What’s in a Name? Effects of the Big East Name Change

This year’s March Madness marks the last year that many of the traditional Big East schools will represent their conference in the tournament. Next year, the Big East will be completely made-over, reflecting little of its Eastern history and rivalries. 

The official split of the conference is effective July 1. Louisville, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse are headed to the ACC and Rutgers is headed to the Big Ten. 

Seven of the league’s Catholic schools are also leaving to form their own basketball-focused league. These seven Catholic schools will take with them the Big East name and the Madison Square Garden location for their post-season tournament. 

Even with all of this movement, there are leftover schools in the Big East for the upcoming year. The schools are: Temple, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Houston, Louisville, Memphis, South Florida and Southern Methodist. “America 12” is one of the names being considered for this conference. 

Looking at the Big East’s long history and tradition, being a college basketball fan and being a student at Temple. I couldn’t help but think about the PR implications of this split for the new America 12, the Catholic 7 and Temple (my university). 

• America 12: With many of the Big East powerhouses exiting the league, I’m not sure if the America 12 will be able to uphold the reputation that comes with the Big East name. I believe it will take a while for fans of these schools to get used to the new name and what it means. 
• Catholic 7 (Will take Big East name): Will this league be thought of as a phony Big East? Although the league simply bought the Big East name, the schools involved are all schools in the east with long-standing basketball dominance and tradition. I think the name will still resonate with fans. In respect to name recognition and branding, the Catholic 7 may be the group getting the most out of this deal. 
• Temple: In spring 2012, there was lots of hype around Temple’s move back to the Big East. It seems though, as soon as we sat down at the Big East table, all the major players got up. As a soon-to-be graduate of the university I am sad to say that this may be a setback of the reputation of our athletics but I hope the America 12 name will become as respected as the Big East name. 

Do you have other thoughts regarding the split? Let us know. Enjoy the rest of March Madness! 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek

Safeguarding your Social Media

Everyone has experienced seeing a stream of strange posts on a friend’s social media site with a tweet or status update later on saying “sorry my account was hacked!” But what if this friend was a social media manager for an organization, or what if this was a brand’s account you follow? 

It’s stressful to have an account hacked as an individual but when managing social media for an organization there are much higher stakes. A hacked Twitter or Facebook can do great damage to a company’s reputation. 

Burger King and Jeep are two examples of huge brands that have had their accounts hacked since the start of 2013. For Burger King, having their Twitter account hacked meant having a verified stamp next to the brand’s description which read, “Just got sold to McDonalds because the Whopper flopped.” 

There are simple tips we can remember when managing social media for a company to help us safeguard our brand’s reputation. 

• Use a unique password for each site: It seems like an obvious answer but we all have the tendency to use the same password over and over for ease of use.  If a hacker obtains one password, at least you are able to deal with an isolated issue. 
• Centralize a social media administrator: In a previous blog post, “Who Owns Social Media?” I discussed the trend toward collaborating between departments for social media. While you will want to do this for content, sharing the password between a large group is not secure. A solution could be for the administrator to use auto fill on other employees’ work computers to give access while on the job without sharing the password for use outside of work.
• Randomly generated passwords: It’s a pain, but randomly generating passwords makes them nearly impossible to guess. Try Random.org's password generator and then backup your data with a cloud service that will store it in an encrypted form online. Some popular services include Lastpass, 1password and mSecure.
• Make your mobile device secure: For most, a four digit password on the screen of an iPhone is fine. However, if you manage social media for a business and have passwords saved on your phone it’s a good idea to go into settings and turn the “simple passcode” feature off. This will unlock the option for you to use the full keyboard to make your password harder to crack.

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek.

Who “Owns” Social Media?

Understanding which umbrella social media falls under in an organization is often debated between marketing, PR and customer service teams. There are companies with excellent customer service social media accounts, such as Comcast and Verizon, and there are even more companies with great social media accounts run by marketing and PR teams. 

So, what is the right department to hold responsibility for social media? PR people will likely say it’s them. Marketers will likely say the marketing department. But, other departments such as Customer Service, Business Development, and Human Resources can also rightfully claim a stake in social media.

Dell and Zappos are among many large organizations that have created cross-departmental social media teams that manage social media interaction and allow the correct department to handle the correct inquiry.

All departments have something to bring to the table with social media. Even if the marketing and PR teams are the best trained for the job, it can be helpful to bring others with different roles together to provide the best experience for customers while networking online.

Brian Solis recently wrote on an eConsultancy blog, “The customer doesn’t see, nor do they care about, who owns social media. They see one company and they simply need an informed and empathetic response.” 

Social media is not best suited to just one department. While it may fall into just one department, that department should look to get a variety of workers from the business involved. Customers can get more out of social media accounts if they are able to network with the entire business – not just one small team attempting to represent the business. 

 This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek.

AP Stylebook: Rules For The Holiday Season

As we enter the holiday season, I thought it would be a great time to brush up on holiday style – AP style, that is. Below are terms that stood out to me as ones I would be likely to slip up on when writing. For instance, it’s general knowledge that seasons are not capitalized, but “winter” does not officially begin until Dec. 21 and therefore should not be used to describe dates before this.  It’s also a common AP style rule to only spell out numbers 1-10, but when writing about the Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” the numeral should always be spelled out.

• Kriss Kringle: Not Kris. Derived from the German word, Christkindl, or baby Jesus.
• yule: Old English name for Christmas season; yuletide is also lowercase.
• Christmastime - One word.
• Xmas - Don’t use this abbreviation for Christmas.
• “The Twelve Days of Christmas” - Spell the numeral in the Christmas carol.
• Black Friday - Capitalize both words and don't use quotes.
• Cyber Monday - Same as above. And just in case there's any confusion about this day, it's the Monday after Thanksgiving.
• gift card - Two words, not one.
• autumn, fall, winter, etc. - Seasons are not capitalized. And winter does not officially begin until Dec. 21.
• Pilgrims – Capitalized. 
• turkey day - Not capitalized.
• Don't capitalize happy in "happy Thanksgiving" or "happy holidays."

Are there any other AP style rules for the holidays that you’d like to share? Let us know!

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek. 

Samsung’s PR Woes Continue

Just this summer, Samsung was in court defending itself against Apple and it now finds itself in the court of public opinion against tech bloggers.  In the actual court case, Apple claimed that Samsung had copied the iPhone.  Samsung lost in court and now owes Apple 1 billion dollars.

As this story began to fade from the tech spotlight, another story unraveled.  This time two bloggers claimed that Samsung had threatened to strand them at a tech conference in Berlin if they did not write stories depicting Samsung in a positive light.  Samsung had paid for these bloggers to attend the conference.

Samsung later released this statement: “Samsung Mob!lers is a voluntary community of active Samsung mobile device users, who are offered the opportunity to participate in our marketing events across the world.  At these events, all activities they undertake are on a voluntary basis.  No activities are forced upon them.

We regret [that] there was a misunderstanding between the Samsung Mob!lers coordinators and the relevant blogger, as we understand he was not sufficiently briefed on the nature of Samsung Mob!lers’ activities at IFA 2012.  We have been attempting to get in touch with him.

We respect the independence of bloggers to publish their own stories.”

The statement that Samsung released seems to tiptoe around the issue and not admit what the real problem was between the bloggers and Samsung.  It may have come off as more genuine if the company directly addressed the severity of the issue.  At a time when Samsung is under such intense competition with other tech companies, it is also necessary that they take steps to make sure they stay out of the spotlight for negative reasons this fall. 

Do you think Samsung’s statement was a sufficient response to the incident? Let us know!

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek

MBA Programs Add Public Relations Coursework to Curriculums

Perhaps one of the reasons that many do not understand what public relations actually does for businesses is that in 2010, 80 percent of MBA programs did not have coursework that gave students specific training on the role that PR plays in strategic communications.  In recent years, business schools have recognized that PR is no longer a specialized skill.  It is an important skill for all business professionals in a leadership role.

PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) has aided the process for business schools to add PR coursework by developing a curriculum to distribute to schools.  Paul Argenti, a professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, was the professor who developed the program. His college will be one of five in the nation where the program will be tested in the upcoming school year. 

The business schools of Northwestern, Maryland, Quinnipiac, and University of Texas El Paso are the other four schools that have seen the need for PR to be a part of their MBA programs and have signed on to be a part of the pilot program testing PRSA’s curriculum.  After the pilot this year, PRSA will develop a guide for business schools to use to unveil new PR programs in the 2013-2014 school year. 

As a student strongly interested in corporate communications, I am thrilled to see that top business schools are expressing a need for PR to be incorporated in their programs.  I believe this is a step in the right direction for the PR industry – when working for a company with upper-level management who have been educated on the importance of PR, the activities of our department will likely have stronger support.  

Do you also think incorporating PR into MBA programs is good for the profession? Let us know!

Only One-Third of Americans Follow a Brand on Social Media?

As a PR student, I am exposed to social media all the time and was shocked to see the findings of a recent study on PR Daily indicating that social media use is not as popular among the masses as one may think. The findings also showed that the American population may not be in tune with newer social media platforms. 

Some of the most shocking figures from the study included: 

• Only 3 percent of Americans have ever “checked in” to a place
• Just 33 percent of Americans have ever followed a brand on social media
• 47 percent of Americans believe Facebook has the greatest influence of all social networks on buying decisions 

Seeing these statistics reinforces that social media is still just one outlet we should be using to get our messages out.  Social media seems to not have reached its maturity yet. The statistic showing that 47 percent of Americans think Facebook has the greatest influence over buying decisions also indicates that Americans may not be very in tune with newer social media platforms.  For now, while doing PR for any organization, we should identify members of our target audiences who may not use social media and use more traditional ways to get our messages out to them- maybe in years to come we will be able to reach all the stakeholders in our organizations solely through social media, but for now social media alone is definitely not enough.


