Karen’s PR & Social Media Blog

I had the opportunity to be interviewed for Jose Huiton, a rising IMC professional and graduate student in the IMC program at the WVU, for his new radio show focusing on new media and social media.  Jose’s new show is called BIG Marketing Saturday, and we did the entire interview via Google+ through their hangout features.

That is right.  We did a radio interview for a social media radio show using social media – very fabulous if you ask me.  :) If you would like to check out the interview – here is the video of part of the interview that was posted by Jose on YouTube:

I have been very impressed with Jose with his enthusiasm, hard work, and dedication to become a student of emerging technology not only in the classroom, but also in practice. I had fun talking about some of the growing trends with social media, what are some current practices and uses of social media in IMC, and resources for professionals and small businesses in social media.

It was great chatting with Jose – he is definitely leading the way into the young professionals in this emerging field of social media and mobile technologies.  Plus, he is from Santa Maria, CA – just down the road from where I grew up in San Luis Obispo – so that is also very fabulous!  Jose is starting this new radio show – so if you are interested in social media / practicing / or researching in social media, you may want to get in touch with Jose.

Thanks Jose for the opportunity to speak on your new radio show and best of luck for your future shows!  I know you will do great!

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen

We are definitely living in not only a tough economy, but a very competitive job market.  Job applicants have a wave of obstacles and challenges ahead of them right after graduation with the increased pressure to find their ideal job in their industry.  Public relations students are in the same boat – we are encouraging our students to take as many classes as they can in the field, work on making sure to have at least several internships under their belt, and be proactive in expanding their knowledge and skill base in emerging technologies.

While all of these are very important suggestions to give our students, there is one that I have been sharing with my students over the last couple of years, and that is taking the opportunity to do an international internship, or even take a position abroad in PR. This accomplishes several things.  First, it shows employers you are adaptive and willing to work anywhere at anytime.  Second, you are not only learning about public relations, but you are integrating yourself into the culture and society of the country you are living in at a given point in time.

Here I am on Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa (2008)

I have always been a fan of traveling to other countries, and I had the opportunity while I was at USC for my Master’s to go to South Africa for a summer and work in PR.  It was one of the best decisions I ever made and a life changing time for me not only professionally, but personally as well.  This one experience lead to more opportunities to travel when I was in the PhD program at Tennessee and now as an assistant professor at the University of Louisville.

By November, I will have presented my research in several countries such as Australia (November 2012), Brazil (May 2010), China (May 2008), Greece (June 2009), Italy (May 2012), The Netherlands (May 2009), and Turkey (May 2012). I am going to be attending the upcoming RI conference in Milan in a few weeks and then will be in Melbourne, Australia later this year for the World PR Forum.  I am very excited about my presentations at both of these prestigious conferences.

USC Students with Cheetahs in South Africa (2008)

There are several steps you can take when looking at studying or applying for a job abroad, so I would definitely explore these.  Also look at some of the internships offered by some of the major PR firms as well – many of them have international internship opportunities as well.

Studying or working abroad is an investment for sure, but the benefits and opportunities that arise from this are huge for professionals presently, especially young PR graduates entering the workplace.  By traveling and living abroad by yourself – you can experience another world view and network with some amazing professionals.

Having this hands on experience will give you more knowledge about culture, international practices, and emerging technology trends than anything else – so I highly recommend researching and exploring these international internship and position possibilities.  I know I would not be the same person or PR professional today if I did not do an international internship or present at international conferences.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen 

One of the things that I find useful is to have a centralized social media dashboard where I can have all of my social media accounts linked up to.  I have been using Hootsuite for the last couple of years, and I just found out there is a new social media dashboard that not only does what Hootsuite does, but it also creates a reader and newspaper feature as well to your social media updates.  The name of this new social media dashboard is called Bottlenose.

So, it really has transformed into a personalized magazine and newspaper feeling like what Zite and Flipboard have done with their own applications.  So, it allows you to keep up with all of the news, features, and people who are important to you on social media. Fabulous!  You can follow them on Twitter as well (@bottlenoseapp).  Here is a video showing the various features associated with Bottlenose.

What is very cool about this new platform is the fact that it calculates your influence rating by linking it up with Klout. Another feature that I like is the filter option – where it automatically filters updates that are related to specific topics such as news, technology, conferences, and others of interest.  This is extremely helpful since this will allow users to see the information they need from all of the updates and otherwise “noise” that is out there related to a topic.  Very useful.

I would have to say that if you are looking for a one-stop place to 1) update your social media updates 2) look at what people are mentioning about you on these various social media platforms, 3) keep up with the news with reader and the newspaper feature, and 4) want a filter of all of the noise that is out there via social media – than Bottlenose is your place to go!  It is still in beta, but if you are able to sign up and try it out – you will be impressed with its features.

However, it will be interesting to see if Bottlenose will be offering a free account for their users, and when they will start charging for their services.  I know Hootsuite is very reasonable for their services and they do have an option for people to have a free account – which is great.  It will be interesting to see what Bottlenose does when they are out of beta. One thing that I would be interested in as well is what will be some of their analytics features.  Their services are pretty impressive with their social media monitoring, but having a platform to analyze this data in a systematic manner would be very marketable for researchers and practitioners in social media.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen

Pictured above is the famous John Cacioppo and my mother working social media at a convention! My mother was selected as one of the top 50 social media professors! How cool is that!

• feeding social media into your blog!

“Blogging can be hard work, especially when it comes to delivering good quality content on a regular basis. The key phrases there are “quality content” and “regular basis.” We’ll leave it up to you to decide on the timing of your content. Some small business blog writers find that two or three times a week is sufficient.

There are others who publish two or three times a day.  If you aim for daily, you’ll at least have the search engine visiting your site daily, and we know that fresh is best if you have the quality.

The main issue then is quality content.”

• adding augmented reality INTO your library

“This is the key. Imagination with a healthy dose of practicality. You can make great AR experiences when you combine the two to make something people find engaging and adds value.”

• everyone is talking about instagram

“Everyone’s talking about Instagram after the recent $1 billion Facebook acquisition, in just 2 years the app has aquired more than 50 million users. Here’s a nice infographic that shows some pretty impressive stats as Instagram heads toward the 100 million users milestone.”

• new jobs and new categories

“Employment trend watchers have been pinpointing the sectors where jobs are anticipated to increase forever—every five years the BLS projects its own outlook and sites like our list what’s become old news: that careers in a handful of sectors (most linked to technology, a growing concern about the environment and an aging population) are on the rise while others continue to falter. But are they new occupations or simply new ways of meeting existing needs?”

One of the things on my to-do list this summer besides getting ready for conference presentations, organizing research projects, and of course preparing for Kristin’s wedding in June (super excited! ), is to start organizing my reading list for my upcoming Social media and mobile technologies course at the University of Louisville.  This is going to be the first time I will be teaching a social media class at Louisville – I helped out with the social media class at the University of Tennessee during my last year in the PhD program.

I am still working on my final book list for my students (undergraduates and graduate students), so I have been building my library focusing on social media and public relations.  Which is what lead me to Deirdre Breakenridge‘s latest book titled “Social media and Public Relations: Eight new practices for the PR professional.”

I have been a fan of Deirdre’s books as well as her Twitter conversations she shares with other professors, practitioners, and students in public relations.  I first read her book with Brian Solis focusing on bringing back the “public in public relations”- and she was even one of the social media influencers I used for my SMI study a few years ago.

Deirdre presented a few of eight new best practices for public relations professionals on how to best use and implement social media at their various organizations and institutions.  Each chapter focused on a particular best practice as well as highlighted interviews and insights from key PR professionals in each of these areas.  The individuals interviewed for this book was very impressive.

There were a couple of parts of the book I thought Deirdre really was able to captivate the reader.  I felt her analysis and insight into the issue of influence was very good – there are so many definitions and perspectives of what influence on social media is, but Deirdre did a good job in discussing what influence is and what it isn’t.  Second, I was pleased to see a section for a Pre-Crisis Doctor.  Crisis communications within social media is absolutely a big area of not only practice and consulting, but research as well.  The importance of taking actions and listen before a crisis occurs and be aware of the emerging technologies is critical, which is discussed in this section of the book.

For future editions, there may be some additions that can be made in this section in particular.  There is a Twitter conversation for crisis and social media professionals and it is under the hashtag #smem.  In addition, there are some leading bloggers and influencers in this field as well that may be wonderful professionals to interview – such as Gerald Baron (CrisisBlogger), Kim Stephens (iDisaster), Jim Garrow, Melissa Agnes, and Patrice Cloutier to name a few.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading Deirdre’s new book – it was very insightful and provided great suggestions for best practices for not only professionals, but researchers and students as well.  I am sure this book would be a great addition to have for students in a social media class.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen