Karen’s PR & Social Media Blog

This week is our Spring Break at the University of Louisville – it is amazing with how fast this semester has gone by! Guess this happens when you are busy with research, classes, and consulting! With this in mind, I took this opportunity to travel back to SLO to visit Mom, Dad, and Karla.  From baking cookies to spending time in warm weather to walks to coffee shops, it has been a very relaxing and enjoyable time with my family.

One of the many gifts I got on my way out to CA – classic!

One of the things I had the chance to do also was guest lecture for Mom’s class – yes, Mom is the original Dr. Freberg. While Mom teaching neuroscience and intro to psychology classes, there is definitely a crossover between PR and Psychology.  In fact, one of our founders of modern day PR was Edward Bernays, who was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.  Small world!

I talked with Mom’s students today about the growing presence and influence social media has for online reputation management.  I discussed how monitoring is becoming more apparent not only among universities (looking at the various services they hire to monitor what athletes, students, faculty, and others say about the university) to brands and employers screening potential candidates.

This was the same lecture I gave my students in my social media class – I believe this is one subject that all students, no matter the major, needs to be exposed to.  I had several students come up to me after class saying they want to create a blog to take ownership of their online persona and even become more active on sites like LinkedIn.  I also got a lot of interest among the students for the site SimpleWash as well to clean up their profiles on Facebook and Twitter.

Mom in her office at Cal Poly – very decorative and cool!

It was a fun day spending time with Mom in her natural habitat – she is an excellent professor and one of my role models for me as a professor.  Both Mom and Dad have been actively engaged in the classroom and research (both in psychology and marketing), and I feel that I have grown a lot as a professor from learning from both of them.  It was great to learn from the original Dr. Freberg!

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen

I was able to participate in an event celebrating the scholarly accomplishments of student-athletes.  This was the first time for me since I have been at the University of Louisville.  I had the chance to be invited to the Red & Black Scholar-Athlete Banquet and Awards ceremony last night at the Brown Williamson Club, which is located in the Papa John’s Football Stadium at UofL.

Attending the 17th Red & Black Scholar Athlete Banquet

I was invited by one of my current students, Maria, who is a track and field distance runner who was in my Intro to Strategic Communications class last semester and is currently in my StratComm Writing class.  Maria has done extremely well in both of my classes and really does bring in her time management and work ethic into the classroom. I also had the chance to see some of my other current and former students getting introduced and acknowledged at the banquet as well.  I was truly honored with this invitation to be part of this great event showcasing some amazing scholar student-athletes.

There were 300+ student athletes who all achieved a cumulative GPA of a 3.25 – which is quite an accomplishment! Faculty from all different departments were present as guest to celebrate the student-athletes.

I’m listed under faculty mentors! Very honored by this!

As a professor now, I have the opportunity to see the academic landscape from this point of view and remember what it was like as a student-athlete both at the University of Florida and Southern California.  I do discuss my times as a student-athlete in the classroom because track has shaped who I am presently and was the reason why I got involved so much with new media.

In addition, I understand the expectations and duties that come with student-athletes and how their sport is like a full time job.  They have to compete but also manage their time effectively while also being professional as one of the many faces of the universities for the community and media. It’s a very rewarding opportunity to represent the university this way.

I have been retired from track and field for over six years, but it is great to be part of athletics in this new chapter of my life. I was truly honored to be part of this great event.  It was wonderful to be part of this great event and the University of Louisville Athletics Department staff and personnel really hosted a wonderful event for all parties involved.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen

Social media has become of course a popular topic to cover in the classroom.  Many professors have created classes on the topic – but what I have found is that there are professors, and then there are innovators in the field.  One of these professors who is leading the charge in creating not only creative exercises, but preparing them effectively for the real world, is Assistant Professor Amber Hutchins of Kennesaw State University.

I think Amber has been one of the most innovative professors when it comes to teaching and researching in social media for PR professionals.  She has been really leading the way for cutting edge assignments and tools to share with her students to practice with. I had a chance to speak to her PR and social media class this afternoon virtually.  Not through Skype, but with Google+ Hangouts.

Google+ Hangouts is a great way to not only use it for guest presentations, but also for virtual office hours and meetings.  What is also cool about this as well is you can actually record the sessions from Google+, which Amber was able to do for the students who were not able to make it to the webinar today.  You can view our discussion from today in the video below:

My presentation today was similar to the one I did last fall with Amber’s class, which was my first guest lecture via Google+.  We had a chance to catch up and talk about various items before I started the presentation, including our shared enthusiasm for coffee, Angry Birds, and the BBC show Sherlock (best show ever!)

The topic focused on visual storytelling, which was also what I discussed just a few days ago on the PR News webinar.  I had a chance to share with the students insights on what exactly is visual storytelling, what are some tools and apps PR professionals can use to be able to share their stories for their clients (brands, corporations, and even individuals), and what are some best practices.

I have always enjoyed doing guest lectures and I was very impressed with the students in Amber’s class today. Everyone was professional and very enthusiastic about social media – which is exciting to hear! Big thanks to Amber for inviting me to be part of her class today – she is not only a leader in the field, but a wonderful friend and colleague.  Thank you so much Amber again for this wonderful opportunity.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen

It has been a great week in my UofL Social Media class.  This week, we had students write about a variety of topics on their blogs, mostly surrounding around infographics as well as other topics like the viral video sensation Harlem Shake as well as other topics like Valentine’s Day, Health and Infographics, Social Media Webinars, and Disney. We also had a busy week with two great guest speakers, Lisa Sands of Whole Foods and Robert Young of the Kentucky Derby Festival.

Lisa Sands of Whole Foods speaking to class about their social media efforts via Skype

Lisa discussed the role and power of social consumers and what Whole Foods was doing in terms of their social media efforts.  Lisa was one of my former students in the WVU IMC program, and is one of the most hard working, dedicated, and innovative IMC professionals I know. I really appreciated the fact Lisa came and spoke to our class via Skype – she did an amazing job and provided some great advice and points related to social media best practices with the students.

Robert Young (VP of PR for Kentucky Derby Festival) sharing insights on what they are doing with social media for class.

Robert is the VP of Public Relations for the Kentucky Derby Festival and shared with the class insights about what they are doing for the festival involving social media.  It was great hearing the various strategies and insights he was willing to share with the students, including a huge list of hashtags they have to monitor for the event.  It was an entire page – amazing! Robert also shared with the students what they are doing with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and mobile media as well. It was very informative to the students and to me – wonderful presentation!  Lizelle wrote a very nice post on the analysis of both of these speakers on her blog and Heather provided a very detailed and insightful post about Robert’s presentation to our class.

As I mentioned before, several students wrote about infographics this semester in class this week, which Brittni provided a nice overview of what infographics are and their main characteristics. Jessica was very enthusiastic about learning about infographics because it is right up her alley.  Heather really got into the rationale on why she particularly likes infographics from a statistics and visual point of view while Jessica and Caitlin discussed the main characteristics that go into creating one of these graphics from a strategic point of view.

Elle shared in her blog post about how infographics are good to look at in case you have to present research, statistics, and other complex information to your key audiences. The visual component is what a lot of students mentioned in their blogs this week, including Sarah and Ashley. While the students were all asked to share visuals in their blog posts, Hunter provided a good video about infographics in his post.

Kara’s post on Harlem Shake was great because it not only provided a brief history of the viral sensation sweeping the nation, but featured the Men’s BB version of the sensation as well. Lizelle also wrote about the Harlem Shake as well, but she also showcased her favorite videos from UGA and Florida along with the one made at the basketball game this week.

Overall, it has been another great week in my social media class here at the University of Louisville.  The students are working on their social media campaign proposals for their clients as well as preparing for other assignments for the class.  These are a great group of students and they are doing a wonderful job with their blogs.  Definitely check them out and feel free to follow the class hashtag #Freberg13 on Twitter for all class discussions and topics.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen

I am currently teaching a social media class this semester at the University of Louisville. I have a range of assignments for my students to do this semester is to create and maintain a blog.  Some have blogged in the past and for some, this is their first time blogging.

I think blogging is a key skill and component for all public relations and strategic communication professionals.  One of the things I have done is share my experience with my students about the benefits of blogging and what opportunities may arise from this.

Plus, it is also a platform where they can not only practice writing and discussing key elements in social media, but also establish their own presence and share their story with the rest of the digital community.  Each student has unique experiences that shape who they are as individuals – so this is a perfect platform to tell your story and point of view.  There are many wonderful opportunities here for students to take advantage, which is one of the reasons why I assigned this assignment for the class.

This week, we discussed the issue of privacy and ethics related to social media in class.  My students have blogged about a variety of issues ranging from the recent release of the Facebook Graph Search feature to the latest crisis emerging in sports from an ethical standpoint.

Here are a few samples I would like to share with you all.  These are their first blog posts for the semester – so keep an eye out for more posts throughout the semester.

• Caitlin’s Communication Blog
• NatasaschaJC 
• Tech Talks w/ LestellLizelle
• Confessions of an Anglophile (Heather)

It has been really great to see how each student so far has established their own digital voice and presence so far in class.  I am looking forward to their future posts and commentary on social media. Feel free to follow their progression via Twitter by looking for the hashtag #Freberg13.

Hope you all are having a great day.

Best Wishes,

Karen