This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek

Betting On PR

I recently came across an article on Inc.com titled “Why I’m Betting on PR” The article was written by Caroline Limpert, who recently started her own company. What caught my eye is that her start-up does not have a massive marketing budget like most start-ups tend to; instead, she is placing the entire budget into PR.

The reasons she is “betting on PR” are very powerful. As PR students and young professionals, we know that PR is sometimes misunderstood. Below are a few key ideas that we can take away from her list to help us justify what we are doing in our organizations and give ourselves some leverage over marketing and advertising professionals.

Editorial Coverage Builds Brand - In an age of advertising clutter, consumers look toward media coverage to form opinions of what’s in. Although Limpert’s start-up may not have the budget to place ads in TechCrunch, Vogue, and Details, she does have editorial coverage in those publications- which is more valuable in today’s age.

PR Creates Awareness - Most companies ideally would want to have their publics learn about their brand through positive word-of-mouth marketing. PR creates brand awareness in a credible way similar to how word-of-mouth marketing builds awareness. However, PR can build that awareness much faster.

PR Isn’t Just Press - PR does not just include press relations anymore. The new opportunities available to us, such as social media, are very low-cost to implement in comparison to marketing and advertising opportunities.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek.

StratComm Scores at Basketball Night

The School of Communication and Theater’s Strategic Communication Department hosted a basketball night on Wednesday, February 29. The event began with a networking hour in the Annenberg Atrium at 5:30 p.m., which attracted about 20 professors, students and parents from the department. Following the networking event, approximately 50 attendees watched the Owls take on the University of Massachusetts Minutemen at the Liacouras Center at 7 p.m. The nail-biting game went into overtime but the Temple Owls prevailed, 90-88. It was an incredible game to be a part of.

The networking hour allowed students and parents to interact with the department while enjoying light refreshments. At the basketball game, parents, student, alumni and professors occupied a designated “StratComm” section. StratComm Basketball Night attendees were able to get involved in halftime promotional activities and StratComm t-shirts were thrown to the audience. The event was promoted with the #StratCommBball hashtag as students live-tweeted during the game.

StratComm Basketball Night was a great night for parents and students to interact with the Department of Strategic Communication while supporting Temple’s outstanding Men’s Basketball Team.

For any additional information on future StratComm events, please email stratcommtu@gmail.com or visit http://sct.temple.edu/web/strc/.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek.

Landing on Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” List

Last week Fortune announced its annual “Best Companies to Work For” list. The morning the rankings were announced, it is safe to say that the PR staff for those who made the cut were buzzing with joy and excitement.

Being on the “Best Companies to Work For” list is a huge deal for a company’s reputation. A simple ranking can help generate positive attention towards an organization, which in turn will attract the best and brightest to want to work there. A company known for treating employees well is often a company well-liked by the public.

However, attaining recognition on this list cannot be something a company’s PR staff simply sets out to achieve. The top ten workplaces all are known for having great communication and trust among employees. These two characteristics cannot be obtained rapidly by doing a quick PR fix.

For Zappos, the online retailer, company-wide initiatives such as the Zfrog program were essential to landing on the list. This program gives all employees the opportunity to pitch new business ideas. 14 other companies stood out for paying 100% of their employees’ health care premiums.

Google topped the list for 2012 with its innovative and diverse company culture definitely playing a role in the ranking.

Here are the top ten workplaces of 2012:
1. Google
2. Boston Consulting Group
3. SAS
4. Wegmans Food Markets
5. Edward Jones
6. NetApp
7. Camden Property Trust
8. Recreational Equipment (REI)
9. CHG Healthcare Services
10. Quicken Loans

Do you work for any of these companies? Does it help for you to feel supported in your work environment? Let us know!

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek.

AP StyleGuard: The Magic Solution for Writing in AP Style?

Last week the Associated Press released new “StyleGuard” software, which acts as a system to check for AP style mistakes in Microsoft Word documents. When I heard this, I was in shock, as well as many PR students probably are, that the idea had not been thought of before! This application could be the perfect way to avoid constantly checking your stylebook when initially learning how to write in AP style.

When I further investigated the product, I found out it is probably not the magical solution to writing in AP style that I originally thought it seemed to be. Subscriptions start at $60 for an individual user, which puts the product out of price range for most college students, considering that the AP Stylebook is only about $12. Also, it has only been developed for PCs, so Mac users will not be able to use the product at all. Last week, @APStylebook even tweeted “StyleGuard is a useful tool but it's not a substitute for the skills you develop as a knowledgeable writer.”

The software is a great idea that can be developed further and eventually become widely used to help prevent PR students and professionals from making minor AP style mistakes. For now, it looks like it would be best for us to pay attention in our news writing classes and aspire to be our own StyleGuard!

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek.