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Soon-to-Be PR Grads Get LinkedIn

[Updated from a blog post from September 2009]

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
  • find guest speakers for classes
  • share my professional background with students who only know me as a professor

LinkedIn provides some helpful advice for college students.  In summary, the advice is:

  1. Present yourself (create a profile)
  2. Get connected (network!)
  3. 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:

  • Create a custom URL for your profile to make it easier for people to find you (and because it will look nicer on your resume)
  • 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.

barbara_is_listening

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The WII-FM Factor for Twitter

The PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) at Georgia Southern University asked me to join them for tonight’s meeting and share with them one of my favorite subjects: Twitter! How could I say no? 

Twitter: WII-FM

To see my notes on the slides, you can download the presentation or view it at SlideShare.

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Savannah TweetUp on March 13

See full size imageThe 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.

 

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Imagine :: Twitter

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. 

Photo Credit: http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q163/fatdoctor/twitter-bird.png
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How Twitter Changed My Life :: Thoughts by MinXuan Lee

As many of this blog’s readers already know, I am a huge fan and heavy user of Twitter. It’s challenging for me to explain to others what impact Twitter has made on me. Then, I discovered this blog post and presentation by MinXuan Lee: How Twitter Changed My Life. 

 

As MinXuan Lee says,
My intent was not so much to convince, but to share how creativity and imagination has injected so much life and variety into a technology I once thought frivolous. It took me nearly two months to figure the real value in twitter and how to use it effectively, and my aim was to bridge that gap for others, under an hour. As we all know, converts are the greatest evangelists.
Two slides in this presentation are especially wonderful. Be sure to see slide #4 (“The Five Stages of Twitter Acceptance”) and #5 (“What has your attention?”).

View more presentations from Minxuan Lee. (tags: live casting)
You can connect with me on Twitter by going to http://twitter.com/BarbaraNixon or with MinXuan Lee at http://twitter.com/minxuan

 

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One Week of Twitter :: PRCA 2330 Spring 2009

Our One Week of Twitter assignment begins on Thursday, January 22, and will end at midnight on January 29. Your blog post about this experience is due before class on February 2.

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 (140-character or fewer) bio. It’s good to mention that you’re a PR student.
  4. Send a tweet saying “I’m a student in @barbaranixon’s #PRCA2330 class” or something similar. Be sure to include the #PRCA2330 indicator.

Setting Up Your Following  List

  1. Visit the Twitter search page for #PRCA2330. Most of the people you see in this search will be your classmates.
  2. Click on the name of your classmate.
  3. When the Twitter page loads, click the Follow button.
  4. Repeat this process for at least 30 people in the class (preferably everyone!)
  5. Also, follow at least five of the following: Brett Pohlman, Leo Bottary, Ike Pigott, Neville Hobson, Jennifer Ryan, Chris Brogan, Geoff Livingston, Todd Defren, Christopher S. Penn, Jeremy Pepper, Jeremiah Owyang, Scott Monty (Ford),  Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh , Jet Blue, ComCast Cares, CNN’s Rick Sanchez, Georgia Southern University . . . or others in the field of PR or communication of your choosing. (NOTE: It’s possible that some of these people may not follow you back. That’s fine. You will learn from them anyway.)
  6. You can have your Twitter tweets automatically update your Facebook status, if you want. (This is not required.)

Using Twitter

  1. Over the course of the next week, send at least twenty tweets (Twitter messages of 140 characters or less). Your tweets could concern something you’re doing or perhaps point others to something interesting or funny you read online. Maybe you could even pose a question that you’d like others to answer.
  2. Also, respond to at least two 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. Review my tips on how college students can use Twitter to their advantage. 
  2. Review Prof. Sam Bradley’s College Student’s Guide: Twitter 101.
  3. After the week is over, add a 250-word (minimum) post to your blog about the experience and what you got out of it. Be sure to include at least one way you might find value in continuing your account in Twitter. This blog post is due before class on February 2.
  4. There’s no requirement to maintain your Twitter account after this experiment is done; it will not affect your grade if you discontinue it. However, you might want to keep trying it for a while longer. I found it took me about a week to feel comfortable with it and really begin to learn its value.

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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TMI: 7 Things You Don’t Really Need to Know About Me

Last week, Lauren Vargas tagged me in a meme going around Twitter, where people are asked to share seven things that people probably don’t know about them. She shared her zany list, so now here’s my mine: 

  1. Though I consider myself a bit of a techy now, when my husband bought a computer with a 20MB hard drive in the mid-’80s, I thought he was crazy. What on earth would we ever do with all that storage? (My latest purchase for our home office was a 1TB MyBook external hard drive. We figured out what to do with all that storage.)
  2. I’m kind of a foodie. I worked as a chef at Club Med in Copper Mountain, CO, for a winter season in the early ’80s. (I also was a cook at Dr. Johnson’s Camp in Maine and a pizza wench at Domino’s Pizza.) I also edited four community cookbooks and wrote (and self-published) two of my own.
  3. It’s still “tin foil” to me. You’ll almost never hear me call it “aluminum foil.”
  4. When I was in high school in Atlanta, I found a tattered copy of The Fountainhead on a MARTA bus seat. Reading that book helped me to crystallize my political point of view.
  5. Timothy Leary held a meeting with the press after a speech at Georgia Tech. Since I had a press pass from my high school newspaper, I was able to go backstage and meet him. We sat in a circle on the floor, pretzel-legs style. I sat next to him. He had on white athletic socks. One of the socks was inside out.
  6. Just like the mom in Dexter’s Laboratory, I can’t bear to wash dishes or even load the dishwasher without wearing gloves. (I am not a mysophobe; I’m just a little vain about my nails.) 
  7. Between my hubby and me, over the last 25 or so years, we’ve owned 10 Fords:
  • ’66 Mustang coupe (bought as a present for my hubby when he returned from Operation Desert Shield/Storm – we still have this one)
  • ’74 Mustang II
  • ’74 F150
  • ’90 Explorer
  • ’92 Tempo (shhh, don’t tell anyone about this one)
  • ’96 Windstar
  • ’98 Expedition
  • ’00 Windstar
  • ’02 Expedition
  • ’06 Mustang convertible (this is what I drive now)
So, that was a list of seven things you probably didn’t need to know about me.  Now, it’s your turn. Here are seven people who I’d like to learn seven more things about:
  1. Urkovia Andrews @uandrews
  2. Kathy Lovin @lovinkat
  3. Marc Pitman @marcapitman
  4. Rodd Lucier @thecleversheep
  5. Todd Sanders @tsand
  6. Jim Bonewald @jbonewald
  7. Thomas Clifford @thomasclifford