you’ve read my about me page, you know that a guest presentation about blogs by Mister Sugar in my Intro to PR class was my first introduction to social media.

I learned that blogs can have a profound impact on a business and are crucial for public relations practitioners to be aware of.

Luckily or unluckily, I was in a state of blissful ignorance in Chapel Hill for the next couple of years and really didn’t follow-up on any interest I had in blogs and social media until the last quarter of 2007. I had a Facebook page and LinkedIn page, but that was about it.

In just a few short months, I’ve started to grasp of the insane breadth and depth of social media. (Hint: It’s more than blogs.)

What I’ve learned is that to get involved, you don’t have to be an expert, you just have to be willing to share. There is usually something you can bring to the conversation.

Here is the first part in my series of posts on my recommendations, based on my experience, for getting started in social media.

Blogs

I think most people get their start, whether they realize it or not, in social media through blogs.

Most blogs offer accessible writing and concentrate on a single subject, which makes it easy for people to find relevant content. If a blog covers gadgets one day, it will likely continue to cover gadgets.

I started by readings blogs that provided information that was of interest to me (think Gizmodo) or provided information that could help me in some way (think Lifehacker).

Since you are reading this blog, you are probably interested in public relations, marketing and social media, so here are some of my favorite blogs in that category that if you aren’t reading, you should be:

SixtySecondView – I actually just found this blog (nod to Peter Shankman) by Edelman Europe President and CEO David Brain. The concept of to-the-point posts with great information makes it a must read.

A Shel of My Former Self – Brilliant blog by Shel Holtz, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, that not only gives great information, but proposes really interesting questions that keep the conversation going.

BuzzMachine – The only blog I’ve been following, and reading consistently, for more than two years. Written by Jeff Jarvis, associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism, this blog always offers cutting edge ideas.

Chris Brogan – Pretty much everyone agrees this guy is a genius when it comes to social media and its uses in business.

Edelman Digital and Ogilvy 360 – I’m a fan of following what the heavy hitters in the PR industry are doing in the field of social media.

PR Squared – A blog written by SHIFT Communications principal Todd Defren – yeah – the guy that invented the social media release. His grammar-related posts are brilliant.

Now that you have some blogs to follow, go check out this presentation by the bonafide marketing genius, Marta Z. Kagan.

Over the next couple of posts, I will share my experiences with micro-blogging, social bookmarking, and all kinds of other social media goodness. So please visit again in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, what am I missing out on? Are there some awesome blogs that you follow that I didn’t list above?

• Published:July 9th, 2008
• Comments:3 Comments
• Category:Education

Every single day, I thank my lucky stars that I attended the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC-Chapel Hill. It is one of the best journalism schools in the country and the general education I received was top-notch.

However, after a little over a year out of school, I’ve realized that while my education gave the confidence and foundation to succeed, I would be nowhere without my internships.

Internships give you a chance to prove your worth with very little risk for yourself or the employer. If you prove that you can handle tasks above an intern level, chances are you will get the opportunity to take on projects with more responsibility and more prestige.

Internships truly are what you make of them.

Here is what I gained from my internships:

The Importance of Media Relations

Without the handful of internships I had before leaving school, I would’ve been left completely unprepared to handle the bulk of my current job: media relations.

My education gave me all of the basics of public relations, but was almost completely void of media relations. Sure, I wrote a couple of pitch letters - but they were actual letters. I can’t imagine ever sending a pitch letter via snail mail now.

I admit, excelling at media relations is largely natural. You are either comfortable pitching ideas and working with an often hostile audience or you aren’t. It isn’t necessarily something that can be taught.

However, an internship can help you realize if you are suited for media relations or should choose another route.

Ideas are Large and Budgets are Small

Most of the case studies used in my classes examined large companies with budgets to match. Creative problem solving and tactics were encouraged; budgets be dammed.

My internship experience was much different. I realized the budget doesn’t always match the greatness of the idea. You can’t always spend the amount of time you feel necessary to perfect a news release or make additional tweaks to a pitch letter when you are billing a client by the hour.

In my experience, small budgets meant an opportunity to increase the creativity. How can I provide value to a client with very little financial resources?

Pitching Your Boss Is As Important As The Media

I have a natural tendency to question why things are done a certain way.

My internship experience taught me that being able to pitch your ideas to your boss is just as important as being able to pitch the media.

You may have awesome ideas that would benefit the client immensely, but offices have egos and while you were on a level playing field during group projects in class, office hierarchy is not flat.

If you can learn to position your ideas as positive changes that benefit the client and the agency, you will have far more success in having your ideas heard.

What memorable internship experiences did you have? What did you learn in an internship that you never would have found out by attending class? What advice would you give to college students currently in internships or those seeking internships?

• Published:July 7th, 2008
• Comments:1 Comment
• Category:Case Studies

This past Friday, I had a fantastic opportunity to do something that was one of the reasons I decided to enter the field of public relations.

Using public relations for good.

I wasn’t even scheduled to participate, but as the only person in the office not out of the Dallas-area on vacation, I was gifted the opportunity to staff an event for the Freedom Wave Foundation.

Started by Richard Cowand, a North Texas-native who now lives in Maine, the Freedom Wave Foundation treats America’s heroes to lunch.

Richard, his son Parker, myself and several kind volunteers spent our July 4 at DFW Airport welcoming back U.S. troops from the Middle East and sending off a couple hundred troops for a tour of duty.

Those arriving back from their tours received a $20 prepaid Visa gift card, which they can use to have lunch on the Freedom Wave Foundation as one of America’s heroes.

Those departing received a hearty BBQ lunch from Dickey’s courtesy of Cowand’s foundation.

This is where I think public relations does its best work. A small nonprofit organization was looking for a little publicity to increase awareness of the organization and – hopefully – increase donations to fund future events.

Through phone calls and e-mails, we managed to get every local TV news station to cover the event and speak with Richard.

Was it the hardest project I’ve ever worked on? Absolutely not. This was a perfect storm for the media - honoring the troops on July 4, a Friday, with not much else going on at 7 a.m. and 11 a.m.

However, the event was one of the most rewarding. Not only seeing the excitement of the troops at the Foundation’s small gestures of appreciation, but, because of our hard work, we gained a ton of exposure for an organization that really puts its money to good use.

100 percent of the money donated goes straight to the $20 gift cards that are given to the troops - or in the future other heroes like police officers and firefighters. The organization uses other funds to cover the overhead costs.

To find out more information, you can visit their Web site here.