My Goodbye

Wow, what an amazing three and a half years this has been! In January 2008, PRowl Public Relations opened its doors for business under the helm of then-Firm Director Natalie Prazenica (now Mrs. Natalie Herr!) and a dedicated board of directors. After an invigorating semester with superstar PR students and enthusiastic clients, Natalie graduated, took over the baking and blogging world, got married and had a handsome son Elliott.

It has now been three years since I have taken over as firm director of PRowl and I have been fortunate enough to build relationships with a variety of talented students who I am confident will move on to take over the PR world in Philadelphia and beyond. The most wonderful thing about PRowl is that we don’t only learn from our clients and professors, we learn from each other. It has been an absolute pleasure to have worked with more than 40 students over the years who are the top of their class and the most driven out of Temple’s Public Relations curriculum in the Department of Strategic Communication. PRowl members not only dedicate dozens of hours a week to ensuring successful campaigns for all of our clients, they hold internships throughout the city, are vocal and open-minded students in the classroom, serve the community, have a passion for staying current on all technology and communication trends, and are committed to ethics and professionalism at all times.

Although I am looking forward to starting my career in corporate communications with a respected national financial services company, I will assuredly miss my peers in PRowl and the professors who have imparted their knowledge on us all. Specifically, I would like to thank Gregg Feistman who was instrumental in developing the foundation for PRowl, helped get the firm up and running, and has since been my mentor and an amazing adviser (and editor) for all things PRowl. Gregg is a strong advocate for PRowl in the Temple and Philadelphia community, and the firm is extremely lucky to have his support and amazing library of knowledge.

Finally, I am SO proud to hand over my title and responsibilities to the most deserving girl in the room, Niki Ianni. Niki has been a force for her clients since her very first meeting and is a collaborative leader who empowers all members of her accounts to be creative, take ownership of their work, and learn from every opportunity and challenge presented. I know that Niki is going to lead PRowl to do amazing things and is going to capture every opportunity available to benefit her members and clients. I am so excited to watch PRowl continue to expand under Niki’s leadership!

Thank you to all who have read the blog over the years, and the amazing board of directors and staff members who have contributed to it. Thanks to you, our readership continually grows every month (now to more than 2,000 readers a month!) and our blog has gotten exposure on a national level. I hope you have enjoyed the posts from our student members, and continue to return back to read their insights daily!

Congratulations to all 2011 graduates, and I look forward to joining you in our lifelong mission of learning and growing as ethical professionals in any career we choose!

The Next Generation of PRowl Leaders

Although it is not quite time to say goodbye (the current PRowl Public Relations board will continue blogging until Friday, May 13), I would like to welcome and introduce the new executive board of PRowl, as well as the account executives who will be leading our teams to achieve successful campaigns for our clients in the year ahead.

Yesterday, at our last staff meeting of the semester, incoming Firm Director Niki Ianni announced the firm's leadership for the fall 2011-spring 2012 academic year.

Executive Board
Firm Director: Niki Ianni
Assistant Firm Directors: Emily Ascani, Samantha Wanner
Director of Public Relations: Marianna Morris
Director of Finance: Doug Bennett

Other Leadership
Secretary/Fundraising Liaison: Kaitlin Tully
Account Executives: Meagan Prescott, Doug Bennett, Evan Galusha, Alex Crispino

Congratulations to PRowl's next generation of leaders!

Final Reminder - PRowl Interviews!

Final reminder - PRowl Public Relations will start interviewing students this Monday, April 25 for the fall 2011 semester! Email Niki Ianni at nicole.ianni@temple.edu today to schedule your interview.

If you are studying public relations (or a related field) at Temple University and are looking for the opportunity to experience the full-scope of the PR planning, implementation and evaluation process with clients from a variety of industries, I encourage you to meet with us to discuss your experiences and interests. We are looking for candidates of all age groups and experiences. The only requirement - the drive to learn.

See announcement below.
----------
Are you a public relations student interested in gaining hands-on experience in the industry? PRowl Public Relations is Temple University’s first and only student-run PR firm, and we’re hiring!

At PRowl Public Relations, students are given opportunities to develop their strategic thinking and gain tactical practice. Members create and execute public relations campaigns, form valuable relationships with professionals in the Philadelphia area, apply their classroom knowledge to a real-world setting, become part of an interactive communications process and prepare for life beyond graduation.

Interested? Contact Niki Ianni at nicole.ianni@temple.edu to set up an interview. Interviews will be scheduled starting Monday, April 25 – Wednesday, May 11.

Learn more about PRowl Public Relations:
Check out our blog, updated daily: www.prowlpublicrelations.blogspot.com
Follow us on Twitter: @PRowlPR
Find us on Facebook: PRowl Public Relations

"So, what is PR anyways?"

Many people outside the industry seemingly have no clue about what it is that PR people do exactly. Just yesterday I was telling a peer in my economics class that I am a public relations major. His initial response? "Oh, so you like send press releases and stuff?" Yes, we sometimes write and distribute press releases, but there is much, much more to the public relations profession.

I enjoyed Jackson Wightman's humorous articles on "21 things PR is not" and "21 things PR is" on the Proper Propaganda blog. Below are just a few items pulled from his posts.


To check out the full lists, click on the following links: 21 things PR is not and 21 things PR is.

What PR is not:

• The department whose sole purpose is to write, edit and hawk press releases.


• A business function that deals with the media and/or bloggers and nothing else.


• Capable of whitewashing all sins.


• Necessarily or invariably the adversary of media.


• A synonym for spin.

What PR is:

• A craft that requires fundamental understanding of human needs/wants.


• A profession that has been seriously changed by the Internet.


• A profession that is...about relations with various publics and not just the media.


• Regularly misperceived - especially by journalists.


• Capable of significantly helping reduce organizational costs if applied correctly.

PRowl Public Relations Announcement

We're hiring!

Before all PR students at Temple are notified early next week, we want to give our readers the chance to schedule interview slots before they are taken. If you are studying public relations (or a related field) at Temple University and are looking for the opportunity to experience the full-scope of the PR planning, implementation and evaluation process with clients from a variety of industries, I encourage you to schedule an interview today. We are looking for candidates of all age groups and experiences. The only requirement - the drive to learn.

See announcement below.

----------

Are you a public relations student interested in gaining hands-on experience in the industry? PRowl Public Relations is Temple University’s first and only student-run PR firm, and we’re hiring!

At PRowl Public Relations, students are given opportunities to develop their strategic thinking and gain tactical practice. Members create and execute public relations campaigns, form valuable relationships with professionals in the Philadelphia area, apply their classroom knowledge to a real-world setting, become part of an interactive communications process and prepare for life beyond graduation.

Interested? Contact Niki Ianni at nicole.ianni@temple.edu to set up an interview. Interviews will be scheduled starting Monday, April 25 – Wednesday, May 11.

Learn more about PRowl Public Relations:
Check out our blog, updated daily: www.prowlpublicrelations.blogspot.com
Follow us on Twitter: @PRowlPR
Find us on Facebook: PRowl Public Relations

Don't Forget: TU Relay For Life Tonight!

Tonight almost 800 students will crowd the Pavillion at Temple University to walk for a cure and support the fight against cancer. As PRSSA guest blogger Alison Curran mentioned in her post "PRSSA and PRowl Walk for a Cure" earlier this week, Temple University's Relay For Life unites individual students and student organizations to walk laps with peers, cancer survivors and their supporters.

Here are a few important details to know about tonight:

• Online registration (click here) closes at NOON today, but you can register at the door between 6 and 8 p.m.
• The Opening Ceremonies start at 8 p.m.
• Doors close at 11 p.m. and no one else can enter the building (you of course will be allowed to exit without re-entrance though)
• Activities throughout the include 3v3 basketball tournaments, water pong, magic tricks, live bands, "Mr. Relay" and more!
• Closing Ceremonies start at 5 a.m. and the event will end soon after

Join PRSSA and PRowl tonight to support the fight against cancer at Temple and warm up for Relay For Life of South Philadelphia (a PRowl client) on Saturday, June 10!

@APStylebook says e-mail is now email!

If you don't follow @APStylebook on Twitter yet, you should. The handle is the official Twitter of the AP Stylebook, aka - the PR and journalism bible.

I was devastated about a year ago when AP style changed "Web site" to "website." It was one of those words that I had always thought was strange, but after two years of taking public relations classes "Web site" had finally felt comfortable.

Almost one year later, that painful feeling of having to relearn the spelling of vocabulary has returned. @APStylebook announced that as of today (Friday, March 18) "e-mail" is now "email" with no hyphen.

I have already written about ten e-mails (sorry, "emails") in the last few hours with "e-mail" referenced somewhere in the body, and edited a colleague's document at work to correct his use of "email." Looks like it's me that needs to be corrected now!

Although changes like this can be frustrating to keep up with, we are trained as PR people to constantly adapt to new situations and keep going. Even though it will take some time to get used to, there really was no modern reason for website to be two words or email to have a hyphen. People who don't follow AP style have already been using "website" and "email" for years, now we have to catch up!

What are your thoughts about the change?

New and "Old" Communication Tools Used for Disaster Warning

In the early hours of the morning today (March 11), an 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck and triggered a devastating tsunami in Japan. Japan was not the only country affected though; warnings sounded throughout the Pacific and countries called for evacuations near coast lines. Even in the United States, Orange County beaches in California were closed as a precaution and sailing vessels were knocked loose in Santa Cruz, CA due to the rough waves.

Although it is now being reported that the U.S. and Hawaii were spared from major damage, Hawaii mobilized people on the ground to warn their residents during the night (their time) about the potential threat. Sirens whistled across the islands and trucks with loud speakers drove through neighborhoods. A blogger from the Huffington Post (via a PRDaily article) wrote "A truck is circling our neighborhood, with a man giving an emergency management message over a loudspeaker: ‘Extremely dangerous waves are expected at 3 a.m. Occupants of high-rise buildings are advised to go to the third floor or above without delay.'"

The warning system is being referred to as low-tech, but I can't help but wonder if it is the most efficient. Sure, social media sites were also on high-alert with constant updates being fed through Twitter, but we cannot rely on all in danger to be plugged into the Internet or watching the television. What happens to those who are reading a book in bed? Although social media is a powerful tool, nothing beats person-to-person communication to get an important message heard, especially in the case of a natural disaster warning.

Social media is a good way to complement other alert methods and an important information distribution channel that cannot be ignored, but I am impressed that Hawaii was able to mobilize their manpower so quickly to warn their fellow residents to get prepared.

It cannot be argued that the Internet is a powerful tool post-crisis though. In addition to Twitter feeds and live blogging from various sites (here is CNN's), Google reacted with their Person Finder tool that helps you find a person or provide information on missing persons. Additionally, the Google Crisis Center is updated in realtime with a map of the earthquake, the latest related news and lists linking to warning centers, disaster bulletin boards, train and blackout information, and more.

TUTV Student Organization Filming Recap

Yesterday (March 3), PRowl Public Relations assisted client TUTV (Temple University Television) with an event to promote the March 16 launch of TempleTV.net, the channel's interactive online platform. One of our largest audiences for the launch campaign is current students on Philadelphia's main campus and abroad. When doing our research in the planning portion of the campaign, we found that Temple University has more than 300 registered student organizations on campus, with a total membership reach of 15,330 students.

In order to engage these students and get them excited for the website launch, PRowl planned a four-hour event where student organizations were invited to film a clip welcoming all visitors to TempleTV.net and introducing their organization to Temple's global community. On the upcoming March 16 launch day, these student organization "welcome" messages will rotate on the homepage. Every time a visitor enters the site, a new student organization will be there to greet them.

After a lot of e-mails and attending meetings to talk to student organizations, we got a great turnout of 58 organizations throughout the day. Students were invited to either share a message about what their organization does, or demonstrate their mission through a creative act. There was even more creativity than we expected! Singing, dancing, guitars, keyboards, flags, acting scripts, and other props appeared in the room throughout the day, and we were happy to have them!

Thank you to all Temple student organizations that stopped by. We look forward to sharing the messages we got yesterday with visitors who enter the site around the world on March 16!

Become a Better Spokesperson with 9 Tips

In my full-time job after graduation I am looking forward to joining a national financial services company (my ideal starting place to capitalize on the information I have also learned in business school!) as a coordinator for company-wide communications. One responsibility of my department is to prepare executives for speaking to the public - whether through investor meetings, conferences, interviews, etc. Although I most likely will not be the lead person for these tasks immediately, I have been trying to read articles that I think will pertain to my job and help me assist my supervisor as best as possible.

In an article by Brad Phillips on his blog MrMediaTraining.com, I learned "Nine Things New Spokespersons Need to Know" - and they're really good!

1. Develop a message - Know what you want to communicate and prepare your three most important phrases or sentences.
2. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. - Articulate at least one of your messages in every answer (not verbatim though).
3. Transition - Bridge from the reporter's question to your message with phrases such as "The most important thing to remember is..." or "Well, what we're seeing here is..."
4. Don't make a new friend - The moment you get comfortable and start thinking the reporter is your friend, you're going to venture away from your message and make a mistake. They may be nice, but they're not your friend.
5. Speak everyday English - Don't use big, jargon-filled words, especially when speaking with general audiences.
6. Don't bury your lead - Give the most interesting part of your answer, aka your "lead," first. If you have additional time, you can go back and provide more context.
7. Be your most engaging self - Gesture, convey warmth, and smile when appropriate.
8. Speak 10 percent louder than usual - This will help you sound less monotone and helps animate your body language.
9. Watch your tone - If you feel defensive, you will look defensive. Don't greet tough questions with panic, welcome them as opportunities to correct the record.

Could Facebook Be Forced to Go Public?

CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has infamously declined unthinkable amounts of money to keep his treasured social networking site private. Now, it seems it may be out of his control due to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Rule 12g5-1(b)(3) that requires companies with more than $10 million in assets and 499 shareholders to register as public companies. Facebook has recently been valued at $50 billion by Goldman Sachs, and has agreed to sell $1.5 billion worth of its stocks to elite Goldman clients, possibly putting the shareholder count over 500.

The reason I say "possibly" is because according to Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times, Goldman is attempting to create a "special purpose vehicle" that will only count itself as one investor since the offering will be managed by the firm, even though money could be pooled from many other clients.

Although this could be a potential loop hole, in Section B of the rule it states (in more confusing terms) that if the primary reason for creating the "special purpose vehicle" is to get around the rule's constraints, specifically the shareholder limit, then each Goldman client who gets involved will be considered an individual shareholder in the company, pushing Facebook's number over 500.

Via an article on MSNBC.com, top securities law professor Adam Pritchard says "If Facebook is selling to [Goldman] knowing this is going to happen, then they are on their way to having to register the company as a public company with the SEC."

An important note though: Just because Facebook will have to register as a public company does not mean they will have to offer stock to the public. They WILL have to disclose their financials though, including profits, revenues, top executive hires and departures, etc. Many who are informed about the subject suggest that if Facebook has to disclose their financials and register through the SEC, they might as well issue second-class (non-voting) shares to the public.

Going public and trading shares can be dangerous for some companies. Read "Facebook likely to go public in 2012" on CNN.com to learn a little more about why the author will not rush to hold stock in Facebook.

Here are the list of articles I read about the possibility of Facebook going public:
MSNBC.com
CNN.com
NYTimes.com
WSJ.com

I recommend you read them too in order to get a better grasp of why Facebook may have to go public and what the possible effects are for "The Social Network."

My Opinion - You Need Brain Balance for PR

I was reading my PR Daily News Feed yesterday (2-10-11) and couldn't resist taking the Right Brain versus Left Brain Creativity Test from the Art Institute of Vancouver that was posted. Typically, creative people use the right side of their brain more than the left side, and vice versa for more logical people. I consider myself a fairly creative person, but am also very diligent and focused. I am actually surprised at my results! Due to my love of "to-do" lists, classical music, research and numbers I would have assumed I would be overwhelming left-brained, but alas I am only left-brained by a slight majority. It turns out that I am 58 percent left-brained and 42 percent right-brained.

Although I came out as more logical than creative, I am confident that I am entering the right field in public relations due to my dominant left brain characteristic: verbal processing. Verbal processing is a method used by the left hemisphere to process our thoughts and ideas with words.

What brain are you? Also, do you feel like most successful PR people are right-brained? I personally think that those in PR need a good balance of both (maybe I'm biased...). Although I think creativity is an essential aspect of finding attractive angles for the right audiences, I also think that organization, logic and diligence are extremely important for managing heavy workloads and strict deadlines, and advocating for your projects to upper-level management, who often may only want to hear about the logic and numbers behind your idea, rather than its genius creativity.

Thoughts? Take the test here!

Quotes from "Father of Advertising"

David Ogilvy is considered by many as the "Father of Advertising." He created one of the largest and most successful advertising (and now marketing and public relations) agencies, Ogilvy & Mather, and is rumored to be the inspiration behind Don Draper's character in the popular TV series Mad Men. He is famous for making high-end products, like Rolls Royce, seem like a 'sensible' use of one's money by appealing to the consumer's refined taste and class status.

Here are 10 quotes from David Ogilvy that ProBlogger.net thinks could revolutionize blogging:

1. “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.”
2. “The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.”
3. “Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.”
4. “I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.”
5. “I don’t know the rules of grammar… If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.”
6. “Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.”
7. “If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don’t let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.”
8. “First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.”
9. “Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.”
10. “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar."

To find out how these quotes relate to blogging, read the full article by Darren Rowse on ProBlogger.net here.

Cryptic Clues about UCLA's Internet Celebration

Did you know that the first Internet message was sent by professor Leonard Kleinrock of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA 40 years ago? Many people think the Internet was created at MIT, but it was the communications team’s job at UCLA to inform you otherwise. In order to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Internet and talk about the real-world impact that some of the discoveries and research work from UCLA have, the university proposed a $100,000 budget for advertising and promotion. Instead, they got $9,500 total.

Although the creation of the Internet is obviously impressive, it is also noteworthy that the team at UCLA was able to craft and execute such a creative campaign in two months and with a budget that was slashed by 90 percent.

Below are some of the components of the campaign:

• A countdown clock was posted on the main page of the university’s website with no description of what it was counting down to. When visitors clicked on the clock, cryptic clues would appear hinting at what was going on. When the clock hit zero, the website page began to flicker and appeared to crash to the ground with a balloon featuring the letters “LO” floating upwards, a simulation of the crash that occurred when Dr. Kleinrock attempted to type “LOGIN” in his first Internet message. A link then sent readers to an article about the anniversary.
  
• Cryptic clues about the anniversary were also disseminated on Facebook with a #ucla40 tag that led people to guess what could possibly be going on. Social media was also used to promote videos of Dr. Kleinrock explaining the process of sending the first information over the Internet to UCLA’s 55,000 Facebook fans, 5,500 Twitter followers and 6,500 YouTube subscribers.
  
• Traditional media was also used as a component to the plan. The UCLA team bought an ad in the school newspaper, pitched an online story in the university magazine, and bought online banner ads in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, which led to approximately 160,000 impressions on the event website.
  
• The eight-hour main event was live streamed on UCLA’s website, Ustream and Facebook accounts. More than 50,000 viewers tuned in and communicators encouraged speakers at the conference to ask their Twitter followers to send in questions to be answered live.
  

What would you have done with $9,500 and the task of promoting the 40th anniversary of the first Internet message? Click here to read the full article by Matt Wilson at Ragan.com.

URL Shorteners - Tweet Savers and Now...a Threat?

Many on Twitter frequently use URL shorteners to share information and direct followers to another site in the allotted 140 characters. Some original URLs are more than 100 characters long, and we know as PR folks that you can't just throw a link on the Twittersphere without any introduction to entice people to follow-through. The words are flowing and all of the sudden you realize you're (gasp!) at -75 characters. That's when you really appreciate the "tiny" URL.

The application PRowl Public Relations (@PRowlPR) uses, www.tinyurl.com, takes a long URL and converts it into 26 characters with the click of a button.

Although URL shorteners are often a Tweet saver, they should be clicked with caution. Originally, your most known threat was to only follow links from sources you trusted since the reduced URL gives no indication of where you are going. Now, you don't only have to worry about the credibility of the source (since they're the ones making the URL), you have to worry about the possibility of hackers/worms taking the actual URL shortening program hostage.

It was reported this morning that Google's URL shortener goo.gl is compromising Twitter accounts and spreading links to a fake antivirus site called "Security Shield." Under no circumstance should you install this "antivirus" solution. Also, if you notice any goo.gl links are posted from your account that you did not create, you are advised to change your password immediately and run an antivirus scan of your computer.

There is always going to be a new threat on the Internet, but try to be aware of tweet styles of people you follow so you can hopefully alert yourself that something seems "off" before clicking the shortened URL. And, as always, don't click on links from people who you don't trust.

Happy Tweeting to you - be careful out there!

The Social Network

The Social Network (aka: "The Facebook Movie") has officially been released on DVD as of this Tuesday, January 11! If you haven't watched it yet, it's an absolute must-see. I saw the film on opening night in October and there was not a seat left empty. I typically avoid seeing movies in Philadelphia theatres because of all the rude chit chat, but for this movie the audience watched silently on the edge of their seats as the drama behind Facebook unfolded. Okay, I'll disclose that I may be a biased Justin Timberlake fan, so to give you a more objective opinion of its public and critical acclaim I'll take a minute to note all of the publications that have named it the "Best Picture of the Year" (To view a more complete list of all award nominations - there must be hundreds - click here):

The New York Times
New York Post
The New Yorker
Los Angeles Times
Wall Street Journal
Washington Post
LA Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Rolling Stone
The Huffington Post
W Magazine
The Associated Press
BBC
MSN Movies
Chicago Sun-Times
Denver Post
Boston Phoenix
Cleveland Sun
The Daily Mail
The Daily Telegraph
IFC.com
Miami Herald
Lincoln Journal-Star
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
North County Times
Oklahoma Gazette
Omaha World Herald
Orlando Weekly
Sight & Sound
Time Out Chicago
Time Out New York
Tulsa World

....among others. The movie's official site, TheSocialNetwork-movie.com, is also prepped for its award season campaign, complete with wins so far, nominations, interviews with the cast, and conversations with the people behind the editing, design, sound, cinematography, effects, and music score.

Facebook has arguably been the most influential communication and social tool seen so far in our generation, and this film is predicted to go down in history. If you weren't able to catch it in theatres, now you can watch it in the comfort of your own home!

The Power of Student Organizations

As a member of six different student organizations, I am definitely an advocate for getting involved on campus outside of class. Student organizations are not only a way to get to know your peers with similar interests, they often provide professional development opportunities, connect you with leaders in the field you're interested in, and can be a resume booster if used in the correct way.

PRowl Public Relations just finished compiling a database of all student organizations at Temple University, complete with type of student organization, number of members, and contact information for organization leaders. Especially when targeting students in our campaigns, student organizations are a powerful way to connect with campus opinion leaders. Temple University has a total undergraduate enrollment of approximately 27,000; of those 27,000 students, more than 15,000 of them are involved in a student organization.

From doing this research personally, I can tell you that there is a student organization for almost any interest you may have. There are more than 320 political/advocacy, recreation/leisure, arts & entertainment, professional, academic department, media/publication, Greek and service organizations at Temple University to choose from. If you're a Temple student, I encourage you to go to https://temple-community.symplicity.com, sign-in with your student information (your TUA and PW), and explore the different opportunities to get involved. If you're not a Temple University student, contact your Student Activities office and ask for more information about organizations at your university.

Whether you're targeting students in a campaign or are a student trying to differentiate yourself and meet your peers, student organizations should be a critical component of your professional or personal plan.

If interested in public relations, make sure to check out your university's Public Relations Student Society of America!

PR Blogs Worth Reading (And More!)

"Top PR campaigns," "Top social media strategies," "Top crises," "Top people," "Top mistakes," "Top firms," etc. "Top, Top, Top" is seemingly all people like to write about in December. Although these "top" lists can be repetitive and frustrating when seeking new content, they are often very helpful in wrapping-up the end of the year and reminding readers about events and things to remember from the past 12 months.

One "top" list that gave me new information (the best kind of list...) was "The Best PR Blogs Out There" by Jeremy Porter on the Journalistics blog. Here are some of Porter's favorite blogs he recommends reading regularly:

• A Shel of My Former Self
• Brian Solis
• Dave Fleet
• PRDaily
• PRNewser
• PRSarahEvans.com
• PR-Squared

In the post, Porter also expands into "Other PR blogs worth a look," "Non-PR blogs PR pros should read," and "PR blogs I need to explore further."

In addition to reading the article, I also highly recommend reading the comments - many PR pros comment in about other useful sites to explore!

Happy New Year's Eve!

Happy Holidays from PRowl Public Relations!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas Eve from all of us at PRowl Public Relations! We wish you a happy and safe holiday season. Check back tomorrow for a normally scheduled guest post from Samantha Wanner, "A Media Trend to Spot in 2011."

Social Media for Financial Services

Being someone who is headed into communications for the financial services industry upon graduation, Bliss PR's blog post "A cheat sheet to social media for financial institutions" caught my eye this week.

The post compiled and written by Abby Carr, Catherine Sherwood and Socialware shows an easy-to-read graph about the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's (FINRA) Notice 10-06 that was issued early this year regarding social media communication. The industry is heavily regulated and it is essential that as a communicator you know your boundaries about what you can and cannot say, what to avoid, and the obligations you have.

FINRA's goal with Notice 10-06 was to discuss how firms and their registered representatives could use social media sites for legitimate business purposes in a manner that ensures investors are protected from false or misleading claims and representations. The "Notice" is intended to guide firms on how to apply communication rules to social media sites while staying within other regulations.

Topics covered in Notice 10-06 include: recordkeeping responsibilities, suitability responsibilities, types of interactive electronic forums, supervision of social media sites, and third-party posts.

A few of the things to avoid on social media? Testimonials, references to specific financial products, recommendations of specific investment ideas or styles, and endorsements.

Click Here to read Bliss PR's blog post.
Click Here to read the full Notice 10-06 (it's only 10 pages long!).