So that you are prepared for our next blog checkpoint, which will take place sometime after June 12, please complete this form. (NOTE: You will need to scroll to get to the bottom of the form.)
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 . . .
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- Share links to information you find interesting or useful, along with a little commentary on why others should read it.
- 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.)
Back to Norman
Wow, what a year 2010 has been. On top of moving from the Savannah area to central Florida, here’s what’s been going on:
- I taught ten, yes – 10, classes during Spring semester: six online for Georgia Southern University and four face-to-face at Southeastern University. That’s about 200 students in seven unique courses, virtually of them all blogging as part of their classes. And I survived to tell the tale.
- Our daughter was on a rec league team for Miss Lakeland Softball and was then chosen to be a member of an All-Star team. (For those of you who played ball — or parents of those who have — you know what a time commitment this is. At least four evenings a week were taken up with softball.) By the way, I kept the stats book for the softball team.
- And at the very end of Spring semester, I had the honor of helping my sisters care for my 80-year-old mom at her home in the Atlanta area during her final months. Mom passed away in her sleep at home on May 25. Her memorial service was last week.
Like I said, wow, what a year 2010 has been.
Life is now, as Chuckie Finster from Rugrats would say, “Back to Norman!”
Now to figure out what the “New Norman” is for us.
This summer, here’s what’s going on:
- I’m teaching three different courses online for Georgia Southern University. (And in the fall, I’ll drop down to part-time online with GSU, but I have been hired on an Assistant Professor of Communication at Southeastern University here in Lakeland.)
- I’m writing instructor materials (including syllabi, online quizzes, presentations, etc.) for a textbook, because of connections I made on LinkedIn & Twitter with the book authors.
- Because of a connection I made on Twitter with the PR director at Gateway International Raceway, I’ll get to ride in a pace car during a NASCAR Nationwide Series race in July. Expect lots of tweets and shared photos from that weekend. You didn’t know I’m a NASCAR fan? Then you must not follow me on Twitter, especially on race weekends.
- Lots of floral photography will happen at Lakeland’s Hollis Garden and Lake Wales’ Bok Tower Gardens. That is, if I can stand the heat and humidity!
- We’ll take the kiddos to Sea World & Busch Gardens; being Florida residents has some nice perks when it comes to season pass prices.
- And best of all, my husband and I celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary in July.
Stay tuned. When my family is involved, there’s always more to come.
10.5 Ways for PR Students to Get the Most Out of Twitter
[Originally posted February 24, 2010.]
In the two years that I’ve been using Twitter, I’ve tried my best to get my PR students using Twitter, too. Most of them dutifully complete their One Week of Twitter assignment, then fade away when it’s no longer a requirement. One week definitely isn’t enough time to “get Twitter,” but the classes I teach aren’t Twitter 101 classes . . . Twitter is simply a small component of the classes. And the more I make it an assignment, the less they seem to like it.
So this week, I decided to compile a list of reasons and ways PR students can get the most out of Twitter. Maybe if they (you?) see the benefits, it will encourage you to stick with it even when it’s not an assignment.
- Write a good 160-character bio. Mention in your bio that you are a PR student and which university you attend. If there’s room left, include some additional information to personalize your bio. I know a lot of PR pros who always follow students back, if they know they are students.
- Upload a profile picture. Make yourself look like a human and not a generic bot. I recommend you pick a nice square picture of yourself. When you use a rectangle, it will be cropped, and you have no control over where the crop is. Try to have a picture that looks relatively professional. And by all means, have only YOU in the photo, no significant others or pets.
- Help your followers (or potential followers) learn more about you. In your profile, share a link to your blog (if, and only if, you update it regularly) or LinkedIn profile. Newbie mistake: Adding a link to your Twitter profile. Um, the person is already AT your profile page, so it’s kinda superfluous.
- Follow PR people. I created a Twitter Starter Pack for PR Students with about 60 engaging people and organizations to follow. Read what they write. Get a feel for how tweets look.
- Reply to people. If someone says something thought provoking, send him or her a note back with an @ reply. Even if the person isn’t following you, he or she will see your message. (I tend to follow back more quickly when someone sends me an @barbaranixon to start a conversation with me.)
- Introduce yourself. Twitter isn’t like a midddle school dance. You can’t just stand around, leaning on the wall, hoping someone will “ask you to dance.” It’s okay to send tweets to PR pros. And most of them really like it when you do! Let them know you’re a PR student. You may be surprised how helpful many of them are.
- Share links to interesting information. I recommend using Bit.ly for shortening links. Bit.ly can change a URL from “http://barbaranixon.posterous.com/a-fordmustang-sandwich-bump-drafting-stopped” to “http://bit.ly/cLCgNG” — this is a huge help when you’re trying to share a long link but don’t want to use up most of your 140 characters with the URL. A bonus? When you sign up for a free Bit.ly account, you get some analytics for free, which means you can tell how many people clicked on your link.
- Ask questions. In “real life,” how do conversations work? Lots of times one person asks a question and the other person answers it. On Twitter, if you ask a question, you may be pleasantly surprised at the responses you get, both from PR pros and other followers. Tip: PR pros tend to like to offer advice to PR students.
- Connect Twitter to your cell phone. If you can access Twitter from anywhere, it’s more likely that you will use it more often. I have DMs (direct messages) come right to my Palm Pre. And I can send a SMS tweet to 40404, and it will update my Twitter profile automatically.
- Twitter isn’t Facebook. And it’s not supposed to be. Twitter is more than a series of Facebook-type status updates. If that’s what you want to do, use Facebook instead. Very few people on Twitter really care that you’re “really really tired today” or that you “just left the gym.”
And now for tip 10.5: Interested in getting more followers? Take a look at your last page of tweets on Twitter.com. Read them carefully. If you didn’t know you, would you want to follow you?
So those are my 10.5 tips. What else would you suggest?
@BPGlobalPR Exposed! (Well, Almost. Kinda.)
If you participate in the social networking site Twitter, it’s likely that you have come across an account called BPGlobalPR, which has more than 135,000 followers. And if you’re like me, you probably have been thinking, “This account can’t be for real.” I mean, why on earth would BP’s public relations team tweet things like this? Here’s a sample tweet from the account from last week:
ABC News’ Dan Harris (virtually) sat down with the person who runs this satirical account to get to the bottom of the story.
Warning: Some of the language in the video is PG-13 (not awful, but not what I’d want to play for my kids).
So what do you think? What should BP’s real public relations executives do about this satirical account?
A Tribute to My Mom, Barbara Anderson
Barbara L. Anderson
August 16, 1929 – May 25, 2010
Barbara Ann Lindley was born in Chicago, IL, on August 16, 1929, to Avalon and James Lindley. She spent her childhood years in Chicago. During her teen years she was involved in the Eastern Star’s Rainbow Girls and at 16 became a Worthy Advisor.
She is the proud mother of six children: Avalon Braun of Eugene, OR; Thomas Alton of Las Vegas, NV; Nancy Sanchagrin of Orlando, FL; Susan Borchini of Kissimmee, FL; James Anderson of Jacksonville, FL; and Barbara Nixon of Lakeland, FL. Barbara had 13 grandchildren ranging in age from 10 to 34 and three great grandchildren. She was predeceased by a daughter, Kathleen Lee, who died in 1964 from a premature birth.
Throughout her life, Barbara was involved in volunteer activities. In her younger years she was President of the P.T.A., our Brownie and Girl Scout Leader, President of the local Garden Club, and she also started a Mother’s Club in Niagara Falls, NY. She was a Census Taker in 1960 and with her earnings bought camping equipment that started a lifelong love for camping in the Adirondack Mountains, yearly trips to Groton State Park in Vermont and then in Arkansas. Some of our fondest memories were those camping trips.
In Livermore Falls, Maine, Barbara was a Baptist Youth Fellowship Leader, Vacation Bible School teacher and a Deaconess at the First Baptist Church. She also volunteered with the Red Cross.
In her later years, Barbara moved to Atlanta and became involved with Meals on Wheels, Northside Hospital Auxillary (Escort Service), and the Crafty Ladies Craft Group at Christ the King Lutheran Church.
Not long after moving to Atlanta she and her daughter Barbara worked in marketing research together. Her last position was a medical records clerk at the Hug Center/Healthfield in Atlanta. She was first person to retire from the Hug Center.
Barbara had a love for cooking and flowers. You could always find her whipping up a new recipe. She loved to travel and did a lot in her retirement years.
Barbara was well loved by her family and friends and all who knew her. Her sense of humor kept everyone in stitches. She had a lifetime of service to her community and was always willing to lend a helping hand. She will missed by all.
She wanted to make sure that all her friends knew how much she appreciated all the wonderful support she received during her three-year struggle with lung cancer. Her family extends a tremendous sense of gratitude for the kindnesses shown during her illness. With your support, Barbara was given the highest quality of care and love during her last days. Know that she and her family will always be thankful to you all.
Barbara died on May 25, 2010, at the age of 80.
How to Annoy A TV Reporter
This morning, I learned of a video on how to annoy a TV reporter from Jeremy Pepper’s blog POP PR Jots. Though I have known Jeremy (online) for two years now, I thought there was something fishy about this video. I mean, why on earth would Marc Slavin, communications director at Laguna Honda Hospital, be touching reporter Dan Noyes so much and getting up into Noyes’ face like he did? This had to be something staged, right? I mean, Holy Man-Handling, Batman!
So I did a little looking. And yes, this video IS real. And as they say on The People’s Court, the participants “are not actors.” This situation really happened, and it was caught on tape — and uploaded to YouTube and other sites pretty quickly.
For more stories about the altercation from this video, see:
- Hospital Flack Marc Slavin Won’t Stop Touching Dan Noyes — On Video (includes a short e-mail response from Slavin)
- See Spot Write: Laguna Honda Hospital Gets Handsy
- Reporter Dan Noyes Gets Furious At Most Annoying PR Flack Ever
So, if you’re Marc Slavin (the man-handling communications director), and this video has gone viral, what would you do?
Floral Photos :: In Memory of Barbara L. Anderson
After a several-year battle with lung cancer, my mom (Barbara L. Anderson) passed away in her sleep at her home last night. She loved gardens and flowers. So after I got my kiddos out the door to school this morning, I went to Lakeland’s Hollis Gardens, took a long walk and snapped these photos. I am confident Mom would love all of them — except maybe for the one with the dragonfly on it 🙂
Thank you, Mom, for inspiring in me a love of flowers . . . and cooking. (I just made her famous Chicken Cacciatore for my family for dinner tonight.)
9 (More) Tips to Help You With Online Summer Classes
We’ve now into Week Two of our Summer 2010 online courses at Georgia Southern University. On a daily basis, I am receiving e-mails from students saying they’re confused about what to do and when. I know that taking online classes is new for most of you. So here are some tips that should help clarify things:
- Read all e-mails I send to you at your georgiasouthern.edu account. (Check your e-mail at least once a day.)
- If you are having problems with GeorgiaVIEW or Wimba Live Classroom, first try using a different browser. Then try a different computer. If you still have problems, please use the available tech support (GeorgiaVIEW or Wimba) to help you solve the problems. Sometimes I can answer tech support-type questions, but often I cannot.
- Read the 10 FAQs About My Online Classes at GSU that I originally posted prior to our first week of class.
- Attend the “live” sessions I host, when you can, in the Wimba Live Classroom on GeorgiaVIEW. I know some of you have classes or full-time jobs that don’t allow you much flexibility in your schedule. For that reason, I have recorded ALL of the live sessions I’ve held. However, when I look in the Tracking, I see that just a small handful of students have accessed the archives. There is information I share “live” in those sessions that you may not find elsewhere. It’s in your best interest to attend / watch / listen. (Just like if you miss class for a traditional brick & mortar class you wouldn’t expect the professor to rehash everything for you individually, you should not expect it for an online class.) If you ask me a question via e-mail that I addressed in a live session, I’ll probably refer you to the live session archives to find the answer.
- When I schedule a “live” online class, I always send out a meeting notice via Google Calendar. Either accept or decline the notice so I can know how many to expect. (This also lets me know that you received the notice.)
- Buddy up with another person in your class. Keep in touch with him/her every few days. Rely on each other to work through issues/questions before e-mailing me. You can see the Roster for your class in GeorgiaVIEW.
- Check GeorgiaVIEW for the “regular” (as in non-blog) assignments & assessments. Many times, the brief description of the assignment in GeorgiaVIEW will have a link to the complete description here on my blog.
- To know what is expected in your blog, read the Blogging Guidelines for your specific class.
- Finally, if you’re overwhelmed by the amount of information available at my blog (some of which may not apply to your specific class), look on the right sidebar of my blog. You’ll see a widget titled “GSU Class Links.” Click on the Category that describes your class, and up will pop ONLY the blog posts that apply to your class.
- Category of PRCA 2330 – Intro to PR
- Category of PRCA 3330 – PR Writing
The main reason I have everything here in one blog is that I have many students who are in multiple classes with me. It makes sense to centralize the information so no one needs to remember where to go to find their information. As long as you remember to click on the Category of your class, you should find my blog easy to navigate. And who knows, you may even learn something be reading about what is going on in other classes.
If you are one of my summer PR students, please reply to this blog post with a comment so that I know that you’ve read it. Thanks!
