"Twitter bird paper-toy" by Nerea Marta
[Updated from my original post written in December 2008 :: Additions are in italics]
When I first started using Twitter about a year ago in 2007, I would follow anyone who first followed me. As Twitter has grown, I have realized that I need to be more discerning so that I don’t get overwhelmed. Here’s a brief description of my thought process.
I tend to automatically follow:
- people I’ve met in real life (if I liked them when I met them)
- students of mine at Georgia Southern University & Southeastern University
- PR students & faculty from other universities
- people who live in the
Savannah or Statesboro (GA)Lakeland/Tampa/Orlando areas - people who engage me in positive ways with @barbaranixon tweets
Occasionally, I’ll revisit the people I’m currently following and make a determination if I still want to invest time in following them. Today I looked back at the last two days of tweets in my time line. And then I made a purge of about 250 people that I was following. I honestly have no idea why I was following some in the first place. Some were laced with foul language, while others just plain brought me down with their negative tone. Others tweeted about things that I’m no longer interested in.
If your tweets don’t make me learn or laugh, then quite often I don’t keep following. It’s as simple as that. However, I may add you to a Twitter list and look at the list on occasion. Or I may engage with you when I follow a hashtag like #TopChef (as we live-tweet the Bravo TV show) or #NASCAR (during races).
About once a month, I’ll visit my Followers page and hover my mouse over a name. If there’s no real name or any bio at all, I usually don’t look further. I’ll read a bio if it’s there. If in your bio you’re promising me things that I’d hear in a late-night infomercial, it’s unlikely I’ll follow you. Things in a bio that may intrigue me include:
- public relations or social media
- student affairs / higher education
- photography
- Auburn University
- Presbyterian
- NASCAR
- autism or Asperger’s syndrome
- food/cooking
Though it’s not hypercritical, I prefer engaging in conversations on Twitter with people who use their real photos. It’s nice to have a name and a face together.
If I make it as far as looking at your most recent tweets:
- Is there a mix of original comments, @replies, retweets and links? (If all the tweets are of one type, I usually don’t follow.)
- Do I see @replies to people I know?
- Do I think I’ll learn something from you?
- Are many of your tweets of a positive nature (not whiny)?
- Do you avoid foul language (most of the time)?
- Do you make me laugh?
If I haven’t followed you, and you would like me to, it’s generally a good idea to send me an @barbaranixon so that I know you’re interested in engaging in conversation with me. And if it seems like I’ve been talking in a foreign language here, take a look at A Twitter Lexicon.
So, what’s your strategy? How do you decide whom to follow?
Due: April 14 by 11:59pm in GeorgiaVIEW
Worth: 150 points
For those students in Social Media for PR who choose not to complete a “Viral” Video as part of a team, there is another option. You can write a short paper on an aspect of social media in public relations. Topics for your paper could include virtually anything we’ve read about as part of our course; look through A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization: Strategies, Tactics, and Tools for Succeeding in the Social Web or Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies for ideas. Consider what’s most interesting to you or what you are most passionate about. Even consider what’s most confusing about social media. You could write a case study or a literature review, if you wish, as your paper.
Please let me know how you plan to complete this assignment (video or paper) by March 29 by using this Google Form. And e-mail me with your potential topic when you have determined what you might like to write about.
- Use APA Style (preferably 6th edition)
- Five to seven pages, not including Title Page, Abstract & Works Cited
- Eight to ten sources, including at least two peer-reviewed sources. Peer-reviewed sources include: Journal of Public Relations Research (via EBSCOhost in GALILEO), Public Relations Journal, Public Relations Quarterly (via EBSCOhost in GALILEO), Public Relations Review (hard-copy only, at Zach Henderson Library)
Due: April 28 by 11:59pm in GeorgiaVIEW
Worth: 200 points
Social Media Resume Assignment
One of the ways college grads are helping to market themselves is through creating a social media resume. Dan Schwabel shares some excellent advice on social media resumes in a blog post at Mashable.
Using a free online site like Wix, Weebly, VisualCV, Google Sites or a new WordPress blog, create a social media resume for yourself.
At a minimum, include/embed the following:
- At least two SlideShare or Prezi presentations you have created (one can be the Trade Book Review you did for this class)
- One podcast (it can be the one you did for this class)
- Three work samples (such as PDFs of news releases, brochures, newsletters, ads, etc.) — NOTE: If you have no client work yet, then substitute in at least two items from the Optional list below
- A hyperlink to your blog
- Hyperlinks to at least three of your favorite blog posts that you have written (to highlight your writing skills in digital media)
- A PDF of your traditional resume
- A hyperlink to your LinkedIn profile
Optional items to enhance your social media resume include:
- A selection of photos you have taken, to show your photography skills
- Links to client work you have produced
- Links to the social bookmarks you have created
- Links to Facebook fan pages or groups that you have created and maintain
- A Wordle of key words that describe you
- The “Viral” Video you created for this class (if you chose to do one), or another video you have created
- A social media monitoring report that you have created (to show your social media research skills)
- A short video in which you introduce yourself to potential employers
- A link to your Twitter stream (but only if it’s 100% appropriate for a potential employer to view)
NOTE: If you are in my PR Practicum class this semester, this assignment can also serve as your Portfolio.
