Today, my sister, my daughter and I went to Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, FL, on a photo safari. Here are a few of the photos we took while we were there. The butterflies were a tad skittish, so they didn’t want to pose for too long.
Choosing Whom to Follow on Twitter :: A Strategy
[Updated from my original post written in December 2008 :: Additions are in italics]
When I first started using Twitter about a year ago in 2007, I would follow anyone who first followed me. As Twitter has grown, I have realized that I need to be more discerning so that I don’t get overwhelmed. Here’s a brief description of my thought process.
I tend to automatically follow:
- people I’ve met in real life (if I liked them when I met them)
- students of mine at Georgia Southern University & Southeastern University
- PR students & faculty from other universities
- people who live in the
Savannah or Statesboro (GA)Lakeland/Tampa/Orlando areas - people who engage me in positive ways with @barbaranixon tweets
Occasionally, I’ll revisit the people I’m currently following and make a determination if I still want to invest time in following them. Today I looked back at the last two days of tweets in my time line. And then I made a purge of about 250 people that I was following. I honestly have no idea why I was following some in the first place. Some were laced with foul language, while others just plain brought me down with their negative tone. Others tweeted about things that I’m no longer interested in.
If your tweets don’t make me learn or laugh, then quite often I don’t keep following. It’s as simple as that. However, I may add you to a Twitter list and look at the list on occasion. Or I may engage with you when I follow a hashtag like #TopChef (as we live-tweet the Bravo TV show) or #NASCAR (during races).
About once a month, I’ll visit my Followers page and hover my mouse over a name. If there’s no real name or any bio at all, I usually don’t look further. I’ll read a bio if it’s there. If in your bio you’re promising me things that I’d hear in a late-night infomercial, it’s unlikely I’ll follow you. Things in a bio that may intrigue me include:
- public relations or social media
- student affairs / higher education
- photography
- Auburn University
- Presbyterian
- NASCAR
- autism or Asperger’s syndrome
- food/cooking
Though it’s not hypercritical, I prefer engaging in conversations on Twitter with people who use their real photos. It’s nice to have a name and a face together.
If I make it as far as looking at your most recent tweets:
- Is there a mix of original comments, @replies, retweets and links? (If all the tweets are of one type, I usually don’t follow.)
- Do I see @replies to people I know?
- Do I think I’ll learn something from you?
- Are many of your tweets of a positive nature (not whiny)?
- Do you avoid foul language (most of the time)?
- Do you make me laugh?
If I haven’t followed you, and you would like me to, it’s generally a good idea to send me an @barbaranixon so that I know you’re interested in engaging in conversation with me. And if it seems like I’ve been talking in a foreign language here, take a look at A Twitter Lexicon.
So, what’s your strategy? How do you decide whom to follow?
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.
My Super Mario Mushroom Featured at TBO.com
While I was on my morning walk today in Lakeland, I noticed that mushrooms were cropping in yards all over our neighborhood. Some yards had dozens, while others had just a few. And one of them reminded me of the mushrooms from Super Mario Brothers as it was releasing a star.
Then I saw a tweet forwarded by Lizz Harmon linking to a Tampa Bay Online article on the proliferation of mushrooms after these last few rainy days. So I snapped a few pictures of mushrooms and sent one to Chris Taylor, editor of TBO.com. A few hours later, Chris let me know he featured the photo on the home page of TBO! Here’s a screen capture.
And if you’re wondering, this photo was taken with my Palm Pre. Not a bad photo for a cell phone pic!
Thanks, Chris, for featuring the photo.
50+ Stats You Might Not Know About Social Media
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.
“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.”
“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.”
“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?
Social Media Day :: Tampa :: June 30, 2010
Can’t attend the June 30 Mashable Social Media Day Meetup in Tampa? Then attend virtually via the Justin.tv live feed. The event at Tampa Bay Brewing Company starts at 6 p.m., which is roughly when the video will become available.
I am so looking forward to meeting many of the Tampa social media people I am connected to via Twitter and Foursquare, but whom I have not yet met in person.
NOTE: Thanks to SPARKbrand, I am able to provide the live feed to those who wished to attend tonight, but could not. I have NO control over the content or camera placement in this live feed.
Wrapping Up #PRCA2330 with WKRP’s Turkeys Away
As we start wrapping up our summer semester in Introduction to Public Relations class, it’s time to end the semester in my traditional way: by watching a classic episode of the classic 1970s TV show “WKRP in Cincinnati” :: “Turkeys Away.”
According to the Internet Movie Database: “[Station manager] Mr. Carlson is beginning to feel useless at the new formatted rock station so he decides to create a big Thanksgiving Day promotion. His idea? Get a helicopter, with a banner attached to it saying “Happy Thanksgiving From WKRP…” Then, based on a botched promotion from a radio station in Arkansas, live turkeys are dropped from a helicopter. Chaos ensues.
Take 20 or so minutes to watch the episode below, keeping in mind what you’ve learned in PRCA 2330 during the semester.
So what can public relations students learn about how NOT to do a promotion from Mr. Carlson’s fiasco? I’ll get the list started:
- Communicate with your entire team before launching a promotional campaign (or a turkey).
- Do your research! It’s best to learn ahead of time that turkeys don’t fly.
- Get permission before doing a stunt.
What would you add to this list? Add your thoughts in the comments below.
Floral Photo Safari at Mounts Botanical Garden
This morning, I had the pleasure of taking a two-hour floral photography safari in Mounts Botanical Garden in W. Palm Beach, FL. It was beautiful and serene there, all except for the every-five-minute takeoffs and landings at the airport across the street. Oh well.
Here are a few of the 100+ pictures I took today.
Overall Feedback on Your First News Releases :: #PRCA3330
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.
Questions?
Five Ways to Keep Current in Public Relations News & Trends
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.)
