PRos in Training

Tag: Public Relators

  • Guest Post: I Love MySpace!


    This is a guest post from Leona Laurie, Communication and Society Master’s student at the School of Journalism at the University of Oregon, part of my PR Campaigns class and all around cool chick.

    I love MySpace. I get teased for this a lot by my peers, but it has been the source of a lot of good things in my life, so I will defend it and my addiction to it. As a marketing dork, I get kind of drooly with lust when I think of all the ways in which I can access demographic data and members of a young target audience without paying for it. As a self-promoter, I love the ease with which I can alert hundreds of people at a time to my latest project or product. (Have you been listening to my radio show? Have you been reading my blog?)

    In the year and a half that I’ve been involved with MySpace, I have had a variety of networking successes come out of it. In addition to reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones, I found the kernel of inspiration that led me to the U of O and met the person responsible for getting me the job I have now at the McDonald Theatre. MySpace also strengthened a friendship from college that had kind of petered out, but has now blossomed into a partnership on an exciting non-profit organization and planning a national indie rock tour.

    My latest testimonial comes out of that tour and my late-night efforts to promote it via MySpace. Now that our Web site, IndieRoots.org, has launched, my partners put up a MySpace page and we teamed up to spread the word. I decided that the most effective way to get my “friends” on board would be to forward the IndieRoots page individually to roughly 200 of my MySpace friends, asking each of them to add it.

    As I write this entry, 29 of my friends have added IndieRoots. That’s more than a ten percent response rate, which is better than I ever hoped for when doing direct mailings on behalf of my employers or clients in the “real world.” In addition to taking the requested “add a friend” step, more than half of this group e-mailed me to acknowledge receipt of my request, and to tell me that they’d gone beyond the MySpace page to look at IndieRoots.org. Without a tool that made it as easy as MySpace does to allow people to jump effortlessly from my request to our product, the response rate would have been significantly lower.

    Beyond the satisfactory direct benefits of this MySpace campaign, I am enjoying a couple of indirect rewards for my late-night effort. While sending out my requests, I received an e-mail that blossomed into an IM chat from one of the guys behind the Podcast and Vlog “Ask a Ninja.” Now we’re friends, and they have skills and connections. They’re full time vloggers! I also received an invitation from a friend of a friend to become a contributor on his new NPR show. Not bad for a night’s work.

  • Thank you, Todd Defren!

    Last night, Todd Defren of Shift Communications joined my Advanced Public Relations Writing at the University of Oregon course via telephone to talk about the social media press release specifically and all things social media more generally.

    My students have been assigned a client for which they are creating a “virtual press kit” for the client’s online newsroom. One of the pieces they include must be a social media press release. So they had questions ranging from “what does this look like when implemented?” to “how do you control the chaos of social media?”

    Todd had five points – I hope I got these right – around why SHIFT initially came up with the template and its philosophy about PR’s role in social media.

    1. The SMPR helps to democratize access. Company information should not be the exclusive domain of traditional media. Social media and the SMPR provide more access to more people, which, Todd argues, is a good thing.

    2. Participating in social media, including issuing SMPRs, helps ensure accuracy. Providing access to official logos, photos and videos helps ensure the right ones get used.

    3. The SMPR embraces context. Yes, social media requires companies to relinquish control – something that Todd admitted has been very difficult – but he emphasized the importance of being proactive. Setting up a purpose-built del.icio.us page provides the reporter or blogger context to your release or announcement making their jobs easier – and ultimately, it’s that facilitation that helps build relationships.

    4. These tools help to build community. By allowing the community to do what they want to do with your content, you’re ultimately facilitating relationships with cohorts of journalists or bloggers that you’d otherwise not have time or knowledge to reach.

    5. To build community, you must create shareable content. Build great content that can be broken up into smaller pieces and used in a way the community sees fit. Including Technorati tags helps facilitate the other four points.

    To do social media “right” from a PR perspective it can take more time and money: more expensive to issue SMPRs through a wire service and more staff time to create and maintain the sources necessary to fulfill the purpose (not to mention client education).

    Todd provided a good deal of background and context for the SMPR. So not only do the students understand the “how,” but have a better understanding of the “why.” The students certainly appreciated hearing a different perspective than mine (thanks, Todd, for reinforcing many of my points, by the way!) and enjoyed the conference call.

  • The Rise of the Blogger.

    Guest Post from Erica Harbison, Waggener Edstrom and member of the PRos in Training “advisory board”

    It’s almost a new year – perfect time to resolve to learn more about blogging and bloggers.

    So you’ve been hearing a lot about the rise in influence and importance of bloggers, eh? I’m here to tell you that from a PR perspective, what you’re seeing and hearing is true.

    Bloggers are here to stay for the foreseeable future and they (we) are powerful. I say “we” because if you haven’t gotten on the blog bandwagon by now, you’re already behind. Being a blogger, as Kelli has evangelized many times before, is the first step in knowing how to reach bloggers. If you’re driving a PR campaign, it’s nearly always appropriate to think about how to reach include bloggers in your strategy.

    Your first piece of homework is to research bloggers who are writing about your client / product / industry. How do I do this, you say? Check out Technorati as a first stop. As you do this, take note of who the bloggers are. Where do they live? What are they saying? What blogs do they read and link to? What seems to influence them, and what bloggers or media outlets are linking to them? Besides the average joe blog sites, are you finding sites maintained by pundits in a particular area (e.g. marketing, technology, sports, etc)? In most cases, these should be your target blog audience.

    Now reaching bloggers via traditional PR tactics is a tricky business. They are not like reporters who want to be “pitched.” The rules are completely different. The agency I work for has been trying out different strategies to reach these guys and it seems to be working (hosting special blogger-only events and organizing suites for bloggers to post/podcast at tradeshows). The key thing with bloggers is they don’t want to be PR’d. Here are some things I’ve learned:

    • Like traditional press, always know what they write and their slant before outreaching.
    • When you contact a blogger, whether its via posting a comment to their recent blog entry or in the way of a “buddy mail” (essentially an email pitch), keep it casual. Establish yourself and your client with the blogger before coming on too strong.
    • Don’t offer interviews with your spokesperson. Bloggers are not like traditional press. Interviews should be organized only if you feel very confident that you will not be putting your client at risk for a bad experience. Remember, bloggers can write what ever they want; no one is editing/reviewing. There is always a risk for bad “press” when dealing with bloggers.
    • Does your target blogger seem to have a favorite news site? Plan to place a story about your client on this site to get your blogger’s attention. He/she may end up linking to it, or better yet, writing a stand-alone blog post about your news. This is a great way to extend your media relations efforts.

    I could go on and on, but that’s probably enough for now to get you started. Happy blogging (and blog reading).

    photo: Kelli & Erica, January 2006

  • Be-attitudes For PR Students in 2007

    With the new year, comes a new term and a new chance for students of all kinds to think about how to be better.

    1. Be Curious: Read, ask questions, find out everything you can about your chosen profession. In public relations that means reading the industry blogs (I recommend Communication Overtones, PR Squared and On Message), paying attention to industry news (PR Tactics, PR Week and Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog), talking to local professionals in your community and being an avid consumer of media.

    2. Be Engaged: Beyond curiosity, engage your mind. What are the greater implications of what you’re reading, listening to or talking about?

    3. Be Empathetic: To succeed in public relations, you must be able to put yourself in another’s shoes. Practice now! How did your teammate come to that conclusion? If you were a member of a particular target audience, how would a company or organization reach you? As a client, how often would you want a report and what information would be important?

    4. Be Active: Active involvement in pre-professional organizations is an excellent way to be involved on your campus and in your community and make connections for your future at the same time. At the University of Oregon, PR students are involved in PRSSA and Allen Hall Public Relations, the student-run public relations agency.

    Start your own blog, make connections via social networks like MySpace or Facebook. Find a new site like Zaadz, 43things or even Dogster.

    5. Be Responsible: Your actions, your education and, yes, your grade are your responsibility. Your instructors (hopefully) provide the direction and the tools. But if you’re serious about your education and your future career, personal responsibility is essential. If you need help, get it. If you have a question, ask.

    6. Be Confident: As you mature into a young professional, trust your instincts and your ability to find a great internship, offer counsel to your brother’s friend’s start-up company and generally do good work. The balance, of course, is to be confident and humble. Know when you are in over your head and get help.

    7. Be Passionate!: The beautiful thing about choosing a career in public relations is that you can find the industry that makes you passionate about communicating. Maybe it’s performing arts? Or high-tech? For me, it’s nonprofit work and social change. Find your passion and shout it from the rooftops!

    In 2007 these six “be-attitudes” will be, in many ways, easier. We have greater access to information and resources that help us achieve to our maximum potential.

    This post is part of the ProBlogger group writing project.

  • Finally Feeling a Little Holiday Spirit

    Sometimes it takes me a while to get in the holiday spirit. I blame 5 years of working in retail and hospitality.

    The worst of it – having to listen to holiday music for 6 weeks straight.

    But what if Christmas was your JOB. And no, I don’t mean working as the jolly man in the red suit.

    The National Christmas Tree Association is the trade association for Christmas tree growers.

    Obviously its busiest time of year would be right about now. The Association does a nice job of providing lots of resource information via its Web site for news media. The Web site’s not slick, but it’s useful.

    Highlights:

    • Extensive background information and fact sheets. Who knew Christmas trees were so complex!
    • Random fun facts like: In 1531, the first retail Christmas Tree lots are started in German cities.
    • Lots of good recycling information. None of which is: leave it in your backyard until it decomposes (honey! I told you so!)
    • A good deal of consumer information. Unfortunately some of this is hard to get to. It’s buried in the “blog” which isn’t user friendly or in the “news media” section, which not all visitors to the site would think to visit to find info about how to care for their tree.

    What would you add? What would be a fun way to promote real Christmas trees?

    Happy Holidays!

  • Toss the Powerpoint? But How Will I Know What to Say?

    Leo Bottary, one of my favorite bloggers, offers 10 tips for agencies pitching new business. His tips, as always, are terrific. And even though I don’t do a lot of new client pitching on a scale that would require a formal “presentation” – I am responsible for an inordinate number of presentations on a weekly basis. Comes with the territory of being a university instructor, right?

    So, taking Leo’s tips and applying them, not only to business pitches, but to my lectures, I find myself coming up a little short. I fear I may be responsible for a large number of presentation sins.

    From PRos in Train…

    My favorite tip:

    1. Engage in an actual conversation. Toss the PowerPoint. Get to know one another. Everyone thinks capabilities are about qualifications. Maybe it’s actually about capabilities. Are you capable of being fun, likeable, smart, funny, human, etc.? Would I want to spend two hours with you in a car? Or would I likely jump out of the moving vehicle

    Now, in my defense, in a class of 100+ students, engaging in actual conversation is very difficult. However, in my senior seminars – with 16 – 20 students – can easily be directed with conversation, not PowerPoint.

    Rather than my capabilities, as an instructor, I would tend to focus on specific skills or the golden nuggets of knowledge that I need to impart to these sponge-like minds that sit before me. Sure, my students have a need to know. But there are ways to accomplish the course objectives by collaborating and joining in a conversation – can I practice the “two-way symmetrical” model that I teach?

    I am jazzed about next term (starting January 8), not just to improve my lecturing skills but I get to teach a brand new class. That, to me, is usually a good motivator. I’m always up for a challenge.

  • How to get a job in PR

    I was updating my blogroll and cruising around some new PR-related blogs this evening and came across this post. It’s an “oldie,” but a goodie – and worth bookmarking.

    From Morgan McClintic at LEWIS (current employer of Sharon Howell, UO ’06) talks about what he looks for in a new hire. He has some great tips.

    A highlight is his description of the type and number of internships you should have. When students ask, I’m always reluctant to be specific, so I will let Morgan do it for me:

    Internships – the definition of internship varies by country – in some it’s just a few weeks, in others months. Regardless of the length, get at least two different internships before applying for your final role. This will help you decide if PR is really for you – it’s not all champagne and parties. It’ll also give you a feel for the tasks you’ll be charged with, whether you like agency or in-house, and which industry you like. You’ll also learn more about which firms are the good ones to work with when it comes to applying for positions.

    Related Posts with Thumbnails