Mark Ragan, CEO of Ragan Communication, offers five tips for taking better corporate photos:
Wondering why “execution at dawn” is part of the headline of this blog post? See what Mark has to say about group shots in the video below.
Public relations practitioners are called upon to take photos on occasion for their clients. For this assignment, you will take a photo and write a caption, with the intent that the photo and caption could stand alone and be published without an accompanying news release / article.
Using the rules of great photography you learned in your textbook and in the Language of the Image course you took at NewsU, take one photo of someone or something that is newsworthy and would benefit your client. (If you cannot come up with a photo idea for your client or if your client is too far from where you are living now, then take a photo that would benefit the Communication department.)
Then write a caption to accompany the photo using the four-part process described by Lori Oglesbee in the Journalism Education Today articled titled Captions, and add a photo credit. Your caption will contain the following elements:
To submit this assignment, use one Word document. Put your name and course number at the top. Paste your photo into the Word doc; size it so it’s five inches wide (and whatever height it needs to be to be proportional). Write your caption, including photo credit, beneath the photo. Turn the assignment in using the usual method for our class.
NOTE: I do NOT need the original, high-resolution photo for this assignment.
To see how this assignment will be assessed, see: Rubric: Photo with Caption Evaluation
Martin Waxman, president and co-founder of Palette Public Relations Inc., took 25 minutes out of his hectic pre-SXSW schedule to chat with me this morning about life in a PR agency, the importance of a traditional PR background (along with social media knowledge), and our digital footprints.
For my PRCA 3330 and COMM 4333 classes:
Want to show your publics the human side of your organization?
Write a personality profile.
For this assignment, write a personality profile about someone associated with your client’s organization. It could be about a leader in the organization, a member or maybe even a client. However, it must be about a real person (though not about you).
Chapter 7 in your Public Relations Writing & Media Techniques textbook provides a good overview of a personality profile on pages 173-174. Additionally, see pages 175-179 for more information on writing a feature story in general.
Keep these things in mind:
Check your syllabus for the due date for this assignment.
(NOTE: It’s a good idea to read 8-10 personality profiles from your favorite newspapers and magazines before you write your first one.)
For my PRCA 3330 and COMM 4333 classes:
As a public relations writer, one of the collateral pieces you are likely to be writing is a media advisory. A media advisory (or media alert) is designed to encourage a reporter to come and cover an event.
Chapter 6 in your Public Relations Writing & Media Techniques textbook provides a good overview of the contents of a media advisory. See pages 144-146 for details.
That said, with your client in mind, create a media advisory for an upcoming event. Though it’s ideal if this is for a real event, if your client does not have one planned in the near future, you can use your creativity to write about an imaginary event.
When structuring your media advisory, make it as simple as possible for the reporter to find the details. Keep these things in mind:
Check your syllabus for the due date for this assignment.
(NOTE: You can see many, many sample media advisories online by Googling “media advisory sample” or “media alert sample.” I cannot vouch for the content of all of them, but it would be good for you to see them to get a feel for how they look and read.)
We’re now about halfway through Spring 2010, and I see some students are still struggling with their blogs.
I promise that this blog assignment was not designed as 21st century version of a medieval torture device for you. Writing (and blogging) is a daily part of a PR practitioner’s life; I am helping you prepare for your careers. And the more you write, the better writer you will become.
Here are some of the frequently asked questions.
How was I supposed to know what to put in my blog? I feel so far behind.
Early in the semester, you were given your blogging guidelines for your class. All the information has been in there for nearly two months now.
Can I work ahead on my Topic of the Week?
I typically share the Topic of the Week for your class on Monday or Tuesday of the week it’s due.
If I am in more than one class with you, can I just do Topic of the Week for one of the classes and have it count for both?
No. The topics are different in each class.
If we didn’t have a reading assignment for a week or two, what should I do for Reading Notes for that week?
If you didn’t have an assignment, you don’t need to create notes.
How long do my Reading Notes have to be? I am spending hours outlining the chapters.
See the blogging guidelines.
How do I know which week we are in? You don’t have specific dates listed on your blog.
See your syllabus. Week One was our first week of class.
Where can I get ideas for my PR Connections?
Read PR blogs. Or subscribe to Ragan’s PR Daily. Or listen to a PR podcast.
What can I do to get more comments on my blog?
Buddy up with students in your class (or one of my other classes), and commit to commenting on each others’ blogs. If you’d like a “blog pal” from another university, let me know, and I can connect you.
Where can I find pictures to add to my blog (without getting into trouble)?
Go to Compfight, then choose “Only” next to Creative Commons. When you search for images that way, only ones that are okay to use will come up.
I’m still confused about how to track my blog comments. Can you go over that one more time?
See Tracking Your Blog Comments for Nixon’s Classes, originally posted on January 13. See Lisa McLaughlin’s blog for a great example of what I am looking for.
How do I make my picture/avatar show up when I leave comments on others’ blogs?
Wondering if you are on the right track with what I am expecting from your blogs? Here’s a checklist for you based on what should be at your blog by the end of February. I will be evaluating your blogs again (for a grade) at some point in early March. It’s likely that I will not announce the specific date ahead of time. I will go back and look at previous posts again.
Georgia Southern classes:
Southeastern University classes:
As I’ve reminded you in class frequently, it’s critical to keep up with your blogs. If you haven’t already done so, you may want to create an Editorial Calendar for yourself to help schedule your required posts.
Finally, in some informal checks I’ve done recently, here are a few things that I’ve noticed:
The week of February 22, my PR Writing classes are learning about the components of a news release and writing their first news releases. I have recorded this short presentation for them to share “The Anatomy of a News Release :: A Baker’s Dozen.”
NOTE: I lost my voice earlier this week, and my voice is still pretty wimpy in this recording.
In order to benefit from this presentation, it’s best to have a news release from an organization–any organization–handy so that you can see how the 13 elements are used in “real life.” Go out to your favorite organization or company online, search for a section of the website called “News Room” or something similar, and find a news release there. This week, my favorite product is Traditional Medicinals Throat Coat Tea, so here’s a link to TM’s Press & Media section of its site.
About a week ago, I sent out a request on Twitter for ideas for how to back up a WordPress.com blog. You see, all of my students at Georgia Southern University and Southeastern University (about 200 total) are blogging this semester as part of their course engagement and participation requirements. I had a sinking feeling that some of my students might not have the information they are posting at their blogs saved anywhere else, and wondered what would happen if WordPress.com went down or out of business.
This afternoon, WordPress.com was down for a while. And some of the students (and many, many others) began to — in layman’s terms — freak out. As I suspected, they didn’t have their information backed up.
We love having free services available for ourselves and our students. We expect the services to work all the time. And when they don’t? Life is unpleasant. And a little scary.
Because I wanted a little more control over my blog, I chose to self-host it using BlueHost. It costs me about $100 a year, which is a reasonable investment for me. (GoDaddy is less expensive, but I find its ads offensive so I choose to spend my money elsewhere.) Do I force my students to pay to blog? No. Should I recommend it as a good option? I’m thinking that I should now.
That all said, what should students do to be sure they have backup copies of all their blog posts (especially when they will be graded on their blogs)?
Here are a few ideas:
Bottom Line: When you’re working in the cloud, especially on free sites, have a back up plan. (Back up? Get it?)
What other ideas would YOU recommend?
Spring 2010 COMM 4333 & PRCA 3330 Students Only
(For Summer PRCA 2330 & 3330 Students, see the updated version of this assignment.)
Our One Week of Twitter assignment begins on Monday, February 15, and will end at midnight on February 22. Your blog post about this experience count as your Topic of the Week for Week Seven.
First, Learn a Bit About Twitter
Setting Up Your Twitter Account
Setting Up Your Following List
Using Twitter
Additional Information
Blog About Your Experience
After the week is over, add a 300-word (minimum) post to your blog about the experience and what you got out of it. Include a link to your Twitter profile (here’s mine). Be sure to include at least one way you might find value in continuing your account in Twitter. Your blog post about this experience count as your Topic of the Week for Week Seven.
Questions? Just send me a DM (direct message) or an @ (reply) in Twitter!
NOTE: Many thanks to Kaye Sweetser and Karen Russell for their ideas prompting this assignment.
