Oral in the Underground 2 is Tonight!

Back by popular demand, Temple PRSSA is hosting its second spoken word event, Oral in the Underground 2, tonight from 7-9 p.m. in the Howard Gittis Student Center. Temple talent will be showcased in the form of poetry, singing and rapping. Special guests include members of Temple's own poetry collective Babel and PRSSA past President and published poet Meredith Avakian.

Doors open at 6:30 and tickets are only $4 for PRSSA members and $5 for others at the door. Come out and support Temple PRSSA at one of our best fundraisers of the semester!

20 Things You Should Share on Social Media

People share all kinds of things on social media, but how many people question if they are sharing the right things? I found this article posted today on Ragan.com. It's a post from Jeffbullas's blog about things that you should share on social media. Here are some examples of things he says to post. Do you share any of these things?

-Webinars
-Podcasts
-Music if you are a musician
-Text format of your video blog posts
-Microsoft Office Documents
-Notes displaying keypoints from your power point presentations
-Newsletters
(Taken from this article)

What are some things that you think people should post on social media? Let us know!

Address criticism online!

In a recent article on Business Week by Joseph Hughes and Chris Boudreaux, the authors explain that "many companies are being victimized by social media rather than capitalizing on it because they're too slow and ill-equipped to react to negative comments that can damage their brands."

To avoid this potentially negative backlash associated with having a social media presence, the authors recommend six steps. To see all six recommendations, you'll have to read the article. In the meantime, here is one step that any business--no matter how big or small-- can put into practice:

"Reduce the time it takes to respond to Web postings from weeks to hours, or even minutes," the authors said. Taking a simple step like this one shows customers that you are interested in what they have to say, that you hold your company accountable to its customers and that you are aware of your brand.

"Would you ignore a customer who called you and complained by telephone? Probably not. Then why ignore customers complaining about your firm through social media that's instantly accessible to others? Companies shouldn't depend on customers to write positive things about them," the authors said, illustrating how important it is to properly address criticism on social media sites.

Have you ever had to deal with negative comments about your company or organization on social networking sites? What are your recommendations?

Internal relations are important too!

As I near the end of my junior year as a public relations major at Temple University, I am trying to learn as much as possible about the different opportunities within the industry. One area that has recently caught my attention--and is often neglected in discussions of the overall PR industry--is internal relations.

This past week, the beginning of a new fiscal year was observed at the company for which I work. One neat thing that my boss--the company owner--did to keep the company moving forward into the new year was to have all employees write a list of the top ten goals they have for the company (a jewelery store) for 2010.

We then had a meeting at which employees were encouraged to share their goals/ideas with the rest of the work force. Goals and suggestions were then discussed amongst the other employees and managers, as well as the company owner. This discussion served several important functions:

• It helped employees understand the reasons for why some things are done the way they are.
• It helped management gain insight into problems and glitches that are happening on the ground level.
• It brought forth several new ideas that could benefit the company in the long run.
• It made employees feel as if they had a voice and a hand in the direction of the company.
• It helped address and clear tension stemming from unaddressed problems within the company.
  

This meeting really drove home the importance of internal and employee relations for me. After all, happy employees that feel appreciated are more likely to strive to make customers happy, too. They are also more likely to stay with the company for the long haul.

Have you ever been asked for your open and honest feedback? I think that more companies would thrive and would develop a more loyal work force if they adopted a feedback system like this one.

Especially after this experience in my own life, I am really interested in learning more about internal and employee relations.

Alternatives to the Traditional Press Release

With social media, the Internet and technology in general changing the ways we do almost anything, the days of the standard press release may be behind us. Here is a look at the latest trends being used to deviate from the traditional press release.

Social media release: There are various Facebook applications, such as pressreleasepoint, that are used to distribute news and press releases to the media. The same is true for Twitter, where designated Twitter accounts, like PR PressAbout, offer free posting of press releases. This allows reporters to access such sites for story ideas, and for PR professionals to publicize their client to a vast audience and for free. Posting releases on blogs are another idea and allow reporters and readers to make comments and ask questions.

Video release: Videos work well for a client, product or event that deals a lot with imagery, such as fashion.

Bulleted release: Using bullets gets your points and message out quickly. Using bold, underlined or quoted words can help highlight text as well.

Infographic release: Infographics are visual representations of information, knowledge and data. Used as releases they stand out from print news.

Website release: There are many websites that are solely for the distribution of press releases. Some include 24-7 Press Release, 1800PressRelease, Business Wire, Express Press Release, and i-Newswire.

Picture release: Sending a picture with just a caption or blurb can entice reporters to want to know more.

Not directly promoting the client: The “alternative” press release announces a service and an accomplishment, but then goes a step further to create value by explaining what tactics were used and why they were successful, and how the audience can replicate them. This is especially important with social media because social media is all about sharing and interaction!

Following a 10 second rule: People are bombarded by textual information everywhere and are too busy to read lots of information. You must grab their interest in the first 10 seconds they begin reading, otherwise you will be skipped over and ignored.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member, Trish Wyatt.

PR Isn't Just for Health Care: It's for Bankers too!

The new health care bill isn't the only one getting some public relations love these days. Wall Street is also about to start a public relations campaign, and it seems it is much-needed. A new Bloomberg National Poll found that almost two thirds of Americans said they have an unfavorable opinion of business executives. According to the Bloomberg.com article, Wall Street is undertaking an "image-improvement campaign aimed at showing the financial industry as trustworthy and a positive force after more than a year of being chastised in Washington."

The campaign is set to begin as the mid-term election season gears up, and is led by APCO Worldwide, Luntz Maslansky Strategic Research and advertising agency DDB (owned by Omnicom Group Inc.).

"The financial services industry is dedicated to earning back the trust of the American people, and is engaging in a comprehensive effort to communicate directly with them," says the board of the Financial Services Roundtable.

Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Roundtable says "Our focus is two things- one, to have a conversation with our customers and two, to demonstrate the positive benefits the industry brings to the economy and consumers' lives."

Although the specific tactics of the campaign have not been finalized, it is planned to initially focus on setting up a Web site and using various forms of social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

When I read this article on Bloomberg yesterday I thought "What in the world are they going to talk about on Facebook or Twitter?" As someone who is interested in pursuing a career in Investor Relations I was intrigued by the thought of the financial services industry using new media to communicate. Ironically enough, when I opened my "PR Daily Newsfeed" e-mail today I saw a post about a social media conference for financial communicators.

According to the site, attendees will learn the following:

• Build a community of evangelists and promote your organization to a broader online audience
  
• Monitor conversations about your organizations and react quickly during a crisis
  
• Pitch financial journalists and and bloggers using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
  
• Create "YouTube-like" videos, blogs and podcasts to engage your employees and turn them into your best brand ambassadors
  
• Navigate the legal issues surrounding online liability, content control and copyrights - and be aware of all the new regulatory requirements for using social media in your organization
  

As I have found in my research on investor relations (IR), one of the main priorities for IR professionals is to disseminate financial information about their organization timely and fairly. One investor should not have access to financial information before another. Mass media and investor relations Web sites are typically their main tools for this, but adding social media to the kit (if done correctly) can only help improve the efficiency of financial communicators.

Do you agree?

SlideShare and Hootsuite

There are so many sites which offer great services and helpful tools! Well here is a great site to share your presentations! If you haven't heard of it already, SlideShare is "the world's largest community for sharing presentations." Check out this "tour" of the site.

Here are some things you can do on SlideShare:
-Embed slideshows into your own blog or website
-Share slideshows publicly or privately
-Sync audio to your slides
-Join groups to connect with SlideShare members who share your interests
-Download the original file

One great thing I like about this site is the endless topics of slideshows. Take this great slideshow for example, which is a tutorial on managing multiple twitter profiles on Hootsuite. Last week in our PRowl meeting, we talked about managing social media and sites we enjoyed using. Hootsuite was a site some of our members used (I personally use it too), which allows scheduled tweets, as well as organizing multiple social media accounts (like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) all so they are easily and simultaneously accessible.

We'd love to hear about other sites you use to help stay organized? Leave a comment and share!


*UPDATE: Just read this article after @MarkReganCEO of PR Daily and Ragan.com. Offers 5 more tools which make social media easier to manage! Read about sites like Threadsy, Evernote, NustshellMail, Posterous and AlertRank.