Plan, record, edit and create a 5-10 minute podcast about some aspect of the topic of public relations. Students will work either alone or in self-selected teams of two to three each.
If you are working alone, you just need to create this one podcast. If you are working as part of a team, create this one podcast AND provide a plan for creating at least four more podcasts; you’ll only record/create this one, however, for the assignment.
Podcasting Tips
Keep the podcast conversational. Use an outline of talking points; do not read from a script. Talk to the audience as “you” – as if you’re having a one-on-one conversation.
Establish a regular structure for your podcasts.
Unless you can edit your mistakes without the listener noticing, record your podcast in one take.
Show your own interest in the topic through your tone and by explaining why the content matters.
See Tiffany Gallicano’s additional tips that she provided to her University of Oregon students.
Structure
Introduction elements (in various order):
Theme music
The show’s name (include show number and date for subscribers)
The host’s name
Sponsors (if applicable)
Body of podcast
Create your own content. (You may wish to use one of your Topics of the Week or PR Connections as a starting point for ideas.)
OR, interview a PR professional
Potential close:
Respond to listeners’ questions and comments
Theme music
The show’s name
The host’s name
Next show
Special thanks
Farewell
Show Notes
Show notes are like a table of contents & credit for the podcast. Use them to tell listeners what you’re covering and provide time codes so that listeners can jump to a particular section. Show notes also help people find you on search engines. Also, for this assignment, the show notes are how I will know which role each team member performed. Donna Pappacosts provides tips on creating show notes.
NOTE: Many, many thanks to Tiffany Gallicano at University of Oregon, who gave me permission to use her assignment for my class. I have made only minor tweaks to her original assignment (which appears at her The PR Post blog.)
Plan, shoot, edit and create a short video with the potential to “go viral” about the topic of public relations. The client for this project is your Comm Dept (unless otherwise cleared with me), and the video will serve as a recruitment tool for the client. Students will work in self-selected teams of two to four each. Each member in the team receives the same grade earned for the video.
Students choosing not to do a “Viral” Video have the option of writing a traditional paper on some aspect of social media including, but not limited to, viral videos.
Technical Notes
Use a Flip video camera or something similar. (You *may* be able to use the video from your digital camera or phone. Send me a sample if you question whether the quality is high enough.)
Length must be between 1-4 minutes (no more, no less)
Obscene material prohibited – push the envelope but keep in mind the public relations purpose of video
Prominently mention/show the client so viewers know what the video is about if unfamiliar with the client
Credits somewhere in the video (preferably at the end) must list all the names of the team members
Bonus Opportunity
Each video will be posted on a YouTube channel. There will also a class competition, with the winners determined on the last day of class. The video that receives the most views on YouTube by the last day of class will get +2 points of adjustment to the viral video project grade. The video in second place with the second most number of views will get a +1 point adjustment to the viral video project grade.
NOTE: Many, many thanks to Kaye Sweetser at University of Georgia, who gave me permission to use her assignment for my class. I have made only minor tweaks to her original assignment (which appears at her So This is Mass Communication? blog.)
Students in my COMM 4633 Social Media for PR and Journalism class have started blogging. They will be adding to their blogs weekly throughout the Spring semester.
If you are a student in this class and your name does not show up on this list, please be sure you have at least one post on your blog, then complete this Google Form; it’s a manual process to build the blogroll, so your name will not show up immediately.
Here’s a quick tutorial on how to find images to use in your blog posts (using Compfight and Flickr), insert the images, and — most importantly — give proper credit to the creator of the image.
In the Honors Speaking and Writing class at Southeastern University, the students have been analyzing Martin Luther King’s speech “I Have a Dream.”
Slideology and Resonate author Nancy Duarte provided a unique visualization of the Dream speech, along with her commentary. Take a few moments to see how she breaks down the speech.
For my Honors Speaking students: Please provide your reactions to the visualization of this speech as a comment below.
NOTE: And in a true case of small world, it turns out that Nancy Duarte is the sister of Southeastern University’s Dean of the College of Business and Legal Studies, Joe Childs. Nancy will be coming to our Southeastern University campus in late March. I truly look forward to meeting her in person.
Students in my COMM 2322 PR Applications class have started blogging. They will be adding to their blogs weekly throughout the Spring semester.
If you are a student in this class and your name does not show up on this list, please be sure you have at least one post on your blog, then complete this Google Form; it’s a manual process to build the blogroll, so your name will not show up immediately.
Students have been asking lots and lots of questions this spring as they get started with their blogs. Virtually all of their questions are answered here in my Public Relations Matters blog.
I don’t know how to do something in WordPress. Where should I look to find the answer?
See WordPress 101: Getting Started with Your Blog. You’ll see the PowerPoint presentation I shared when I helped you get your blogs set up, along with LOTS of other helpful information.
I created all the categories you told me to, and they still don’t show up on my blog. Why?
The categories will show up in your category widget once you have at least one post written in the category.
So I just have to have all the right amount of posts and comments before the end of the semester, right?
That’s part of it, but there are also weekly deadlines for the Topics of the Week (that’s why they’re called Topics of the WEEK). And you have interim deadlines as well, so that you can evenly space out your posts throughout the semester. Your Blog Editorial Calendar will help keep you on track. It’s not overwhelming if you keep up with it every week.
What’s this Blog Editorial Calendar that is due, and how to I create one?
See Creating a Blog Editorial Calendar. You will create the Blog Editorial Calendar in Excel, then submit it in BlackBoard by the due date. (NOTE: If you already maintain another calendar to help you keep organized during the semester, you can add in the elements that go in the Blog Editorial Calendar into that. Then photocopy it, highlight the Blog elements and turn it in in class on the day it is due.)
What do I need to have done for the Blog Checkpoints?
Where am I supposed to get ideas for the PR Connections?
These can be about any aspect of PR that you would like to discuss. Some students like to choose a theme based on their interests: nonprofit, entertainment, sports, fashion, etc. Others read Ragan’s PR Daily and find ideas in there. If you’re stuck for an idea, ask a classmate, then ask me. (I’d much prefer for you to come up with your own ideas, but I can assign some if necessary.)
How will you evaluate the overall blog at the end of the semester?
See the draft of the rubric. (The points may be different in my different classes, but the categories of what I am evaluating are the same for each class. I will have the proper rubric available for each class by the middle of the semester.)
Can I see some examples of outstanding blogs from your previous semesters?
Students in my COMM 4333 Writing for PR and Advertising class have started blogging. They will be adding to their blogs weekly throughout the Spring semester.
If you are a student in this class and your name does not show up on this list, please be sure you have at least one post on your blog, then complete this Google Form; it’s a manual process to build the blogroll, so your name will not show up immediately.
Students in my PR classes have been asking the age-old question “How long does my assignment (blog posts, in this case) need to be” in the last few weeks. Though I’ve described it in class orally, and wrote about it here in my blog, it wasn’t until I made a Starbucks analogy that it finally clicked with many of them. I made a low-tech infographic with chalk (remember chalk?), and snapped a picture of it before I left class today.
So here it goes: Everything I Need to Know About Blog Post Length I Learned at Starbucks.
Image Credit: "Starbucks and Blog Posts" by Barbara Nixon
Trenta-Size
The Trenta is Starbucks’ newest cup size, designed for iced drinks only. It’s huge. (Well, not really. It’s 31 ounces. It’s slightly smaller than the size of a Big Gulp.) For my students’ blogs, their Topics of the Week should be the longest posts in their blogs. They need to be 300 words minimum.
Venti- or Grande-Size
Venti and Grande are Starbucks’ medium sized cups. (But don’t order a “medium” at Starbucks. The baristas will look down on you if you do. Trust me.) The PR Connections (commentary about of PR-related topic of their choosing) don’t have a specific length, but somewhere between the 300-word minimum of the Topics of the Week and the 50-word minumum of the Blog Comments is a good place to aim.
Tall-Size
This is the Starbucks’ size that has always baffled me. In whose measuring cup is the smallest size made the “Tall”? Anyhow . . . Students will be writing comments on a variety of blogs (from their peers and from PR pros) throughout the semester. In previous classes, they didn’t like that I told them that the comments needed to be substantive. They wanted a number. So here it is: For Blog Comments to “count” for a grade in their classes, the comments need to be 50 words minimum.
So in a nutshell, or a Starbucks cup, there should be a variety of lengths of posts in my students blogs, ranging from the Trenta (Topics of the Week) to the Tall (Blog Comments), with Venti or Grande (PR Connections) snuggled nicely inbetween.
Hope this helps!
(PS — This is a Trenta-sized post, for what it’s worth.)
Image Credit: "Desert Island" from Esquire Magazine
In COMM 4363 and SPC 4350 (Social Media for PR), we’ll all blog about the same general topic each week during the semester. Your TOWs should be posted by Saturday midnight at the end of each week.
Some weeks have more than one topic listed; choose one of the available topics on those weeks.
If you have a topic to suggest, please add it as a comment to this blog post.
If you are unsure how to get started writing these TOWs, many times you can use this three-pronged approach:
What did you learn?
What surprised you?
What do you want to know more about?
WEEK ONE
Which types of social media you currently participate in (such as blogging, podcasting, social networking, etc.), which platforms you use, and why.
WEEK TWO
Why are comments such an integral part of blogs? What advice would you offer on writing effective blog comments?
WEEK THREE
Is social media monitoring ethical? Provide commentary and discussion on both sides of the issue, and offer your personal viewpoint.
WEEK FOUR
Adam Vincenzini asked on Twitter and on his blog for people to share their definitions of “social media” with him, in 140 characters or fewer. Read through the list of definitions that were shared with Adam. Pick a few that resonate with you and discuss why these definitions “work” for you. Develop your OWN 140-character definition of social media.
OR
Write a post related to your assigned chapter in Groundswell. Provide links to several of the examples mentioned in your chapter, or to new sites that relate to the chapter. See if you can find a YouTube video or SlideShare presentation and embed it in your post. (Remember to link to the book, either at Amazon.com or at the publisher’s website/blog.)
WEEK FIVE
Which Super Bowl ad was either your favorite OR least favorite? And in your discussion of the ad, be sure to discuss the publics that were targeted in the ad. (Be sure your readers can tell if you liked or disliked the ad.) If you missed the ads during the big game, no worries. I will embed them in this blog when they are available.
“Social Media: Friend or Foe?” :: Listen to Shel Holtz, Mark Ragan and others discuss “concerns and objections around the adoption of social media communication channel.” React to it using the three-pronged approach (discussed earlier in this blog post).
WEEK SEVEN
What is this Foursquare thing that we keep seeing in our Twitterstreams? How could companies benefit from it? And what are some of the potential dangers of using Foursquare (and other location-based services) for individual participants?
OR
Participate in a public relations or social media Twitter chat. Petya Georgieva provides a list of 13 possibilities at her Higher & Higher blog. (I highly recommend #PRStudChat, but you are free to chose from any of the 13 options.) Before you participate in the chat, be sure to read Shonali Burke’s tips for how to make the most of a Twitter chat. After the chat, briefly describe the purpose and intended audience of your chosen chat. React to your own participation in the chat using the three-pronged approach (discussed earlier in this blog post).
WEEK EIGHT
Since our focus for this week is podcasting, write this week’s TOW on something related to podcasting. Potential areas for discussion include: what would drive an organization to choose a podcast as a way of connecting with its publics, the importance of shownotes, technology you can use for podcasting or how PR majors can benefit from listening to PR podcasts.
WEEKS NINE & TEN
Create a profile at PR OpenMic, a social network developed by Auburn University’s Robert French. Connect with me there as a friend so that I know you have joined (do this before Spring Break). Then for your topic of the week, describe what PR OpenMic has to offer to PR students and recent grads. Be sure to discuss at least three or four things you encounter at the site, and provide hyperlinks to the specific areas in the site for your readers.
WEEK ELEVEN
Watch my interview with Martin Waxman. Use the three-pronged approach to react to the interview. What does Martin have to say about the need for traditional PR skills?
OR
Set up an account at Diigo, a social bookmarking site. Create social bookmarks to at least 20 sites; these could include classmates’ blogs, PR blogs, your university, your favorite musical artist or actor, etc. In your Topic of the Week, share a link to your Diigo account. Discuss how college students (especially those working in groups) could benefit from social bookmarks. Be sure to include a link to your Delicious bookmarks in your blog post. Optional: how could an association, like the Florida Public Relations Association or the International Listening Association, use social bookmarks to benefit its members?
One of this week’s readings concerned widgets and badges. After briefly describing the difference between a widget and a badge, offer suggestions on how one specific organization you are a part of (or wish to become a part of) could benefit from using widgets or badges.
WEEK 13
Just what is it that makes a simple little video like “David After Dentist” become a Viral Video? Also, embed at least two of your favorite videos that went viral and explain why you chose them.
WEEK 14
This week’s topic was inspired by Adam Vincenzini’s Be My Guest month: post something by a guest blogger. Connect with another blogger (it can, but doesn’t have to, be someone in your class) and exchange blog posts for the week. (You don’t have to write something new . . . share your favorite post you’ve written this semester.) In your own blog, make it really clear that the post is written by another person, and link to your guest’s blog.
WEEK 15
Be My Guest Part 2: Post something from a different guest blogger. (See Week 14)
