Brittany Maree's Blog

TOW 15: Guest Blogger

Brittany Maree — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:48:23 +0000

This week’s guest blogger is Micaela Carter. Her post on PR Open Mic (http://micaelacarter.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/pr-open-mic-tow-9-10/) I found to be beneficial for many of the seniors who are about to graduate. There are some helpful hints about networking and other useful information about PR Open Mic. Thank you Micaela!

PR Open Mic-TOW 9 & 10

March 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment

PR OpenMic is a social networking site developed by Robert French. The site is targeted to students who are majoring in PR, professors, PR Professionals and people who work in PR departments. Some of the first things that the site suggests are for you to invite your friends, customize your page, and then begin to add content. Once you join the site you can update your status for others to see. For example if you are looking for an Internship, this is a perfect way to let others know that way anyone who is looking for interns can see that you are obviously interested in PR and can connect with you. There are many applications that PR OpenMic offers for example; you can upload videos or pictures, comment on posts and read the open discussion forum.

PR OpenMic is beneficial to students who are graduating because this site allows for people to post job openings, or internship opportunities. The sites also offers networking and connections to specific people who work or are apart of certain groups on the site.

The part that I find different about this networking site compared to others is the open discussion forum, because you can read and comment on these posts. Where as most networking sites just provide the connections and not really provide a place for people to see your thoughts. The site is similar to Twitter, because you can update your status. In addition the site also similar to LinkedIn, they are bothe sites used for networking and you need to be professional on them.

Wedding Dresses

Brittany Maree — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:42:31 +0000

Can anyone tell me a good wedding dress store?

Reading Summary: Ch. 13

Brittany Maree — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 10:11:53 +0000

All of the information on this blog is from our book the Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization. Link to our book: http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Guide-Social-Media-Optimization/dp/0981744389

The future of new social media will be about aggregated applications that users can define themselves and that allow them to organize their experiences. These include using lifestreaming tools, distributed networking, and semantic applications.

A lifestream is similar a blog in that it is a chronologically ordered collection of information, but its content consists mostly of feeds or “streams” of information from other social sites. It is a running activity within the social sites that you can choose to import into it, consisting of anything from imported blog posts to bookmarked websites.

Distributed Social Networking: users can carry their ID and/or their social network around with them on the web. They will be able to connect their profile, friends, and other content seamlessly across many sites.

Some companies already competing to use this tool:

OpenSocial
Facebook Connect
MySpace Data Availability
Yahoo Open Strategy
Google Friend Connect
OpenID

Web 3.0 or the “semantic” web

While Web 2.0 is about the interaction between users of the internet, Web 3.0 will be about the interaction between the user and the information itself. The form this will take is unclear, but many believe it will be based on a semantic model where a Web browser will determine the meaning of text and other data, and create connections for users based on that meaning.

Reading Summary: Ch. 14

Brittany Maree — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 05:22:20 +0000

Define your goals clearly as you plan your social media strategy and so that you can measure the success of the strategy.

Some goals that you might want to include are:

Increasing Website traffic
Driving sales and new business
Monitoring brand awareness
Improving customer relations
Managing reputation
Establishing credibility
Creating buzz
Improving public relations

There are many thoughts about how to establish a framework for qualitative measurement of social media. Peter Kim came up with one framework for measuring social media engagement is based on the interactions with different social media channels:

Attention- The amount of traffic to your content for a given period of time.
Participation- The extent to which users engage with your content in a channel.
Authority-Ala Technorati, the inbound links to your content, like trackbacks and inbound links to a blog post or sites linking to a YouTube video.
Influence-The size of the user base subscribed to your content.

A basic quantitative framework that measures the traffic, sales, and other more quantitative effects of your social media plan is still necessary in order to determine its success.

Placement in search engines
Placement in blog search engines
Placement of social networking pages in searches
Ranking in social bookmarking sites
Popularity in crowd-sourcing sites
Popularity of shared multimedia within media communities

All of these will help you measure your overall success in your social media strategy.

TOW 14: Guest Blogger

Brittany Maree — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 21:25:50 +0000

This week my guest blogger is Lauren Hopkins. I found her post http://lala1185.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/how-to-pass-your-employers-background-check/ interesting for people in our class, since most of us are graduating in a few weeks. Her post is about “How to Pass your Employer’s ‘background check’. “

Thank you Lauren!

How to Pass Your Employer’s “Background Check”

By Lauren Hopkins

My mom e-mailed me this article: Employers monitor your social networking profile. More and more companies are spying on their employees as how much time they spend in the social web whether it’s on Facebook or Twitter. Companies are also watching carefully the content on their employees’ profile. This is reality, especially for students and job seekers.

Just like a portfolio or an interview, a person’s character says it all. Even though an employee might be outstanding in their career, they have to be careful on how they conduct themselves outside the professional world. For example, I am aware of what I say on Facebook , what I post, and what images are on my profile. It doesn’t make much sense for me to prepare a professional portfolio, resume, and go to various conferences to further my public relations career if my social profile content isn’t professional or appropriate to share with potential employers.

Outside of work, student organizations, and class, you still represent those organizations. What you say and post on your Facebook Profile or Twitter represents those groups as well. Companies today are realizing that. As a result, companies are taking matters into their own hands by spying on their employees using a new software called Social Sentry. Social Sentry is a software that can track a person’s social web use only on Facebook and Twitter, but will also track use on LinkedIn, YouTube, and MySpace in the future.

How does this pertain to me is what you’re asking right? Well it pertains to you in so many ways. One way is the time a person spends on Facebook by updating their status throughout the day making it seem like they do not have anything else to do besides “play” on Facebook. As a result, it doesn’t look good on the employer’s side. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to make your profile more appropriate:

if you have to question a photo, don’t upload it or tag yourself
What groups are you associated with on Facebook? Will your mom be proud of these groups?
What type of language is on your profile?
if you were asked in an interview to log into your Facebook, would you be ashamed?

You never know who’s checking your profile or using Google to search for you. Companies aren’t just using the traditional background checks. They are using the social web to their advantage to conduct their background checks as well: Will you pass the background check? If not, companies may dismiss or fire employees due to their social web profile content and behavior.

PR Connection: Social Media Offers Revenue Insights

Brittany Maree — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:50:33 +0000

I found this blog post on everyjoe.com’s blog about new ways that a company can track their revenue when they use social media. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn offer ways to track return on investment and revenues. Now, companies will be able to measure their success when they use social media to reach their target audiences. This could add to the use of social media tools in advertising and marketing for companies. They can now know how successful their online efforts are and what they need to do. This just proves how social media is changing the way we communicate. I found this post useful as it relates to our class discussions about the effectiveness of social media tools.

Here is the link to the post: http://www.everyjoe.com/articles/social-media-offers-revenue-insights/

PR Connection: Prospects Improve Slightly for 2010 Graduates

Brittany Maree — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:23:00 +0000

I found this blog post on culwrit’s blog about the job market for 2010 PR graduates. Since most of us are graduating in about 3 weeks, I thought it would be a good post to read about. It provides good information about job opportunities and how to look for potential jobs. Go read it if you are interested in looking for PR jobs.

http://www.culpwrit.com/2010/04/18/prospects-improve-slightly-for-2010-grads/

PR Connection: Culpwrit’s post about new Webinar

Brittany Maree — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:20:59 +0000

This is another post from culpwrit’s blog. The post is about a webinar that will be Wednesday, April 21, and will discuss landing a job after school. This is another post I found useful since I am graduating in three weeks. Although I will probably be in graduate school after finishing, I will not turn down job opportunities. It may be useful for you to attend as well. Here is the link the culpwrit’s post about webinar: http://www.culpwrit.com/2010/04/16/free-webinar-landing-a-job-after-school/

Reading Summary: Ch. 11 and 12

Brittany Maree — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:02:48 +0000

There are also more social tools that you can use and are available on the social web. Social Calendars are a great way to get extra exposure. They offer a convenient way for you to post your events in one place and highlight them in many ways on many different platforms. Upcoming.org is a good website to use for social calendars.

Social pages are sites where, instead of creating a page about yourself, your book, or your business, you can create pages about a particular topic. Visitors can search for pages on particular topics or ones authored by specific people. Squidoo is a website you can use for social pages.

Wikis, Social Search Portals, and Virtual Worlds are three other types of social tools that you can utilize.

If you want to determine if your existing Website is optimized ask these questions:

Can users interact with the content?
Can visitors share the content easily with others?
Does the site encourage collaboration?

Answer these questions, then come up with a strategy to optimize social media.

PR Connection: Socialnomics

Brittany Maree — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 01:48:39 +0000

I found this video titled Socialnomics. I thought it related to our class topics about social media usage and strategies. This discusses the social media tools and how you can use them to target your publics. The video shows how when two people connect online, that they connect with hundreds of others. Social media relies soley on participation and it can be extremely effective when used in the correct way. It also says that when you utilize social media, you increase your profits and revenue more than those who do not use these tools. One of the most interesting things I learned from this video is the Burger King Whopper Sacrifice Facebook Application that had an estimated return that was $400,000 in press/media value. You will learn how important social media has become to companies and startegies that can be used when you create your social media strategy.

Here is the video: