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Why IUPUI School of Journalism Students Should Take #J560 Online Public Relations

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I really believe J560 Online Public Relations through the IUPUI School of Journalism should move from an elective status to being a required class.

This class is for all students, even those who think they have mastered social media because they are already active on multiple platforms. I was one of those students and realized halfway into the semester that I really did not know it all. I still don’t, but realize we should always be students, even after graduation.

Being a lifelong student is critical to keeping up with the ever changing world of online public relations. So here is what you can learn over 12 weeks in 12 simple statements:

  1. It’s the best environment for learning how to brand oneself in the age of social media.
  2. If you don’t know your personal brand, this class will bring you many steps closer to figuring that out.
  3. It will challenge you to step up your social media game in a real world environment.
  4. You will learn how to have meaningful online conversations with people you don’t know.
  5. You will learn that video is king and needs to be a regular part of your social media posting schedule to increase your influence online.
  6. You will learn how to integrate many different social mphoto (1)edia platforms into your personal branding experience.
  7. You will be a huge step ahead of your peers who have not taken this class.
  8. You will have created some new professional habits that you will want to integrate into your daily life going forward.
  9. You will groan at the social media postings quota at the beginning of the semester, but be excited to keep up the schedule when the class is complete.
  10. You will increase your social media clout. Be sure to sign up at www.klout.com at the beginning of the semester to begin measuring your social media influence. Karen's Klout score image
  11. You will learn why Google Plus is becoming the “it girl” and how it is important to your personal branding adventure.
  12. You will have a great time and meet some great people along the way!
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Thoughts on Public Relations

A get-in-your-face public relations strategy that works

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I love a good success story, especially when the story comes from my own experiences.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I work for a membership-based association. Over the past couple of years I have been contemplating ways to inspire engagement among our less active members.

As I noted in my blog post, The value of face-to-face meetings: They never grow old, I have been studying participation data from things like member surveys, event attendance, etc., and have been integrating the findings into the overall public relations plan for my association.

gomer pyleLast year I studied participation data for a very important survey that a certain segment of our membership (we’ll call them Group A) uses to plan their budgets. The problem has been that Group A must rely on another segment of our membership (we’ll call them Group B) to complete this survey. In that previous blog post I mentioned, we used our spring district travel season to visit those Group B members who had not been filling out the survey from year-to-year. And those visits worked because some of those Group B members did end up filling out the survey.

Fast forward one year later.

We are in the midst of spring district travel season again, and I analyzed a similar set of engagement data. This year we specifically were looking for members that have not routinely attended association events. Once again we are in the process of visiting those members as we head to our district meetings (we have six district meetings in which we provide association updates and hold officer elections).

Guess what happened? Some members who had not previously registered for those district meetings showed up at the meeting after we dropped by their offices on the way to the meeting. Face-to-face really does work!

 

 

Humorous to me, Inside my head, Thoughts on Public Relations

A PR makeover for sticks and stones

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I like words.

Words are amazing because, by themselves, they can take on a whole different meaning depending on how they are used. I’ve seen words crafted to make the impossible happen. Some people don’t think about words before they use them. I feel sorry for those people because they are missing out on all the wonderful things that can happen when words are used wisely. Things like friendship and trust. Seeing people begin to care about issues that previously had no relevance to their lives. Yes, words are wonderful, but some words I’d like to strike altogether.

sticksandstones

I think we’ve all felt this way from the earliest of ages when our preschool peers used words like sticks and stones. Mind you, I am never one to spend much time seething over a poor use of words when used to describe me in ways I don’t prefer. But it would be fun to do a makeover of certain words. Please feel free to play along with me. Let me start with the words used to describe me…

A makeover of words

Obsessive now equals focused

Driven is really the pursuit of excellence

Procrastinator shall now be called thinker

Crazy daredevil is now adventurous

Impulsive is really seizing the moment

And finally, my favorite: introvert…. This word really needs a whole set of phrases: detail oriented, thorough planner, strategic, problem solver, sees past the surface of things, can use wits to make anything happen. People confuse introvert with being shy, but as any real introvert would know, you can be extremely introverted and friendly at the same time. Can I hear an Amen to that?

Your turn now!