Are you a public relations student (or recent grad) just getting started using Twitter? It’s usually best to test the waters a bit before you dive in. Try following some (or all) of these people or organizations in my Twitter Starter Pack for PR Students. They all have something in common: they tweet useful or interesting information for people involved in public relations. Read their tweets for a few days before you start tweeting yourself.
You may also want to read these two blog posts I’ve written about Twitter: Choosing Whom to Follow on Twitter: My Strategy and A Twitter Lexicon. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend Prof. Sam Bradley’s College Student’s Guide: Twitter 101.
Questions?
(PS: Suggestions for other good people for PR students to follow? Please let me know with a comment to this post.)
Using the same social media tools that harmed them earlier this week (regarding the “Disgusting Domino’s People” YouTube video), Domino’s is fighting to earn back the public’s trust via YouTube and Twitter.
Here’s a video from Patrick Doyle, President, Domino’s U.S.A., responding to “video of (now former) Domino’s team members.” The original “disgusting video” is no longer available on YouTube due to a copyright claim from Kristy Hammonds Thompson. The offending and offensive former employees have been arrested and are facing charges.
UPDATE (April 16, 10:20 a.m.) Though Doyle’s apology sounds sincere and I believe it is sincere, I do have to wonder what he was looking at during the filming of the video. A TelePrompTer, perhaps? Eye contact with his audience, like David Neelman’s in his Jet Blue apology video from two years ago, goes a long way to help us relate better. (Thanks to Scott Monty for suggesting a comparison of the two video apologies.)
And earlier in the day yesterday, I discovered this tweet from @dpzinfo, the official Domino’s corporate Twitter account:
Now, if only Domino’s can regain the Twitter accounts of @dominos and @dominospizza; both of those accounts have apparently been twittersquatted.
DISCLOSURE: I worked at a Domino’s franchise in Auburn, AL, while I was in college.
PRCA 2330 Students
Earlier this semester, you had the opportunity to try out Twitter and then write about your One Week of Twitter on your blogs. Some of you continued to use Twitter even after the assignment was over. Several have used Twitter as a way to connect with me personally (via direct messages).
Now you have the opportunity to jump back into Twitter one more time. Pick a 48-hour period ending no later than April 22 to engage on Twitter again. You should send a minimum of 10 tweets over this timeframe. Use the hashtag #PRCA2330 in your tweets so that others in our class can find them easily. Be sure to send me an @ message to let me know when you’re starting your 48 hours.
Ideas for things to tweet about
- Share (shortened) hyperlinks to sites on the topic of public relations.
- Respond to public relations professionals.
- Ask questions that could be answered by public relations professionals.
- Promote a campus organization or event that you’re involved with.
- Rave or rant about a brand.
Write a blog post about your Twitter experience
This post is due before midnight on April 22 and is worth up to 50 points. Use the category of “Assignment” so that I can easily find this post. Include all of the following:
- A hyperlink to your Twitter username (for example: “You can find me on Twitter @barbaranixon.”)
- How was this 48-hour experience different from your first week on Twitter? (Be specific.)
- What surprises you about using Twitter?
- What do you still want to know about, related to using Twitter?
- Recommend at least three public relations professionals (not including any of the ones I originally recommended), with a brief explanation of why you’re recommending other public relations students to follow them. (Hyperlink to their Twitter usernames.)
NOTE: You also need to post a link to your Another 48 Hours post as a comment on this blog post.
Questions?
The first Savannah area TweetUp is scheduled for Friday March 13th, 2009, at Cheddar’s, 1425 Benton Blvd in Pooler, GA. The “official” start time is set for 6 PM.
Come join us as we go off-line to greet our old Twitter friends and to meet new ones. Live music, beautiful people, great wings – what else could you ask for?
Many thanks to Larry Lanier for jumping in and coordinating this! Follow @SavannahTweetUp, @LarryLanier and @BarbaraNixon for more details as we get closer to the event.
This evening, I found a site (thanks to @marketingprofs on Twitter) that lets me create a mosaic of many of the people I follow on Twitter. That was fun.
But what was even more fun was seeing my hubby, Kevin Nixon, show up in the #1 spot, without me doing anything to make that happen.
And I have met in person every person in the top row, except for Rodd Lucier (the 9th person in the top row), who I have talked with via Skype video chat. Coincidence? I think not.
Birmingham City University’s Paul Bradshaw shares this excellent Twitter overview with his Online Journalism students. In this slidedeck, he “attempts to describe what Twitter is, how it can be used, and some of the most impressive Twitter mashups and tools.”
Even long-time Twitter users can benefit from this overview. I will definitely share this presentation with students at Georgia Southern University the next time I demo Twitter for them.
You can follow me on Twitter @barbaranixon.
In my PRCA 2330 class, students have created their blogs and have started blogging. Here are some tips for them based on me reading their One Week of Twitter posts.
Things Done Well
- You wrote conversationally.
- You spoke your minds.
- You backed up your assertions with examples.
Things to Watch Out For
- Typos: Avoid at all costs.
- Avoid LOL and other acronyms. (That’s fine for text messages and Twitter, but not for blog posts.)
- Long paragraphs: Especially when writing for the web, it’s important to keep your paragraphs short. Long paragraphs are hard on the eye and make things much more challenging to read.
- Create new Posts, not new Pages, for your assignments. (And if you already have your assignments on Pages, simply copy the text from the page, and add a new Post.)
Things to Try Next Time
- When you mention a website, provide a hyperlink to the site.
- Consider adding a complementary image to your posts. I tend to find the images I use at Flickr, using the CompFight service to find ones that are licensed for use through Creative Commons.
As always, if you have questions . . .
If you missed the Super Bowl yesterday, you missed a great game and some really intriguing ads, too. The online service Hulu has all the ads from the game.
Which one is your favorite?
I particularly liked the Hulu ad, starring Alec Baldwin, and the two eTrade ads. And did you know that the parents of the eTrade Baby let him have a Twitter account?
It’s always wonderful hearing from former students . . . and today I got a note from Fran Faulkner, who was in Corporate PR class with me last semester at Georgia Southern University:
I just wanted to let you know that I just started an internship with the Kannapolis Intimidators, a minor league baseball team in North Carolina. When we had our orientation meeting one of the things they mentioned was that they wanted to start using social networking sites more. They already have Facebook and MySpace and wanted to incorporate Twitter. Thanks to you and your corporate PR class I was the only one who had ever even heard or let alone used Twitter before. Even our supervisor knew nothing about how to use it. So, thank you for introducing me to that!
With that being said I was wondering if you had any tips for me on how to maximize the effectiveness of Twitter while using it not as an individual but as a representative of an organization. I know we looked at and talked about several organizations who are currently using but was just if you, as a person who seems to be a Twitter expert, had any advice for me.
So . . . if you’re currently working in sports PR, what advice would you have to share with Fran?
