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