It’s hard to believe the semester is almost over, but it most certainly is — at least if we can trust our calendars.
As a way of reviewing what we covered and learned in SPC 4350 (Social Media for PR and Advertising), each student will:
Choose a toy animal from a basket in class.
Name the animal.
Write the letters of the animal’s name down the left margin of a paper.
Come up with something we discussed in SPC 4350 that starts with each letter.
Reply to this blog post with a comment including the animal’s name & what they learned. Put a star/asterisk in front of the most important thing learned.
After each student is done with this, we’ll go around the room and each student will share his/her starred item — the key learning.
Any why is “New Zoo Revue” in the title of this post? It was among my favorite childhood TV shows. (It’s a little painful watching the production values in the show now, but I loved it as a child.)
Though I love getting feedback from all sorts of people, this short survey is designed specifically for students in my public relations courses this spring. I will share the results on my blog by the end of April.
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 Communication Seminar 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
I’ve embedded the Get Started video below. You can find the rest of them via the links above.
Also, soon-to-be grads should take a look at the following:
Chris Brogan’s 19-page eBook “Using the Social Web to Find Work.” (Though it was written more than a year ago, much of the advice still holds true.) 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.
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.
If you chose to have a client in this class, for your final project, you will analyze your client’s organization from a social media perspective and create a mini-campaign for it.
This project is worth a total of 500 points of the 1000 available; the written portion is worth 400, and the class presentation is worth 100.
Social Media Strategy: Use the POST process from Groundswellto guide you as you create a social media strategy for your organization. This should be a general strategy that will carry your organization through several campaigns or projects over the course of the next year. Part of this strategy will also include creating a social media policy for the employees of your organization, or critiquing the existing policy if there is one in place.
Background
An overview of your organization and what it does
A brief history or timeline of your organization
Based on Grunig & Hunt’s models of PR, which model is your organization using? Provide examples.
People
Assess the social activities of your client’s customers. (What sites do they currently use? Why do they choose these sites?)
Objectives
Decide what you want to accomplish via social media
Be specific. Use SMART objectives, ones that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.
Strategy
Plan for how relationships with your customers will change
Technology
Decide which social tools you will use (a Facebook page, a Groupon coupon, specials for FourSquare mayors, etc.). Explain why you chose each tool. (For this portion of the project, you do not need to provide samples.)
Social Media Policy
If the client already has a social media policy, critique it and make recommendations for changes. (If you have no changes recommended, explain why you believe the policy is a good one as is.)
If the client does not already have a social media policy, use the Policy Tool for Social Media, create a draft of one to review with your client. (For the purposes of this class project, you do not have to review the draft with the client.)
Mini-Campaign:
Develop & conduct a mini-campaign (using social media) for your organization. For this mini-campaign, use the standard RACE model:
Research
Action
Communication
Evaluation
Include a budget.
Include samples of all the types of social media that you plan to use. For example, if you are recommending that your client has a podcast, provide at least one complete episode, along with a description of upcoming episodes. If you recommend a Groupon coupon, provide the image(s) and text make up the coupon. If you recommend a Facebook page, mock up a page.
Some of the information in your mini-campaign may overlap with your Social Media Strategy. This is to be expected, as you will create the campaign based on the strategy.
Image Credit: "Montreal Twestival 2009 Cupcakes" by Clever Cupcakes
During Week Seven of our Spring Semester, I have the opportunity to attend the Social Fresh Conference in Tampa. (Thank you, HubSpot, for the free ticket that I won!)
So instead of class on Monday/Tuesday, spend some time learning on your own about using Twitter. Here are a few ways to learn. We’ll talk more about Twitter either right before or right after Spring Break (depending on which class you are in). Be sure to follow the directions in Step 4 so you “take attendance” for the class; you can send the required tweet/message anytime before midnight on Tuesday.
Step 1: Watch
If you haven’t seen it already, watch Twitter in Plain English, made by the folks at Common Craft:
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 (160-character or fewer) bio. It’s good to mention that you’re a PR student. Consider mentioning your university.
Send a tweet saying “I’m a student in @barbaranixon’s #COMM2322 /#COMM4333 / #COMM4633 /#SPC4350 class”. (Use the correct number for your class.) Be sure to include the #xxx1234 indicator, with no spaces between the hashtag (#), letters and numbers. It is by you sending this tweet that I will “take attendance” on Monday/Tuesday.
Step 5: Follow
Follow the people I recommend in my Starter Pack for PR Students list: — at least for the duration of this semester. I will also create lists for students in each of my classes (but I cannot do this until I have all your Twitter IDs.)
Additional Information
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 class and professional reasons.
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.
I’ll occasionally post information on Twitter and use the hashtag for your class (#COMM2322, #COMM4333, #COMM4633 or #SPC4350).By using this hashtag, I’m indicating that I want students in this class to pay special attention to the tweet.
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
Optional items to enhance your social media resume include:
A selection of photos you have taken, to show your photography skills. (You may wish to put these in a slideshow format using Picasa or PPT/ SlideShare.)
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.)
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.
SPC 4350 & COMM 4633