Here’s a short video that explains this assignment further. NOTE: There may be minor changes/clarifications to this assignment here in this blog post that were not addressed fully in the video.
Due: February 310, 2010, by 11:59 pm in GeorgiaVIEW
Worth: 150 100 points
Description of Assignment
This assignment gives you an opportunity to learn how to monitor blog and other social media content in a way that provides similar insight offered by more traditional environmental scanning methods.
Many people will discuss your client or organization and its products/services on their own Web sites or on social media sites, outside of realm traditional media. Just as it is important for you to know what the media and your community are saying about your organization and its products/services, it is important to know what is being said in social media sites like blogs, social networks, and message boards. For this assignment, you will
- monitor the online conversation that has occurred about an organization or brand of your choosing since January 15, 2010,
- create a table for your data, and
- write an analysis of the conversation with suggestions for action.
You might find bloggers who are blogging about your client organization or brand, people who are creating Web sites about it, message board members who are discussing it in forums, Twitter users who are twittering about it, social networking users who are commenting about it, or online video producers who are posting YouTube videos about it.
Let me know by January 25 how you choose to complete the project (individual or in pairs) and which organization you are choosing using this Google spreadsheet. Pairs will collect twice the data, but write one cohesive report. NOTE: The first person (or pair) to “claim” a Fortune 500 company “gets” the company. No duplicates, please.
Step One: Complete Background Reading
See these resources for advice on social media monitoring.
- The Social Media Team Toolkit: Listening by Amber Naslund
- Twitter, Customer Service, and Good Brand Management by Valeria Maltoni
- Reputation management: Conducting a social media audit by Matt Lane
- Social Media Marketing – A Guide for the Common Man by David Corman
- The Conversation about the Conversation by The Buzz Bin
- Other People’s Privacy by Rough Type
- Radian6 Digest January 2010 by Radian6
Steps Two-Four
See the complete assignment below:
Social Media Monitoring Report
Since our course is called Social Media for PR, it’s only natural that writing and maintaining your own blog is a vital part of the course; your blog will be 25% of your grade in the class. Feel free to continue to use an existing blog of yours, unless you feel compelled to start fresh with a new blog for this course.
Please add a category for each type (listed below), and make sure each post is categorized appropriately. Each post for this class must have the category of “PRCA 3030″ along with at least one additional category. (If you do not categorize your posts with the name of the class, it will be much more difficult for me to find them.)
1. TOW: Topic of the Week - Together as a class, we will come up with a topic (or topics) each week for you to write about. You should have at least 13 of these before the end of the semester. At times, you will watch a video, listen to a podcast, or read a specific blog post, and provide your thoughtful reactions. These posts must be a minimum of 300 words. We’ll keep our running list of TOWs on a PRCA 3030 Blog Topic of the Week post here at my blog. If you miss writing a TOW for one week, you can make it up with two the next week.
2. PR Connections – commentary, reflections and opinions about PR issues/examples that were not addressed in class. These can be responses to other PR blogs you read, links to interesting posts or articles, embedded YouTube videos, etc. You should write at least 10 of these during the semester.
3. Reading Notes – brief notes or key ideas from the reading assigned for that week’s class. Jot down 3-5 ideas that you believe are the most important & wish to remember. Be very brief, but write enough so someone who can’t read your mind understands what you mean and I am convinced that you actually did the readings. Remember to cite your source(s) when you paraphrase or quote materials from the readings; use a hyperlink to the book (either at the publisher’s site or at a bookseller like Amazon.com).
4. Blog comments – whenever you comment on someone’s PR blog (whether it’s a PR professional or a PR student), add the comment to ONE post that you update throughout the semester so I can assess your online participation. Do this only for PR-related blogs. You should have a minimum of 15 comments by mid-semester and at least 30 (total) before the end of the semester. See Tracking Your Blog Comments for Nixon’s Classes for more information.
5. Personal – optional category. Use it for any posts not related to public relations.
You may add other categories and sub-categories of your choice. Please keep in mind that when I evaluate your blog I will pay special attention to the categories listed above, but I will not ignore other posts. I will perform a wholistic evaluation of your blog, looking for:
- professionalism: Clear, correct, thoughtful writing
- frequency: Sufficient posts in categories 1-3, posted throughout the semester. There will be at least four blog checkpoints during the semester, including a graded checkpoint at mid-semester.
- linking: Identify other PR blogs (use PR Open Mic or my blogroll in my Delicious bookmarks as starting points) and link to them. Respond to others’ posts. Become a part of the blogosphere. Blogging should not be lonely.
- readability: brief & concise writing style, use of white space, bold characters, images, bullet points
SUPER-IMPORTANT: In order for you to get credit for your blog, I need to know where it is. Tell me your blog address by completing this Google Form; do this no later than the end of January.
Questions? Just let me know.
NOTE: Many thanks to Dr. Mihaela Vorvoreanu at Purdue University, who allowed me to use her blogging guidelines from her PRinciples class. They were so well-written that I made just a few tweaks for my own class. Dr. V knows that Blogs Matter.
For Prof. Nixon’s PRCA 4330 Public Relations Research Class:
This assignment gives you an opportunity to learn how to monitor blog and other social media content in a way that provides similar insight offered by more traditional environmental scanning methods.
Many people will discuss your client or organization and its products/services on their own Web sites or on social media sites, outside of realm traditional media. Just as it is important for you to know what the media and your community are saying about your organization and its products/services, it is important to know what is being said in social media sites like blogs, social networks, and message boards. For this assignment, you will
- monitor the online conversation that has occurred about an organization or brand of your choosing since November 1, 2009
- create a table for your data
- write an analysis of the conversation with suggestions for action.
You might find bloggers who are blogging about your client organization or brand, people who are creating Web sites about it, message board members who are discussing it in forums, Twitter users who are twittering about it, social networking users who are commenting about it, or online video producers who are posting YouTube videos about it.
Let me know by November 15 how you choose to complete the project (individual or in pairs) and which organization you are choosing using this Google spreadsheet. NOTE: The first person (or pair) to “claim” a Fortune 500 company “gets” the company. No duplicates, please.
For details on the report, see below.
Social Media Monitoring Report
Many thanks to Kelli Burns, from University of South Florida, for allowing me to slightly modify a project posted at her Social Researcher blog.
Melanie McBride, a Toronto based writer-aggregator of education, technology, media and culture, wrote:
“Despite the popularity and widespread adoption of social tools, there’s little agreement when it comes to matters of our individual terms of use. Without a collective social contract for social media, many of us are left wondering: How do I define my own social policy? Until now, corporate social media developers are defining those policies for us. Some of us feel it’s time we defined social media according to our our own terms.
McBride posted a template, and encouraged her readers to “[Steal This] Personal Social Media Policy.” Since she has this licensed under Creative Commons, I’m sharing it with you here.
I challenge all users of social media, especially PR students, to adapt this template and create their own social media policies.
MY SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY
[a work in progress]
1. Connecting: Introduce yourself and tell me why you want to connect
[Would you like an introduction from new follows? Would you like them to answer a particular question about their interest in connecting? Define it here]
2. Follow, add, friend: [your subhead here]
[Your polices around friending, following and adding. For example, if people follow/friend you do you automatically reciprocate? Or do you prefer to evaluate the value of a contact over time? State it here, loud and clear]
3. Privacy, boundaries and safety: [your subhead here]
[Define your privacy/boundaries for friends, coworkers and family. Everybody has different ideas about what's "too much information." Friends, family and business associates have different ideas about who you are. While you may not be able to control what's said about you, you can certainly ask your network to be mindful of your limits]
4. Signal to noise: [your subhead here]
[Do you have any strong feelings about the kind of social media experience you seek (or don't)? For example, do you have a problem with people using RSS in their Twitter? Do you get annoyed by multiple status updates? Make that clear here (so people aren't surprised when you unfollow them - or vice versa)]
5. Personal data and sharing: [your subhead here]
[What's all this sharing about? (for you) Are you looking to connect more deeply according to shared interests, ideologies, professional goals?]
6. My networking needs and uses: [subhead here]
[How is your use of Facebook different from your use of Linkedin different from your use of Twitter different from your use of MySpace? What are your specific networking purposes or goals for each?]
7. Your criteria here: [subhead here]
[your policy, feelings, arguments here]
8. Your criteria here: [subhead here]
[your policy, feelings, arguments here]
Photo Credit: The Conversation Prism, originally uploaded to Flickr by b_d_solis
[The Conversation Prism] is a living, breathing representation of Social Media and will evolve as services and conversation channels emerge, fuse, and dissipate.
If a conversation takes place online and you’re not there to hear or see it, did it actually happen?
Indeed. Conversations are taking place with or without you and this map will help you visualize the potential extent and pervasiveness of the online conversations that can impact and influence your business and brand.
I encourage you to read the complete article at the PR 2.0 blog.
