COM 498/598: Social Media and Public Relations

Which is more powerful… online or offline networks?

rdwaters76 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:23:04 +0000

During this week’s lectures, I mentioned several times that someone searching for a job should not neglect an online network for the offline network, and vice versa. Job searching really has evolved into a complex mix of online and offline networks. Sure, the online network has big advantages in reaching out to numerous people from many diverse geographic regions and industries, but there’s something very rewarding about shaking hands and exchanging business cards.

That being said… which of these personal networks do you think have the most power in terms of getting you a job? Online or offline?

The impact of social media on the job search process

rdwaters76 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:15:46 +0000

In the second lecture of the week, I referenced a research study that I have coming out in 2010 in Public Relations Journal that highlighted the differences between student and practitioner views on usefulness of screening social media profiles to help make decisions on bringing people into the office to interview for positions. The research showed that social media profiles were as useful in evaluating candidates as cover letters and resumes, according to the practitioners who completed the survey. Students, on the other hand, felt that there was little value in reviewing social media profiles as they didn’t really provide a true picture of who they were.

We’ve talked about the blurring of personal and professional lines throughout this semester, but specifically it impacts the job search. When people are not brought in for job interviews because of pictures on their Facebook page or tweets they’ve made on Twitter, social media has a solid impact on candidates. Do you think most students are aware of the widespread analysis of social media when it comes to screening candidates for professional positions, or do you think they view Facebook, Twitter, and the like as a purely personal outlet? How should students be informed that those Halloween 2009 party pictures may be viewed by Human Resources departments upon graduation, or that their political rants on blogs or Facebook comments may come back to haunt them? Any ideas?

Tweetup on December 2

rdwaters76 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:49:02 +0000

Hey everyone,
Two quick shout outs to Jamie for letting me know that I totally forgot to provide the most important information in the week’s email regarding the Tweetup. I guess providing a time and place isn’t really that important without the date! So, thank you for letting me know I left it out! And, also a huge thank you to Lauren for setting up a Facebook event notification!

Just wanted to post the information here as well:
What: Com498/598 Tweetup
When: Weds, Dec 2, from 5-6:45pm
Where: Cameron Village Bar & Grill
Why: Celebrating the end of term and answering any questions!

It’s not required. Totally optional, but hope to see some of you out there!

Where should social media be housed in an organization?

rdwaters76 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:45:43 +0000

All semester, we’ve talked about social media from a public relations practitioner perspective and focusing on the role that the various social media applications can play in information dissemination and relationship building with stakeholders. But, social media certainly can take on pure advertising/marketing sales focus or total customer service perspectives if we choose to do so.

That got me thinking about where social media should fit within an organization. Should social media have its own separate department, so that it can hire specialists who focus on applications and bring different perspectives together within a department…. or should social media be left up to the various departments who may use it (again, thinking from an organizational perspective)? There are certainly organizations with multiple Twitter accounts, several blogs, and even different Facebook profiles. I saw plenty of Fortune500 companies that have a “Career Opportunities at XYZ” profile on Facebook in addition to a general company profile. Should an organization’s social media presence be left to one department–or should many partake of the online interaction? And if it is many departments all using social media, how do we start to manage all of them so that the organization’s online presence at least has some similarities across all the various users and accounts?

To merge or not to merge… Is that the question?

rdwaters76 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:36:01 +0000

This term, we’ve covered a lot of different social media applications in relation to public relations. We’ve seen case studies of success from Mahalo with podcasting to HomeDepot’s use of Twitter, and organizations that have done very well across multi-platforms (Southwest Airlines on Flickr, Twitter and its blog). It can be done, no doubt.

But, as many of you found with your Twitter (Part 2) project when you followed various nonprofits, for-profits, and government agencies, not everyone is hitting a homerun with their social media activities. When I was putting together the lists for the social networking site analysis assignment, I saw orgs that were excellent with their Facebook/MySpace presence, and I saw many, many, many that were simply awful.

So with the huge range of success (and failure) in mind, I wanted to ask a few questions to start the blog off this week:

1) Should traditional public relations strategies be merged with social media applications? Perhaps I’m wrong in thinking that they can be done complementary! Maybe it’s best to stick with what we know how to do?
2) What do you think some of the determinants of success are when it comes to using social media at the organizational level?

What is a practitioner’s role in the Blogosphere?

rdwaters76 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:01:24 +0000

We’ve talked all semester long about how public relations practitioners should monitor blogs for conversations about their organizations and how they should respond appropriately when needed. After all, active listening goes a long way to helping build lasting relationships with our stakeholders.

But this week, we introduce the concept of pitching story ideas to blogs and bloggers. Is this going too far? Should blogs be left alone as far as media pitching goes? I’ve seen a good bit of comments in the Twitter stream that bloggers aren’t journalists though some do present neutral perspectives. Should we let them have their thoughts and comments–biased for or against our organizatinos–and let them be?

Or should we try to get them to talk about us more? I’m conflicted on this one personally. I see pros and cons of each side. I wonder if when it comes to blogs, aren’t public relations practitioners better off just monitoring, listening and responding to posts rather than trying to influence what topics are covered?

What makes a blog(ger) credible?

rdwaters76 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:29:45 +0000

One of the conversations from the Twitter stream that really peaked my interest was a question posed by Antoinette. She asked how can we determine which blogs (or bloggers) are credible and which aren’t. I have my own thoughts on this, but I wanted to open it up to a full conversation here to see what other people had to say on it.

But your honor, I was on Facebook all night….

rdwaters76 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:46:01 +0000

I’m not sure how many of you have seen this on CNN, but very recently an individual in New York was arrested for being involved in an armed robbery. The problem was that he was at home on Facebook at his father’s house.

After sitting in jail for nearly 2 weeks, his legal team used his Facebook status update to indicate that he was at home. Information from Facebook was subpoenaed to prove that the update was from the IP address of his father’s Internet-connected computer at home rather than a mobile device. The information showed that the update was made from that account.

It raises several interesting points:

(1) Trackability…. Things you do online can save you (in this case) or haunt you (as we’ll see in the coming weeks regarding social media and employment), either way the information is there for anyone to see. And, I hate to burst anyone’s bubble who thinks that privacy settings really make a difference. Just ask a hacker!

(2) Privacy… Granted this Facebook status update was not the only evidence that got this individual out of jail, it was merely the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. But, without other corrobrating evidence, who’s to say the status would have had the same effect? What’s keeping the father, a sibling, a friend from entering a status update while the crime is being committed? Anyone can really update anyone’s status if they have access. And, what about those pseudo-accounts that are created to help provide cover for individuals–not just for crimes, but for people wanting to be devious and mischevious?

Social media certainly brings along a dark side along with its benefits!

The Press Release

rdwaters76 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:59:27 +0000

I’m getting ready to record the next podcast for this week, and it’s going to talk about the social media news release (aka Press Release 2.0). So I thought I’d preface the lecture with a blog topic that’s related to the lecture.

I know there are quite a few students taking this course who don’t have a public relations background, so you may not have formally been schooled on “the art of the press release.” But, in essence, it’s a one-to-two page news summary sent to the media in hopes of obtaining news coverage.

Well, that’s been the traditional perspective of the press release. We’re starting to see them appear on organization’s Web sites as sort of information updates and news announcements for everyone–not just the media.

How appropriate is this? Is this a form of news that everyone needs? Is the press release format (that you can see in the lecture powerpoint if you aren’t familiar) suitable for everyone? Would we be better off writing newsletters, e-newsletters or blogs to get this information out to different publics? Or has the press release transcended those traditional “to the media” boundaries and is now something that everyone should get in this era of citizen journalism? After all, we all can be journalists…

Does it strike you as odd when…?

rdwaters76 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:27:35 +0000

As I was putting together the information on the convergence of social media and mainstream media, I read several news stories on a variety of news Web sites as well as a few newspapers and saw journalists quoting bloggers and Twitter users in the articles themselves. Call me “old school,” but I’m used to having journalists actually interview people rather than scour social media for support for their story ideas.

When you’re reading news stories on CNN’s, MSNBC’s or Fox News’ web sites, do you have any reaction if the journalist has used a quotation that is a Twitter status or a comment from a blog as a legitimate source? Is it a sign of social media’s increasing influence on society? Is it an indication of the laziness of journalism (eg, using a Google search to find story support rather than going and interviewing individuals), or is it due to budget cutbacks by the mainstream media?