50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

Being that most of us in class have just created a Twitter account it is nice to learn everything we can about it. Chris Brogan gives a great list of 50 ideas on using Twitter for business. He broke the list into five parts:

• First Steps
• Ideas About What to Tweet
• Some Sanity for You
• The Negatives People will Throw at You
• Some Positives to Throw Back
  

I thought that it was important that we remember to keep our Tweets and Twitter page to a human level.

Under the, ideas about what to tweet, list Chris suggested to share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.

We need to remember that Twitter won't come easy at first but there are many different sites that can give us great advice just like this one.

Women and Spirituality Conference

MANKATO, Minn.- Minnesota State University, Mankato will be hosting the 28th annual Women and Spirituality conference, October 31. The keynote speaker this year will be Dr. Vandana Shiva, physicist, author and international leader.

Dr. Shiva combines sharp intellectual enquiry with courageous activism. She founded Navdanya, a national Indian-based movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources.

Time Magazine identified Dr. Shiva as an "environmental hero" in 2003. She is scheduled to speak on Saturday, October 31 at 11 a.m. in the Centennial Student Union Ballroom.

The conference does not advocate or exclude any view and continues to foster an understanding and celebration of similarities and differences. The conference has more than 100 workshops to attend.

For more information you can visit the gender and women's studies website.

Social Media Releases

In Chapter 8 of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations by Brian Solis there is information all about the old, the new and the brand new worlds of social media releases. I found the list of ten principles for good, well-written news releases very important for anyone going into public relations. The ten principles that serve the foundation are:
1. Elevate the message.
2. Inform, don't persuade.
3. Write with balance.
4. Include traditional and New Media.
5. Be informative.
6. Provide resources and add links.
7. Use available Social Media channels to open up and distribute
dialogue.
8. Listen.
9. Converse.
10. Learn.

The last three on the list will be the most important to us as young PR professionals just starting out. It will be important to listen to our superiors and see the different styles of how they are writing social media releases. The conversations we have between the people we work with will allow us to learn from ourselves and also others.

Dave Fleet

I found Dave Fleet's post on a list of key attributes to have for both traditional and new public relations skills very informative. In all of our classes we have always been drilled to know that writing is always an important skill for public relations; writing being one on Fleet's list.

I liked what Fleet said about work ethic. Professors have said that a job in PR is not always going to be 9 to 5 but it is also important to help others out even though it means you will have to stay an extra hour. Putting a little more effort into your work will pay off in the end.

Two attributes on the list that I thought could compliment each other well were, being proactive and blogging. I am new to the blogging crowd but there are many different websites, blogs and also classes that I can be proactive in to learn the basic skills. We can start being proactive with our assignments in class or when we are researching. First try and find the answer to your question and then seek others for help to find your answer.

I really found all of Dave Fleet's information very useful. I will be adding him on Twitter because I feel like he will bring more information to the table that I will be able to use for the future.

PR 2.0

In the book, 'Putting the Public Back in Public Relations' by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge, there is a Chapter by the title of PR 2.0 vs. Public Relations.
Throughout the Chapter we are supposed to remember that PR is about the people and not about the tools. I think that we should remember this not only through the book we are reading in this class but also throughout our career choices in PR.
The Chapter brought up the 'black mark' that inevitably occurred in 2001 which meant the Internet and PR spin were on the rise. Many PR professionals and agencies suffered and lost credibility. Although this was a large problem in 2001 I think that some agencies are still feeling the negative feed back. It is important as a PR Professional to uphold integrity and credibility at all times.
From the first few chapters I see that it is very important to remember the golden rule and the code of ethics, no matter which code you follow. Remembering that PR is about people and not about the tools is something to always remember. Always check and recheck facts and dates; credibility is something that will either make or break a reputation.

Is Facebook Like Google, or More Like Yahoo?

I found a blog that talked about Facebook vs. Twitter on 'The Social Media Guide-Mashable.' The blog named,'Is Facebook Like Google, or More Like Yahoo?' briefly discusses the journey both Google and Yahoo have taken.

The blog shows how Yahoo went from incorporation to IPO in one year and started acquiring different companies and diversifying itself away from the standard search engine. Yahoo had acquired classic games, sportasy, viaweb, webcal, message boards, news, instant messenger, clubs and calenders in a matter of three years.

Google on the other hand was Incorporated in 1998 and didn't make is first acquisition until 2001 (Google Groups). It took Google six years to go from founding to IPO and didn't start establishing google maps, blogger, igoogle or gmail until several years after they launched. Early on Google's main goal was to be the best search engine on the web. Having that goal be their main focus has made Google grow into one of the most profitable, powerful and popular destinations on the web.

The blog compared Facebook and MySpace to Yahoo and then Twitter to Google. The blog talks about the potential identity crisis that Facebook could go through when deciding what it really would like to be in the future whether it be a full-featured social network, an application platform, an identity platform, a micro blogging platform, a real-time search engine, or something.


With my experience with Facebook it always seems like they are finding a different application to add or a different layout to try out. Facebook seems to almost have Attention Deficit Disorder when deciding how they want to be. Facebook is now trying to reconnect with the users that they have lost to twitter by launching Facebook Lite, which is just like Facebook but with all of the many applications cut out and with less tabs to go through to get to what you want. Do I think Facebook is slowly going downhill just like Yahoo? No, but I do think that if Twitter keeps on the track of being simple, professional and easy to use they could be the top networking devices that we use. As I am getting older I can see a definite pattern of which social networking devices I use, in high school I was on Myspace and now in college I was more attracted to what Facebook had to offer and as I am looking towards my future out of college, Twitter is becoming more and more appealing.

Code of Ethics

Today in class we talked about the code of ethics in public relations. We looked at the PRSA code of ethics just to get an idea of how it works. There are going to be ethical codes that we will need to follow in the future whether it be for PRSA, our company or even in life. When we went over the principles of ethical research it was clear that the participants in the survey being done must know every detail that is going on in the study. The participant needs to know that they are being involved in a research study and that they can withdraw at any time. The researchers must not mislead the participants at any time. The participants cannot be harmed or punished in anyway during the study.

If you offer an award for participating you must follow through. Results are usually promised to the participants and to the companies who hire the researchers. However the company has propriety over surveys and all information taken during the study.

The Machine

The video, The Machine is us/ing US, on YouTube expressed that our society is becoming more dependent on communicating through the web. Public Relations is providing information between an organization and its public's. It is best to make a personal impact on the clients and always doing work through a computer to communicate loses that.
The main implication I see for the future of PR is that companies will no longer do face-to-face business with their clients. This will put less demand on students to take speech and intensive writing courses. Intsead students will be pushed to take more computer and technical communication classes.
More work will be done on the computer and less hands on. The need for a creative drive will slowly die. I see the requirements for public relations being words per minute being typed and the ablitly to create a webpage, blog or company toolbox online.