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One Week of Twitter :: Fall 2010


First, Learn a Bit About Twitter

  1. Listen to Laura Fitton discuss Twitter for Business.
  2. Listen to my Twitter: What’s in it for me? presentation.
  3. Read 10.5 Ways for PR Students to Get the Most Out of Twitter.

Setting Up Your Twitter Account

  1. 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.)
  2. Upload a photo or avatar.
  3. Write a brief (160-character or fewer) bio. It’s good to mention that you’re a PR student. Consider mentioning your university.
  4. Send a tweet saying “I’m a student in @barbaranixon’s #COMM2322 /#COMM4333 / #COMM4363 /#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.
  5. If you haven’t already done so, complete my form that tells me your Twitter username before midnight on  Tuesday, September 21.

Setting Up Your Following List

  1. Follow me plus at least 20 (why not all?) of the people or organizations in my Twitter Starter Pack for PR Students.
  2. Visit your class’ list at TweepML: PRCA 3330, COMM 2322, COMM 4333, COMM 4363 (I will activate these links as soon as I have your class’ Twitter usernames.)
  3. For the purposes of this assignment, you will need to be following at least 40 people.

Using Twitter

  1. 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. (UPDATE: The tweets cannot all be ones automatically generated from your WordPress blog. The point of this assignment is to engage with others on Twitter, not simply announce.)
  2. 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).

Additional Information

  1. If you already have a Twitter account that you use primarily for social (not educational or professional) reasons, you may wish to create a fresh, new account for this exercise.
  2. Review my tips on how college students can use Twitter to their advantage and Choosing Whom to Follow on Twitter: My Strategy.
  3. Review Prof. Sam Bradley’s College Student’s Guide: Twitter 101.
  4. 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. TweetDeck makes it really easy to send URLs via Twitter, as it automatically shortens them for you.
  5. I’ll occasionally post information on Twitter and use the hashtag for your class (#COMM2322, #COMM4333, #COMM4363 or #PRCA3330).By using this hashtag, I’m indicating that I want students in this class to pay special attention to the tweet.
  6. OPTIONAL: If you’d like to publicize your blog posts via Twitter, you can it automatically in WordPress.

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 the appropriate week.

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.

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WordPress 101 :: Getting Started With Your Blog

Image Credit: "?" by Sublime Dharma

Students in most of my classes have blogging as a component of their grades. Many of them have rarely even read blogs, no less written one of their own. In this post, I am combining many posts I’ve previously written to help them get started in WordPress.

1

Review the slides in my “Getting Started in WordPress” presentation below. In this presentation, you’ll learn

  • Blogging Do’s & No-No’s
  • Signing Up for Your WordPress Account
  • Setting Up Your Account
  • Writing Posts & Pages
  • How to Display Your Blog Comments (that you write on others’ blogs)
Getting Started in WordPress

2

Watch some of the many FAQ screencasts provided by WordPress to help you with the step-by-step instructions. Here are a few of the best ones to help you get started on the right foot:

3

Read the blogging tips I’ve provided in various posts here at Public Relations Matters.

4

And though you may have a good handle on the technical aspects of blogging, remember that the technical side is only part of the blogging equation. Corinne Weisgerber, a professor at St. Edward’s University and fellow PROpenMic member, created this presentation for her Social Media for PR class. The emphasis? How blogging can help you create your personal brand online. Take a look. It’s worth the time.

Blogging & Managing your Personal Brand

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: commenting identity)

5

Remember to let me know your blog address by completing this Google Form. If I can’t find your blog, I can’t grade it. Hint, hint.

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11 Tips for New Bloggers, from New Bloggers

11 by Leo Reynolds.
"11" by by Leo Reynolds

In my Introduction to Public Relations and Public Relations Writing classes at Georgia Southern this summer, a large portion of the students’ grades came from their blogs. Most of the students in this class had never even read a blog before the beginning of the summer, no less written one of their own. For their final Topic of the Week, I asked them to create a list of tips for PR students new to blogging. Here, I will share some of the best tips:

Alecia Norman

The first thing to remember about blogging is to have patience. At first you will not have many visitors to you page accept you teacher and maybe a few classmates but if you continue on, the readers will come.

Jaclyn Simmons

Don’t Treat the Blog like Homework! I know since this is all for a class, some people dread working on these assignements. Take in consideration that the teacher is not doing it to torture you. This is part of your career!

Amy Green

Make sure to proofread often. I am not an avid blogger but when I would go to a person’s blog and see that every other word was misspelled or their grammar was poor I moved onto someone else’s blog.  One advantage of using Word press is that it offers a proofreading section to make sure you do not have a ton of misspelled words on your blog. 

Kevin Williams

Media. Despite my taste for traditional writing and structure in blogs I can tell you first hand that adding media such as images, videos, and other interactive applications is a great way to keep your blog fun and entertaining. Now this is subject to change depending on your target audience and the purpose of your blog. In general it is a great idea to give some visual content to your writing in any blog.

Casey Corley

Post your blog on other websites you are part of such as Twitter and Facebook. By doing this you will have more followers and interaction with your blog.

Amber Laurin

Try to find videos and pictures that complement your post. Blog posts that are full of text can look bulky.  Use pictures to break up long paragraphs or add a YouTube video that relates to your topic to add variety.

Ryan Keesee

Be organized. Take note of the tips [Prof.] Nixon provides over adding widgets and hyperlinks, as well as her tips on keeping your blog looking clean.

Tabatha Amerson

Be creative with your headline. Your blog may be very good and interesting, however if the headline is boring then the viewer may not read past the headline.

Ashley Rich

Link. When blogging, it is important to let your readers know what the source of your information is, if you have one. Be sure to link certain parts of your post in order to guide readers in the direction of more information on what the post is about. This also gives credit where credit is due in order to avoid plagiarism.

Kison Turner

Whenever you are given leverage to choose your own topic [like for your PR Connections], try to relate PR with something you are passionate about.  If you have a strong opinion about a topic, you should have less trouble overcoming potential writer’s block.

Lastly, have fun! It may seem like a task at first, but there is a thrill in having people show interest in your thoughts.  This experience helped me acquire clarity about several issues I once believed myself to be educated on.  That’s it, remember to enjoy.

So that’s what my summer PR students had to say. What other recommendations do you have for PR students starting off with a new blog?

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Summer 2010 Final Blog Checklist :: #PRCA2330 #PRCA3330

We are in the homestretch of Summer 2010, believe it or not. I will start evaluating/grading your blogs as soon as you submit your blog URL to the Assignments area in GeorgiaVIEW; the earlier you let me know you are done with your blog, the earlier I can start evaluating it. See GeorgiaVIEW for the specific due date and time.

Please complete this checklist to be sure your blog is complete. NOTE: You will need to scroll down in the form to complete all areas and find the Submit button.

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50+ Stats You Might Not Know About Social Media

Firefox cupcake by M i x y.
"Firefox Cupcake" by M_i_x_y

Thanks to Ragan’s PR Daily, I learned about Danny Brown’s post from last weekend titled “52 Cool Facts About Social Media.” Here are a few of the facts that I found most interesting. I encourage to visit Danny’s blog and read the remainder of the list he created.

Facebook

“2. More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) is shared each month.”

“9. People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.”

Twitter

“11. Twitter’s web platform only accounts for a quarter of its users – 75% use third-party apps.”

“12. Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day.”

LinkedIn

“21. LinkedIn is the oldest of the four sites in this post, having been created on May 5 2003.”

“26. 80% of companies use LinkedIn as a recruitment tool.”

YouTube

“34. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.”

“40. YouTube uses the same amount of bandwidth as the entire Internet used in 2000.”

Blogging

“43. 60% of bloggers are between the ages 18-44.”

“44. One in five bloggers update their blogs daily.”

So, did any of these facts surprise you (either from the stats I excerpted, or the ones at Danny’s blog)? If so, which ones?

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Overall Feedback on Your First News Releases :: #PRCA3330

A - elisA, boathouse sign, by Eva the Weaver

After reviewing all the first news releases in PRCA 3330, I am generally pleased with what I saw, considering it is the first news release you have written. Many of the news releases were spot-on; they were newsworthy and clearly written. You must have remembered what you learned in your Intro to Journalism class!

Here are some common errors I saw:

  • Improper use of commas (either too many or not enough)
  • Puffery (making statements in the news release that don’t seem newsworthy. Some of these would be okay as part of a quotation, however.)
  • Format (forgetting to put an embargo date or For Immediate Release, end sign, page slugs, letterhead with mailing address, etc.)
  • Calling women “girls” or “ladies” (even though it’s common in sororities to do this, AP Style calls for the use of the word “women” when you are writing about female adults)
  • Abbreviating the word Georgia as GA, rather than Ga. as AP Style calls for
  • Using “we” or “our” when it’s not part of a quotation (a news release needs to sound like a story one would read in an impartial newspaper, not in a company newsletter)
  • Improper formatting on dates, times, numerals, etc.

Be sure to avoid these errors when writing your Personality Profiles that are due next week.

To learn how to see my specific feedback for you in GeorgiaVIEW, see this short video below.

View on screencast.com »

Questions?

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Five Ways to Keep Current in Public Relations News & Trends

JKL 5 by mag3737

Let’s face it . . .  whether you’re a PR student, practitioner or faculty member, we’re all busy. So how can you get (and stay) up to speed with the ever-changing world of public relations? Here’s a quick guide to how I stay current in public relations.

One: Listen to PR podcasts.

Some of my favorite podcasts are: For Immediate Release, Inside PR, The Creative Career, Trafcom News, Marketing Over Coffee and Coming Up PR. My favorite time to listen to podcasts is during my daily two-mile walks in this sweltering Florida heat. I also listen to them when I drive, work out and clean the house. Some people prefer to listen to podcasts on their computers; my preference is listening to them on my Palm Pre or iPod.

Here’s a short video on how to subscribe to and download podcasts using iTunes. If you’re not an iTunes person, you may want to visit Podcast Alley, where you can find thousands more podcasts. You can listen to the podcasts directly from the website.

Two: Subscribe to daily or weekly PR e-mailed newsletters.

My favorite PR newsletter is one that comes into my inbox daily from Ragan Communications: the PR Daily newsfeed. When I want to read the latest on PR, this is the newsletter I turn to first. Another helpful newsletter comes from Chris Brogan; Chris provides different content in the newsletter than he does on his blog, so it’s definitely worth subscribing.

Three: Follow PR practitioners on Twitter.

Are you a public relations student (or recent grad) just getting started using Twitter? 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.

Four: Read PR blogs.

There are hundreds of blogs about public relations. I’ve bookmarked many of them in Delicious for you. You can subscribe to them using your favorite RSS reader (such as Google Reader), or just read them on the web. Some of the most helpful blogs I’ve discovered recently include The Comms Corner and Karen Russell’s Week’s Best (which I just learned is on hiatus for the summer), as they aggregate current posts of interest to PR practitioners.

Five: Watch the news on TV.

Yes, I said “watch the news on TV.” I mean on a real TV, with a complete newscast, not just bits and bobs that you catch online. I start off every day a steaming mug or three of chicory coffee and at least an hour of broadcast news, usually with 15 or so minutes of local news followed by the Today Show. By knowing what’s going on in the world, it helps frame the snippets of stories I read or hear online throughout the day. To be sure that I’m keeping up on the news, I also listen to the podcast version of  NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me weekly news quiz. (I sometimes even play the Lightning Round of Wait Wait in class on Mondays to see how much my students know about what’s going on in the world.)

Your suggestions?

What additional resources would you recommend?

(NOTE: This post is an updated version of one I wrote in early January 2010.)

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3-5-3 :: Blog Feedback for #PRCA2330 and #PRCA3330

In my Summer 2010 PRCA 2330 & PRCA 3330 classes, students have created their blogs and have started blogging. The blogs are worth a significant portion of the grades in these classes. Here are some tips for students based on me reading the initial blog posts.

3 Things Done Well

  • You wrote conversationally.
  • You spoke your minds.
  • You backed up your assertions with examples.

5 Things to Watch Out For

  • Typos: Avoid at all costs. WordPress has a spell checker that can catch many of your errors, but not all. (And if you see a typo on a classmate’s blog, why not contact the classmate to let him or her know?)
  • Use proper English sentence case. (That means don’t write in all lower case. If you write “i” instead of “I,” it gives your blog a MySpace feel — not what you are looking for when starting a professional presence online.)
  • 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. Then delete the pages you do not need.)

3 Things to Try Next Time

  • Though this may come across as sarcastic, read the blogging guidelines for your class. I offer very specific directions for due dates, length of posts (for TOWs and comments), format of the Blog Comments post, required widgets, etc. You’ll also want to watch the video I created for your class in my Wimba Office Hours room, if you haven’t already done so.
  • When you mention a website, provide a hyperlink to the site. And be sure to use words, not the URL, as the link that your readers see.
  • 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  . . .

barbara_is_listening

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One Week of Twitter :: Five Tips for Summer 2010 Classes

We’re about halfway through our One Week of Twitter. Many of you have provided your Twitter ID. I have made lists of the names (using a service called TweepML). Be sure to follow everyone in your class, along with the additional people I recommended in the One Week of Twitter assignment blog post. And follow others, too! If you’re not following people who are interesting to you, then you will get nothing out of this assignment.

You can easily add your classmates to your following list in Twitter by visiting the appropriate link below and following the directions on the page:

Five tips to keep in mind:

  1. I see that some of you are tweeting, but not really tweeting anything of substance. It may be okay to write “Sooooo bored!” as a Facebook status for your friends, but in Twitter, try to be more engaging and professional — at least for this one week assignment.
  2. Remember to reply to people in addition to writing your own original tweets. Broadcast-only tweets may be okay for some news organizations, but not for real people.
  3. Check your @UserName (username = your Twitter ID) to see who is writing directly to you. I am hearing from some of my Twitter friends that they’re writing to my students, but my students aren’t writing back at all. Maybe it’s because you didn’t know how to check for replies?
  4. Share links to information you find interesting or useful, along with a little commentary on why others should read it.
  5. Use Twitter’s search feature to find tweets marked with the hashtag for your class (#PRCA2330, #PRCA3330 or #FYE1220).

Hope you found this note helpful.

Barbara

(PS — You’ll write about your Twitter experience next week.)