Why Facebook Won’t Land You a Job

I have bad news for every marketing and public relations student: having social media skills will not guarantee you a job, and unfortunately, it doesn’t make you special. I hope this isn’t news to you, but if it is, listen up.

According to Brain Walton, the editor-in-chief of GeekChicDaily, “Social media is shifting from a tool in an arsenal for your brand, to what has to be a primary component.” While this sounds good for would-be PR pros, the job as we know it is shifting from an understanding of social media tools into, as Walton describes it, “community management.”

The difference between the two is an understanding of the intricacies of the business you are representing. It’s impossible to be effective while tweeting in a vacuum. So solve the problem through research. How? Broaden the scope of your job well beyond simply tweeting or posting from an account. Turn it into something strategic that involves both on and offline content.

Speaking of strategic content, social media (and all of public relations in my opinion) works better when combined with an integrated marketing plan that expresses a unified message. Or at least that’s what B.J. Cook, the CEO and co-founder of Digital Operative, thinks. He says that, “Folks who want to specialize in social media need to get real and think about additional areas of marketing as well.” He emphasizes that professionals should, “Understand how social media integrates and plays with everything else.”

So what’s the solution for students? Become well rounded. Take classes outside your intended major. If you’re in PR, take advertising and marketing classes. Learn how to design websites and use creative tools like Adobe. If you are on the creative end, learn how to communicate better by supplementing your education with some strategic communications classes. Regardless of your major, cover your bases, and learn how everything connects. Doing so will help to make you more marketable come graduation.

All quotes and the theory behind this post come from an article written for Ragan.com. To view the original article click here.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jacob DeChant.

Students and Social Media--Uncensored!

With the enormous growth of social media use, teens are taking advantage of their First Amendment rights with constant status updates and blog posts. While they are enjoying their free speech, their teachers may not feel the same way. A new Knight Foundation study concluded that teens' uncensored use of Facebook and Tumblr is not a right their teachers think they should have.

The study was conducted through interviews with 12,000 students and 900 high school teachers in the United States during spring of 2011. A small percentage of students believed that they should be able to express their opinions about their school's faculty online without punishment. Also, only a small percentage of teachers though that students should be able to report controversial issues in their school newspaper without authority approval. Even more surprising, they found that 26% of high school teachers in the United States believed that government approval should be needed to publish freely on these websites.

Dr. Kenneth Dautrich, the author of the study, found a correlation between teenagers that advocate free speech and use social media websites. 91% of the American teenagers that use social media on a daily basis believe that people have the right to express unpopular opinions.

The study also found that the vast majority of high school students use the Internet as a resource for school assignments and not surprisingly more American teenagers use text messaging on their mobile phones as opposed to making calls.

Do you think students should be required to have their online posts monitored?

Read more details on the study here.