One Week of Twitter

Last week for our Public Relations Writing class we were assigned to create a Twitter account and use it to follow our classmates and various PR professionals.  I already had created an account when I started taking Professor Nixon’s classes so I continued on with the rest of the assignment which was to send out 20 “tweets” and also respond to five of our classmates “tweets”.

I enjoyed this assignment so much!  First, I think that it provided a great introduction to students who do not know much about Twitter.  Twitter is an extremely useful tool in engaging relationships, asking questions, getting answers, and especially networking.

In our field, public relations, I believe that Twitter will be invaluable, if not necessary when trying to accomplish various things.  For example, I have had to do a project recently where it was necessary to use a “Twitter Search” in order to see what the masses were saying about a company/product I was researching.  I’ve also used Twitter to reach out to authors whose books I am reading and reviewing for classes and many of them have responded back to me.  Most of the people on Twitter use it as a tool to engage with others so they generally like for you to “follow them” or even “mention” them and get in contact with them.  This is great for me as I am currently looking for advice often and will be on the job hunt soon.

This past week was great because so many of my classmates were involved with Twitter.  I could see what they were “tweeting” about and even felt like I could share funny or interesting things that were PR related and they would see them.  Often I feel like I am posting interesting links and they are not being seen by anyone in particular.  This past week when I posted a question or a link to something followed by our hashtag (#PRCA3330) I would sometimes get a comment or an answer back.

I loved this assignment and I sincerely hope that my classmates will stick with Twitter so that we may stay connected.  I understand that Facebook is a fun social networking site that is easy to update your status, post photos and message your friends, however I believe Twitter can be used as a more professional platform for students especially in the public relations field.

I will certainly continue using my account to follow Professor Barbra Nixon and my classmates, as well as to follow the top trending topics, and  Professor Nixon’s suggested list of PR professionals.

*Click follow me (above) to follow me on Twitter

What Makes a Story Newsworthy?

There are several basic components of what qualifies as “news”.  Publicists must be familiar with these characteristics in order to write news releases that will move past the media gatekeepers and get published.  These components include but are not limited to, timeliness, prominence, proximity, significance, human interest,unusualness, and newness.  One of the most important aspects may be timeliness since news by definition, must be current.

A publicist can make an article timely in various ways.  First, is to announce something when it first happens.  An example would be the announcement of an organization’s new CEO, or the launch of a new product.  A second way to make something timely would be to provide additional information to an event or situation that is already being covered.  For example during the Olympics, after Shaun White had won his gold medal, reporters continued talking about his win by mentioning his childhood or interviewing him after the medal stand.  A third tactic would be to relate an organization’s product or service to another event that has national recognition and interest.  For example, Kimberly-Clark publicized its toilet paper during halftime of the Super Bowl.  The company used Mike Ditka and an essay contest, “Share Your Cloggiest Moment.”

A good way to get media coverage is to have a “star” attend a grand opening of an organization’s event.  Movie stars, rock stars, and professional athletes do draw media attention, but other types of celebrities can draw attention as well.  For example, a hospital, clinic or shelter can get first-page coverage if a governor or even a mayor, pays a visit.

Another component of news is proximity.  Surveys have shown that generally news releases that are considered acceptable to media gatekeepers are those that have a local angle.  Hometowners are stories that are customized for an individual’s local newspaper emphasizing the local angle in the first paragraph.  Whenever possible the PR writer should attempt to “localize” information.

Another component of news is significance.  Any situation that can affect a substantial number of people is significant.  For example, Harvard recently released a study that said that people who drink “soda” gain an extra 15 pounds per year.  However, keep in mind when judging significance you must not only know how many people will be affected, but also who will be affected.

People love reading about other people.  This is called human interest and it is another component of the news.  Human interest is not restricted to celebrities.  An article may focus on a woman with aids detailing her experience with a sordid clinic and people would rather listen to her story in her own words rather than seeing bar charts showing the state’s decreasing funding for public healthcare clinics.

Newness is another component of what makes news.  New products or services should be written about in a news release.  For example, Apple’s iPod and iPhone generated thousands of articles and blog posts when they were first introduced.

**Some facts/definitions from Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques- 6th Edition by: Denis L. Wilcox

Super Bowl ads 2010. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

This year on February 7, 2010 was the 44th annual Super Bowl.  This year,  I was not as concerned with who the main players were (the Colts and the Saints) but rather what the commercials would be.  For the most part I was not disappointed.

Over the years, the price for a 30 second commercial to be aired during the Super Bowl has changed dramatically.  In 1967 for the first Super Bowl a 30 commercial would cost about $37,500.  In 1987 for the Super Bowl XXI a 30 second commercial cost $600,000.  This year for the 44th Super Bowl commercials cost on average $2.6 million dollars*.  In my opinion, if your company is going to spend so much money producing an ad then the commercial should be perfect.

This year, I had a favorite and a least favorite ad.

My favorite ad was Google’s “Search On”.  You can watch this video below:

This ad was my favorite because it is so romantic. The ad shows a person searching for ways to impress a young “French girl”.  Google then corrects the “searcher” by coming up with the result “How to impress a French Woman”.  The ad is cute because this person seems naive not knowing what truffles are or how to correctly spell the “Louvre”.  It continues by showing the “searcher” at first asking for advice on long distance relationships but they quickly change their mind and instead decide to search for flight and church information.  The ad finishes by the searcher asking for advice on how to assemble a crib.  This ad has shown a person’s relationship formation in about 30 seconds in an incredibly romantic way.  Google did not just market this ad towards women however, it is very popular among men.  Hulu showed that women voted for the ad 81% favorably, and men voted 67% favorably (As of 2/13/2010).

My least favorite ad was Chrysler’s “Dodge Charger”.  You can watch it below.

I disliked the ad for a number of reasons. First it made men in general look like they have no backbone.  They showed these various men looking stone-faced into the camera saying things like “I will say this, I will do this”.  I do not know a single man who behaves like that so to me it was ridiculous and insulting to most men and women who supposedly “make” men do these things without question.  Also, sometimes women do ask men to do things, such as be nice to their mother-in-law or watch “vampire tv shows”,  however does that mean that men need to go out and purchase a Dodge Charger?  This commercial was only marketed towards men, but I think that it is offensive towards women and should offend men as well.

*I found the ad cost estimates here.

PRCA 3330- Topic of the Week 4: NewsU Cleaning Your Copy

Last week for my Public Relations Writing class, I took an online course through Poynter’s News University, called Cleaning Your Copy.  The course, which lasted approximately one hour, covered AP style, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Before taking the course, I was not very familiar with AP style, so I learned the most from that section.  The section covered addresses, ages, abbreviations, capitalization, dates, distances, interstates, money, numbers, percent(ages), telephone numbers, and time.

For example, when using a percentage in AP style, it is one word: 1 percent, or 2.5 percent (you would use decimals not fractions).

Another section which helped me was the grammar section.  This section included, modifiers, pronouns, that/which, that/who, who/whom, verbs, lay/lie, parallel construction, and contractions.

Before I read this section, I’m not sure I was even aware as to what a modifier was.  The grammar section of this course goes into great detail about what modifiers are and what types there are.  There are dangling modifiers, misplaced modifiers, and squinting modifiers.

The other section of grammar which helped me was on that vs. which.  The rule is that you use “which” for clauses that offer incidental information and use “that” for clauses that give necessary information for the sentence.

Here is an example straight from the Cleaning Your Copy course:

The stream which (incidentally, by the way) rises dangerously during flood season, flows near the village.

The stream that flows dangerously during flood season (as opposed to other streams) flows near the village.

The other grammar rule that I found helpful was that “that and which” refer to animals and things, while “who and whom” refer to people. Example:

Right: Many couples with young children also have aging parents who need support.

Wrong: Many couples with young children also have aging parents that need support.

The punctuation section of the course also helped me improve my writing.  I had never fully understood when to use colons.  The rules are as follows:

• You can use a colon instead of a period between two sentences that present contrasting ideas. (Ex: The researchers expected to solve the puzzle of the disease: They found more questions.)
• You can use a colon between two clauses when the second thought adds to the first. (Ex: He explained the bottom line: It’s cheaper to fly.)
• And you can use a colon to introduce a list, but only when it follows an independent clause. (Ex: The president visited three countries on his trip: Japan, England, Korea.)

I found this course extremely helpful and given the fact that it is free am definitely going to use Poynter’s to take more classes in the future.  I will probably take this one (Cleaning Your Copy) over again just so that hopefully I am able to remember all the specific grammar and AP style rules that this course presented so thoroughly!

PRCA 3330. TOW 3- Why are Blog Comments Integral to Blogs?

The Topic of the Week this week is why are blog comments so integral to blogs?

I read a few blog postings on this topic before writing this post.  I started off with Darren Rowse’s post entitled “Blogging with or without Comments?” Rowse poses the question is a blog without comments a blog?

Would a blog without comments just be a writer putting out information to share with a public?  I think that comments make a blog a blog; that writing something and opening it to commentary and opinions is what defines a blog.

Wikipedia’s defnition of a blog is “ blog (a contraction of the term “web log“)^[1] is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.”

I then researched blog comments on Google and found that there are several websites dedicated to how you can set up your blog to get the most “foot traffic”.  You can actually edit the area of your blogs reserved for comments so that it flows better and people find it easier to write and leave comments.

I found a blog entitled Janko at Warp Speed and he had shared great ideas about how to design your blog so that readers may leaver comments more easily.  For example, the first thing you could do was decide if you wanted a chronological view or a threaded view.  Blogs usually have a chronological view so that you (the writer of the blog) can scroll down and see the oldest to newest comments.  However, if readers want to continue to comment back and forth with one another over several days, this is not the best way for them to do this.  You should enable a threaded view so that “instead, replies to a specific comment are being shown under that particular comment (or under that “thread”). In this way you can easily follow related comments because they are simply visually grouped.” (janko)

This image is from the Janko Webpage

This TOW however is not to instruct you on how to appease your readers with better spaces on which to leave comments.  The TOW is asking why are blog comments so important to blogs?

I think that that blog comments are necessary to blogs because in most cases, the writers of blogs are putting out their content and asking for feedback.  The writers would like to gain a following to have some validation that others in the blogosphere recognize their existence.

While I think that some writers may just want to have a blog to express thoughts or feelings or to upload photos to share with  family in other states, they too may be looking for blog comments.  Whether it be from a friend or family member commenting on their thoughts or feelings, or a teacher commenting on the latest blog posting for an assignment, I do think that blog comments are integral to blogs.

So what advice would I give someone for writing an effective blog comment? I would tell them to write down his or her reactions to what they have read.  Try not to be  controversial because what you have written will most likely gain a response from another contributer, and also try to be thoughtful.  Don’t just tell the author of the post that you “liked their post”.  Tell them how you felt about what they had just written.

PRCA 3330. TOW Week 2- Mignon Fogarty

Today I was on Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl website and found several of her podcasts as well as her blog posts on correct grammar usage very helpful and informative.  I chose to listen to her “who” vs. “whom” podcast from March of 2007 and found it a very good explanation and refresher of the confusing pronoun choices (Who Vs. Whom).

I will start off by telling you what I learned from listening to the podcast.  First, I learned that who and whom are both pronouns, and both refer to either the object or subject in a sentence.  More specifically, who refers to the subject (the person doing something), whereas whom refers to the object (the thing that is having something done to it).

I’ll say this again so as to avoid confusion.  Who refers to the subject.  The subject is the person who is doing the action.

Whom refers to the object.  The object is the thing that is having something done to it.

A good example of this would be saying “I love you.” YOU are the object of MY affection. YOU is the object of the sentence, because I am loving YOU, which makes me the subject and you the object.

If you have difficulty telling the difference between subjects and objects there is one simple way to decide when to use who or whom. Ask yourself the question and decide if you would answer it with “him” or “he”.

For example: “Who or Whom do you love?” –Answer “I love him!”  So, “Whom do you love?” is correct.

Another example: “Who or Whom stepped on the bug?”

-Answer: “HE stepped on the bug.” So, “Who stepped on the bug?” is correct.

Whenever “him” is your answer “whom will be the pronoun”. Just remember “whom=him”!

The thing that most surprised me about this podcast was that I could learn so much about a little grammar rule in 4 minutes or less and that she made it so simple! I could listen to these on the go (she now has an “App” for the iphone) and hopefully improve my grammar rapidly!

I actually would love to continue reading Fogarty’s blog and keep listening to her podcasts whenever possible and improve my grammar skills! I think that now I do have a better grasp over the Who vs. Whom debate.