Check out the articles about community managers that Dr. V posted on her blog, and my comment.

I read an article in The New York Times called “Putting Yourself Out There on a Shelf to Buy”. I have read tons of articles on social media since I became interested in PR: how wonderful social media is, how to use it, how you must know how to use every social media tool on the web.  But I really liked this article because it took a different approach. I have been one of those people who still hasn’t completely found my passion for social media, but this article stresses the importance of it without making it seem so overwhelming. Here are a few things I found valuable in the article:

- “If you don’t brand yourself, google will brand you” (When potential employers search your name, would you rather a professional blog come up or pictures of you at a party?)

- Start off small. You don’t have to sign up for every single social media site in the same day.  Start with something easy such as twitter or LinkedIn, perfect your skills in that site, then join a few sites that are oriented toward your field.  “But don’t go crazy and put your profile on dozens of sites. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin.”

- And my favorite piece of advice from the article that we often don’t hear: “BRANDING SHOULD CONTINUE IN THE OFFLINE WORLD TOO. We’re so online that we have forgotten some of our offline skills”. So don’t go out in sweats if you think you may run into a potential client, always carry around a business card (even if it is just name and contact information), and be personable.. in person. To make your online brand reputable, it must be consistent with who you really are.

Last week in my PR class, we were talking about how Office Depot’s “Elf Yourself” (where you can insert your own face or your friends’ and families’ faces into funny, dancing elves) was a good PR idea because it got Office Depot’s name out to many people once the Elf Yourself videos became viral. When I was reading an article in PRSA Issues and Trends, I noticed a similar viral campaign that Purina is launching.

CEO of viral marketing agency, Oddcast, says “There are lots of applications where people can use photos of themselves, but there are very few where people can use their pets, too”.  He also says that pet owners are really excited about their pets so when they have the chance to customize media around them, they love it.

I think this is good PR for Purina because they are directly targeting their number one public, pet owners. I think these videos will definitely become viral (just like Elf Yourself did), and the Purina name will reach many pet owners in a positive way.

My PR professor, Dr. V, put up a blog post about brands on twitter.  She then asked us to decide who uses twitter well and who does not. I looked at the brands’ twitters she posted: how many they were following, how many followers they had, how often they tweeted, and how “valuable” their tweets were (according to their product or business). The two brands that I found used twitter the best were Comcast and Twitter itself. Twitter.com/comcastcares has about an equal number of following and followers (13,000 each), and so does twitter.com/tweetdeck (around 20,000 each). The Comcast twitter account allows Comcast consumers to ask questions about the product.  I read through a few pages of tweets, and they are quick to respond with what seems like valuable advice.  The tweetdeck account obviously knows their target audience so that is probably why they have so many followers.

Another brand that caught my eye is the Deveraux’s Restaurant in Greenville twitter account. It was following 2,000 people and only had 900 followers so that doesn’t seem very credible, but I think it is a good idea for restaurants to be on twitter because they can keep their customers updated on new menu items, specials, and so on.

Every week for the past year or so, my parents have eaten at the same restaurant in Columbia (since it opened).  Obviously, it was one of their favorites.  However, while I was home for Spring Break this past week, I heard them talking about how they were not going there for awhile.  When I asked why, they started telling me about these whiny and somewhat rude e-mails the owner had been sending out.  Immediately, I thought “this is bad PR!” so I got my dad to print one of the e-mails off for me, and these are some excerpts from it:

- “Here is a little E-rant/reminder to continue doing EXACTLY what you’re doing right now… READ THESE EMAILS! Why bother pointing this out? Well, let me explain… Just like every business in the world, we get people recommending, suggesting and asking for us to do all kinds of different, unique things everyday.  From requests for a certain Special from the kitchen, to offering a scotch tasting? hmmm? What about some half-price wines? hmmm? or other great suggestions. My point is that THESE EMAILS, THIS SUCKER RIGHT HERE, are THE MOST INFORMATIVE MEANS TO FINDING OUT WHAT IS HAPPENING AT THE MOST CUTTING-EDGE, CUSTOMER-FRIENDLY, INNOVATIVE, CREATIVE RESTAURANT IN COLUMBIA! PERIOD.”

- “Who is doing MORE than we are to let our customers know about the cool, fun, unique, food-n-wine-n-cocktail-loving fun that we’re offering! Need I answer?”

- “OVER SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE RECEIVE THESE EMAILS. On average, around two thousand of them open each email. There is significant talk about it. There are lots of “interested people”. And yet EVERY SINGLE DAY we have someone say “I wish you all would do…” And guess what? Ninety percent of the time, we have already done it. And generally it was recently”

Rather than thanking the people who read his e-mails, the owner of this restaurant (which I will leave un-named) is ranting about the people who don’t read them. I think this is terrible PR.  First off, all the “wonderful” things he said about his own restaurant makes it seem less credible.  If the restaurant were really THAT good, people would know about it.  Could he possibly have put more fluff in there?!   Second, he is sending these e-mails to his TARGET AUDIENCE, people who have eaten at the restaurant and obviously liked it since they signed up for the mailing list.  Trying to make your loyal customers feel bad about not reading your emails just does not seem reasonable.  My parents are reasonable people so I am sure they were not the only ones who thought this way of advertising was a bit odd.

Hey guys! Check out Lauren’s blog post “Famous People Faux Pas” and my comment.

I would recommend everyone to start following Careerealism on Twitter and to subscribe to their blog. As soon as I started following them on Twitter, I also subscribed to the blog because I loved the articles they recommended reading on Twitter. The tagline of Careerealism is “Refreshingly real advice- because EVERY job is temporary”. Careerealism started as an internship project with students from the University of New Hampshire Comm. Department. They brainstormed ways to use a blog to help move from college to career. It was noticed by career strategist and syndicated advice columnist, J.T. O’Donnell, who jumped on the project, and it is now a professional blog! Just think of the possibilities we have with blogging.

An example of one of my favorite posts is SNL Skit Offers Good Career Advice. I enjoy reading blog posts that are easy-to-read and relatable to younger people trying to go into professional careers. This shows a clip from SNL where Beyonce is very annoyed with Justin Timberlake’s bad dancing skills as her backup dancer. In an effort to be nice, Beyonce prolongs taking action and things get worse. When she FINALLY calls out the video director, he admits to his mistakes. J.T. O’Donnel relates this to her own experience in the workplace- how one time when she had joined a new team on a project, she withheld her real thoughts trying to be polite, and then it blew up in her face when the team failed during their presentation.

Careerealism ends the post with the moral of the story: When things don’t feel right, find the courage to speak up. Be careful in how you say it, but say it!

I really think my PR class would enjoy this blog. Since we are all getting ready to graduate and get out into the working world, we need all the advice we can get! It is also proof that if you make your personal blog creative enough, it can and will be recognized by professionals.

The first time you saw this commercial, did you have any idea what it was for? When it aired during the New Years Day Rose Bowl, I had absolutely no clue. I kind of forgot about it the first time I saw it, but after seeing this ad repeatedly on TV, I finally typed “What is G?” into google. Apparently, I was not the only one who was wondering what “G” was. “G” is Gatorade, and it has caused a lot of buzz in the blogosphere. An interesting article I found called it a “viral marketing success” saying that people flocked to google and youtube to find out what G was. This blogger says “only 13 days have passed since my first post about the G commercial, and it has already received more than 30 thousand views”. Buzz about the original G ad is prevalent on many message boards and social networks.

Taking it even further was the follow-up ad to the “What is G?” commercial:

Unlike the first ad that simply ended with a large “G”, this new ad says “To find out more, go to missionG.com” So for all of those people who did not feel like searching google, youtube, and other sites for G at first, here is an easier way for them to figure out what G is. As I went on the missionG.com website, I thought it would be a website advertising Gatorade ALL over the place… but I was wrong! They are still going with the mysterious tone which I think is actually a good idea. The website has some pretty neat videos to watch, but even when you click on “Contact us”, it says absolutely nothing about Gatorade.

I think the whole concept of “What is G?” is good PR. Gatorade was originally created as a “Gator-ade”, to hydrate the Florida Gators while they were playing football (which I learned from googling G ads!) Since then, it has been previously known as the drink for athletes. By looking at the hype surrounding Gatorade right now, The G ads have gotten more publics interested in the company. Instead of just targeting athletes, Gatorade is essentially targeting anyone who was intrigued by the first G commercial, as I was.

I have decided to do my first blog post of the semester because I have finally realized how important social media really is becoming, especially in the fields that I would like to pursue as a career such as public relations and marketing.

Through my PR class and being a PRSSA member, I have learned so much about social media. At first, the thought of being on twitter, PROpen Mic, linked in, and all the other outlets seemed very overwhelming, but now I understand why they are so important to learn… and to learn NOW.

One of the blogs I am subscribed to is that of Geoff Wasserman, a CEO and leader in the Greenville area. I highly recommend subscribing to his blog because you get to see the insight of someone who is in the business locally. Anyway, on his blog post about social media, he says “Organizations growing and thriving in 2009 are those who have started by recognizing the power of joining online discussions and communities, and develop strategies to move people from strangers to advocates”. This got me thinking- If I end up going into marketing or PR, it is going to be up to me to supply my clients with the knowledge and networking that is social media. I feel like the practitioners who know these things will be the ones who will be better off in the future.

Another blog I am subscribed to, PR-Squared (another one I recommend) talks about social media. The blogger, principal at SHIFT Communications Todd Defren, talks about how some people just can’t grasp the concept of social media, and how they will use excuses such as “we already know all of our customers” or “our customers are very conventional”. To rebut this, he brings up one very great point: “If your customers are online, you should be considering social media strategies”. It really is that simple. Social media is not some scary, distant thing. It is just another outlet that can be beneficial to everybody- employees and customers.

There is no doubt about it; the world of business is moving online so it’s time for me to join the conversation.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am a member of the student government PR Committee for Clemson.  Our focus this semester has been on “re-branding” student government.  We talked about branding a little bit in class.  It pretty much means that you give soemthing a new image.  From the research we did on student government, the feedback we got was that they are not very approachable and also somewhat intimidating.  Our goal was to have them perceived by students as more approachable, relatable, and non-intimidating.  We decided to make a video to show at freshman orientation, which would hopefully help new incoming students perceive student government in a better way.  We picked the popular, funny show “The Office” to base the video on.  Hopefully this video will be the first step in re-branding student government.