As part of our PRCA 3711/4711 Public Relations Practicum course at Georgia Southern University, students create and present portfolios of their work.
Kelli Matthews, an assistant professor of public relations at the University of Oregon, created a packet of information for her students to help them prepare their portfolios. With Kelli’s permission, I have tweaked it slightly (only removing the U of O specific information) and am sharing it here.
After Fall Semester’s PR Practicum students had their Portfolio Reviews, I wrote a short post hitting the highlights (and lowlights) of their interviews. It’s worth a read.
Do you have additional suggestions for PR students who will be interviewing for entry-level positions? I’d love to hear from you!
In this class, you will learn the basics of SEO from Lee himself, as he walks you through how to optimize your website to start getting found in search engines.
Students in almost all of my classes this semester are blogging, with varying degrees of success so far. I recorded a six-minute Prezi with tips for them to improve their blogs.
UPDATE 2-15-2010: This Prezi was recorded with my PR Writing and Social Media for PR classes. If you’re in PR Practicum — a one-credit class — your blog has slightly different guidelines; you “only” have several specified topics to write about and blog comments to write. Most of the rest of the information I shared in my Prezi does apply to you, though.
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.
Go to Twitter. Click Get Started, and sign up. I prefer it if you use some version of your first and last name as your Twitter ID. (Avoid putting numbers in your Twitter ID, or you may appear like a spammer.)
Upload a photo or avatar.
Write a brief (140-character or fewer) bio. It’s good to mention that you’re a PR student.
Send a tweet saying “I’m a student in @barbaranixon’s #COMM4330/#PRCA3330 class”. (Use the correct number for your class.) Be sure to include the #xxx1234 indicator, with no spaces between the hashtag (#), letters and numbers.
Visit your class’ list for PRCA 3330 or COMM 4333 at TweepML. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to easily follow all the people on the list.
Using Twitter
Over the course of the next week, send at least twenty tweets (Twitter messages of 140 characters or less). Tip: Rather than tweeting that you’re having ramen for lunch, instead consider what might be of interest to your classmates and followers. Perhaps point others to something interesting or funny you read online. Share a fact you learned in a class. Maybe you could even pose a question that you’d like others to answer.
In addition to the twenty tweets that you originate, respond to at least five of your classmates’ tweets. To respond, click on the arrow after a tweet. Or you can type the @ symbol followed immediately by a username (such as @barbaranixon).
I find using the web interface for Twitter to be clunky. I prefer using TweetDeck, a free Adobe Air app that works great on PCs and Macs.
I’ll occasionally post information on Twitter and use the hashtag for your class (either #COMM4333 or #PRCA3330).By using this hashtag, I’m indicating that I want students in this class to pay special attention to the tweet.
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!
To help you get used to AP Style before we have any “official” quizzes (via GeorgiaVIEW or BlackBoard), please try your hand at determining which of the sentences in the PDF below have errors in them. It’s easiest if you print the PDF and work on it as a hardcopy.
Correct all the AP errors you find, then watch the video to see how well you did.
As PR students are nearing the end of their college careers and beginning their job searches, one of the most powerful online tools for them is the business networking site LinkedIn. Creating a profile in LinkedIn is a requirement in my PR Practicum class and is recommended for ALL my PR students.
What’s LinkedIn? In the site’s own words,
“Your professional network of trusted contacts gives you an advantage in your career, and is one of your most valuable assets. LinkedIn exists to help you make better use of your professional network and help the people you trust in return. Our mission is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. We believe that in a global connected economy, your success as a professional and your competitiveness as a company depends upon faster access to insight and resources you can trust.”
So far, I’ve used LinkedIn to:
research companies we are discussing in class
ask questions of other public relations professionals
connect with colleagues from previous jobs
write recommendations for current and former colleagues
LinkedIn provides some helpful advice for college students. In summary, the advice is:
Present yourself (create a profile)
Get connected (network!)
Spread the good word (write and ask for recommendations)
This short video explains a bit further.
Also, soon-to-be grads should take a look at Chris Brogan’s 19-page eBook “Using the Social Web to Find Work.” Visit Chris’ site and scroll down to his fifth paragraph for the PDF. (I chose not to link to it directly because I want you to visit his site first. ) Chris includes many, many tips on using LinkedIn and other sites.
When you set up your profile in LinkedIn, consider also doing the following:
Include a good headshot photo of yourself, looking as professional as possible. No pictures where you can see that you cropped out (most of) the person next to you.
Add Applications to LinkedIn, such as a feed from your blog or SlideShare. Only add Twitter if 100% of your tweets are ones that you’d want a potential employer to read.
How do YOU use LinkedIn? How have you benefitted from it? Please share your thoughts as a comment below.
Get out your 2009 AP Stylebook, Post-It notes and a pen and get ready for a short bootcamp by Barbara Nixon. Learn what the five most important things to know about AP Style are, and even get a bonus at the end. Flag your book as you go along, pausing the Prezi below when you need to.
Want a PDF of the 5 Things and their page numbers that I refer to in the video? Here you go:
