TOW Week 11: Delicious
Discuss how college students (especially those working in groups) could benefit from social bookmarks. Be sure to include a link to your Delicious bookmarks in your blog post.
For this week’s topic, I created an account on Delicious.com. You can find my bookmarks at:
http://delicious.com/jessicacameron19
Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows you to tag, save, manage and share Web pages all in one place. With emphasis on the power of the community, Delicious greatly improves how people discover, remember and share on the Internet.
Delicious encourages users to organize and plan. Bookmarking sites, like Delicious can be used to bookmark those sites which you visit frequently or want to remember so that you can revisit at a later date. Along with the social aspect of Delicious, the site can also be used to assist with group work and projects.
Lets say for example that I am working with a group for a school project and I conducted some research. I want to save those sites which I will use as my sources so that I can double-check my reference page and re-visit those sites to conduct more research. Not only am I able to locate those once visited sites easily, I can also share my bookmarked pages with my group members so they are able to see my sources and findings on the web.
Tools like Delicious are becoming increasingly popular as social media and other aspects of the internet evolve. I only wish that I had known about social bookmarking sites like this one when I was working on group research projects throughout my time here at Georgia Southern University. Delicious certainly would have come in handy in the past 5 years, but I am thankful I now know the benefits as I am entering the professional world in just a few weeks. I can’t wait to share my knowledge with my younger sister who will soon have to work on her first group research project.
Survival Guide Ch. 6
Chapter 6: Social Networking & Micro-Blogging
- Social networking is one of the most powerful social media strategies you can implement.
- Most social networking sites allow you to create a personal profile page to post information about you or your business, invite people to join your network, join groups, blast messages and events, and connect with other people.
- Facebook is currently the fastest growing social networking site and an ideal first choice for anyone or any business wanting to get a solid foothold in the Social Web.
- There are many social and professional networking sites out there. The best thing to do however is to find the ones that are the best fit for you or your business and your needs.
- MySpace is like a combination of a Facebook page and a Facebook profile.
- LinkedIn is more of a professional networking site than a social one. This site is a great tool for people wanting to connect with other professionals, or for those seeking professional positions. It is also ideal for consultants and service firms seeking clients.
- Twitter is considered a micro-blogging platform. It is a bit of a hybrid between blogging and social networking. This basic concept of combining blogging and social networking. This basic concept of combining blogging and interactivity has become so popular that, as we saw in both Facebook and LinkedIn, many of the other networks now have this same feature builty in. The basic premise is for people to stay in touch through quick, frequent answer to one simple question: “What are you doing?”
- A good social networking strategy includes establishing a healthy presence in one or more of hte above staple networkings sites, coupled with a presence in a couple of niche sites that put you in front of potential clients and affiliates in your area of expertise.
- If you have a large readership or following who tend to have a lot to say to each other, you might consider creating your own social network. There are a number of ways to create a social network using CMSs such as Joomla, Drupal, or Ning.com.
Note: The reading notes above came from the textbook A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web. 2.0 Optimization: Strategies, tactics, and tooks for succeeding in the social web. This is a book written by Deltina Hay.
PR Professional Interview
I interviewed Scottie Brown Davis, a graduate of Georgia Southern University. Scottie is the marketing manager at Pineland Telelphone Cooperative in Metter, Georgia. Scottie and I were in the same sorority, Kappa Delta together. This interview was conducted over the phone.The questions I asked her and her responses are at the end of this post. I feel like I learned quite a bit from her and will definitely pay more attention to the things that she said she uses most.My Interview with Scottie did not necessarily make me form any more of an opinion on a career in public relations, but I do know that this the PR field is something I am still very interested in going into when I graduate in May. I would rather work at a somewhat larger company, not necessarily for such a small town communications company.
1. What is your current job and what does it entail?
I am the Marketing Manager at Pineland Telephone Cooperative in Metter, Georgia. Pineland Telephone is a telecommunications company that specializes in telephone, high-speed internet, and digital television services. I am in charge or all marketing, public relations and advertising for the company. This includes website maintenance, creating publications and manuals, and radio and newspaper advertisements. I am also in charge of creating ads for our local public service announcement channel, community involvement programs, and a bi-monthly newsletter.
2. Did you graduate with a degree in public relations? YES
3. What is one piece of advice you would give students majoring in PR?
The one peace of advance I would give is that every student should take the PR Publications class. Learning the Adobe Suite has given me the skills I need to advance my career,. I use the Adobe Suite programs everyday at work.
4. What have you learned the most in your career that you did not learn in college?
In College- most people get by with learning just what they need to. In the business, the more you know, the farther up you will move. LEARN!!!
5. What piece of information that you learned while in college have you used most in your career?
The one piece of information would defiantly been the skill knowledge I gained from the PR Publications class.
6. Tell me about a project you worked on that you are especially proud of.
I re-created, designed, and developed the new Pineland Telephone website.
7. What three tips would you offer someone just starting out in PR?
1. Realize that even if you think you know everything- you really don’t.
2. Pay attention to your surroundings, and if you get a chance to learn something- take advantage of it. You can never know too much!
3. Learn from your mistakes and grow from them!
8. How important is writing in your career? Somewhat
9. What has surprised you the most about working in PR?
Deadlines are the most important thing!
10. What do you wish you would have known before starting your career in PR?
Oh gosh- who knows J
11. How has PR changed since you entered the field?
I have only been in the field for two years, so not much.
12. Do you feel today’s students are prepared for the challenges of new PR? NA
13. What’s a typical week like? (If no week is typical, then what was last week like?)
Design weekly ad or promotion, update website and any pricing as needed, meeting with business associates and co-workers, deal with customer problems, meet deadlines, and then start back over.
Survival Guide Ch. 5
Chapter 5: Podcasting, Vidcasting, & Webcasting
- A podcast is a series of audio or video files that is distributed over the Internet.
- A podcast can be syndicated or subscribed to.
- A podcast is an RSS fee.
- A podcast includes both audio and video files.
- Before you create your first episode, you should be clear about the purpose of the podcast. People expect consistency as to the topics your episodes will cover.
- Publishing options for your podcast:
1. Use a blogging platform
2. Publish to your website
3. Use a service such as HipCast or Audio Acrobat
- Audacity is a good freeware choice for recording audio for your podcast. You need to get a decent microphone for your computer first or the quality of your podcasts will suffer.
- After your podcast is recorded you will need to save the file as an MP3. In order to do this, you will need to go to File…Export as MP3 in Audacity.
- After recording your podcast, the next step will be to upload your MP3 file to your hosting site. Using FTP is the preferred method for getting your files onto your site.
- As you create your podcast and episodes, keep the following three optimization points in mind:
1. Many audio & video search engines now use speech recognition to identify key terms within podcasts. So make sure you write each episode to include your best key terms, and that you use these same key terms in the file’s metadata and on teh landing page of each podcast episode.
2. You add the metadata for each podcast episode when you save it as an MP3 file. Repeat key terms from the actual spoken episode in this metadata.
3. The page where each podcast episode resides is called its landing page. Again, make sure you repeat your best key terms on this page, and especially repeat terms that are spoken in the podcast episode.
- Once your podcast is published, you will want to burn it to FeedBurner and optimize it.
- A webcast is an online broadcast, and usually consists of a series of uploaded videos. They can be viewed either on Webcasting sites or embedded into your Website or blog.
- Webcasts are also called channels. YouTube lets you create channels that you can regularly add videos to.
Note: The reading notes above came from the textbook A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web. 2.0 Optimization: Strategies, tactics, and tooks for succeeding in the social web. This is a book written by Deltina Hay.
Survival Guide Ch. 2-3
Chapter 2: Preparation
- Keywords are the terms that help search engine robots properly categorize your Website in the search engines.
- In social application, “tags” are the equivalent to keywords or key terms.
- Before you begin creating your profile you need to make two decisions:
1. What “entity” will you be representing in the Social Web?
2. Which person within your organization will be representing you in the Social Web?
- After answering each of the two above questions, decide on a couple of your best tags and be sure to use that tag in every description and biography from that point forward.
Chapter 3: RSS Feeds & Blogs
- RSS=Really Simple Syndication
- RSS feed is a way of syndicating (sharing) information across the Internet.
- A feed can be compared to that of a subscription, like getting your local paper delivered to your doorstop, every story within the paper is delivered to your desktop.
- Before you are able to subscribe to an RSS feed, you will need to access a feed reader or a “aggregator.” A popular feed reader is Google Fee Reader.
- RSS fee is an XML file that is formatted so any feed reader can decipher and organize the contents of the file. The result is a file containing many stories (called items) that is kept up to date by the feed’s author.
- A blog is an RSS feed.
- You do NOT need a reader to access RSS feeds, only to subscribe to them.
- There are options for creating an RSS feed
1. Create your RSS feed from an XML file
2. Use software to create your RSS feed
3. Use your blog as your RSS feed
- A blog is a tool for posting information chronologically and allowing others to comment. Posts can be organized into categories and indexed using tags that are read by blog indexes (much the same way as key terms are read by search engines.)
Note: The reading notes above came from the textbook A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web. 2.0 Optimization: Strategies, tactics, and tooks for succeeding in the social web. This is a book written by Deltina Hay.
Senoia? In a TV show?
I work at an Irish pub when I head back to my hometown for the weekends. Maguire’s Family & Friends is located in Senoia, Georgia and has been open for 2 years now. Maguire’s is a family owned pub and was one of a kind until recently a second location was opened in Morrow, Georgia in the Olde Towne district. I love working for the Maguire family. It truly is a one of a kind place in the area. There is not another place like it.
Some of you may have heard about the Lifetime Network series Drop Dead Diva. There are a couple episdoes where restaraunt or bar scenes were filmed inside Maguires. This was great publicity for the small town of Senoia, along with Maguires. It brought people in from all over the state to see what the big fuss was about. This upcoming season of Drop Dead Diva, one of the owners, Wendy Maguire will be featured in the show.
The Bachelor’s Vienna is a WHAT?
Okay, as you reality TV buffs may know, Vienna (the evil blonde) won out Jake’s heart on this season of the Bachelor. Yes, she was hated by many across the nation for her vindictive side, fried hair extensions, and scandelous attitude on the show. But if the beautiful Jake Pavelka is happy, we’re happy right?
Not only did Vienna win the show, but it also came out that she was in a sorority…Kappa Delta. Now I am a KD at Georgia Southern and most people know that you can’t base a sorority at one school on the same one at a different school in a different state. But it’s hard not to imagine that Vienna being a part of something might influence those girls who are going through recruitment the following fall here. Is that what these girls first opinion is going to be? On Vienna? I hope not, but I think this is why National Kappa Delta has rules in which you may not contact the press or state publicly on any national or local broadcast that you are a KD unless you are talking about a KD function.
TOW Week 9 & 10: PROpenMic
The topic of the week for weeks nine and ten was PROpenMic. PROpenMic is a social network for students, faculty, and practitioners. They claim to be a worldwide network for connections and learning.
I have been a member of PROpenMic for a little over a year now. Although I have created an account, I am not a frequent user of the site. This social networking site, like many others, gives you, the user, the ability to post information about yourself including a link to your blog and Twitter. It even allows you to add photos if you choose.
One of the cool things about PROpenMic is the “Job/Internships” section. On this particular part of the site you are able to see recent searchs for job and internships resources. If you were to click on a link in this section, it takes you right to the source of the posting and you are able to find contact information in order to start the application process. The major PR publications that help keep a running list of job and internship openings on this site are:
PROpenMic has a “forum” section. A forum is an online discussion board, sometimes also called message boards. Members are able to post discussion questions or topics. These are great for getting feedback or advice, especially from practitioners.
There is also a video section located on the social networking site. You are able to narrow your search for videos by choosing from the following categories:
- PR Week video interviews
- YouTube PR channels
- Daily Dog video channel
- PR OpenMic video chat
This site also offers group and event capabilities. As a member you are able to create events and visit other events members have created through the site. There are groups that have been created by other members. If you are familar with Facebook.com, the groups are similar to the ones on that particular site. You are able to create groups and join groups according to your interests or activiites.
Although PROpenMic is similar to other social networking sites available, I think that it is also has a uniqueness that other sites do not have with it’s forum capabilities and the job/internships section.
Internship Advice
I asked UGA graduate, Lindley Curtis what advice she had for PR students completing an internship. This is what she had to say:
No matter what type of PR internship you have, you should always do the following five things:
1. Ask questions often. If you are not sure how to do something, ask. It takes more time to redo something if you don’t do it right. By asking questions you get to learn more about the business and your boss can tell that you are interested in learning how to do it right…the first time. Also, always ask if you can sit in on meetings with/about clients because it will enable you to have a better understanding of your work and why y’all are doing certain assignments. Always ask to take the first whack at writing a release because your enthusiasm will be appreciated, and who knows, your work, might just be what gets to be used. You also have a better understandig of the client/project and the project’s edits if you had a hand in it from inception. Just as you should research the company/agency/organization before you apply for the internship, continue to research always so maybe you can teach your team new things about your clients!
2. Welcome challenges. If you’ve been at an internship for 3 weeks, and all you have done is draft releases, let your boss know that you are interested in doing more. Show them what else you can do. It is important to make yourself as marketable as possible by gaining experience with writing, editing, pitching, social media, event planning, media list compiling and distribution, etc.
3. Look for opportunities for your clients/organization–your boss/team and client will appreciate it. This can be done by staying abreast on the current news, technologies, etc. Register with HARO (Help A Reporter Out), so that you can get listings of editorial needs that might be ablicable to your organization or a client. One easy thing to do (in the Atlanta area) if you’re doing PR for a nonprofit organization is Mugs in the Morning with 11Alive news–it’s easy and always gets picked up. Your boss will be impressed that you are looking for opportunities for your client/organization.
4. Learn the new technologies. Companies/agencies/clients are always looking to stay on top of new trends and using them correctly. Make sure that you have the best understanding of how to tweet, when you should use a Facebook group page instead of a Facebook fan page, how to upload to YouTube, etc. The older people working right now are not as familiar with this technologies as we are, and by having a strong understanding of how they work, we can lead up to help them better understand. (The same goes for learning and knowing AP style because it is different today than what it was when your boss first learned it and it is always changing, hence the new stylebook every year!)
5. Make mistakes and learn from them. Don’t be too sensitive if a release you wrote gets torn to shreds. The person who tore your release to shreds has been there before. If you don’t understand what was wrong with what you did, ask questions–it shows you want to make it better and it will help you learn for next time.
I asked Georgia Southern University graduate, Christina Evans what advice she would give to students completing an internship. Here is what she had to say:
- NO matter what, give your all. Whether the internship is for school credit, experience, or money, make sure you give everything you have into the work you are producing. These employers will be your future references and will be honest about how they think you performed while working for them.
- Ask questions. They don’t expect you to know everything. An internship is a learning experience, you are there to learn, so don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know how to do something.
- Do as much as you can to get the most out of your internship. You can choose to get as little or as much out of your internship as you would like. Volunteer to take on extra tasks. Not only does this show initiative, it also allows you to get that much more experience.
- Finally, HAVE FUN! Although you are there to work, have as much fun doing what you are going to school for as you possibly can. I loved my internship and even though it ended up being something completely different than what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, I had a great time and learned a lot.
Trade Book Review
For my Social Media in PR class, we were asked to read a trade book and review it. Below is the powerpoint I created along with voice narration for the book Putting the Public back in Public Relations by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge.
Planet Jess 
