Taylor's Top Ten

It is very hard to believe that when I push that little "Publish Post" button down there (and shared one last meal with Team LASC), I will have officially finished my Public Relations concentration. I have learned so much over the past two years and I wanted to share with you my Top 10 things I've learned in PR.

1. Network

If I learned one thing in PR, it is the importance of networking. It does not matter the contact, the more you network the better! You never know when you might need that person you met at a conference, party, or wedding!

2. Good Writing Skills

Writing is such an important skill to have in PR. You never know when someone might need you to write a news release or an article for a newsletter. Being a good writer is also something that will benefit you not only in PR, but every form of communications.

3. Get involved in Social Media

This is another major thing that I have learned in my PR concentration. The benefits of being on Twitter, PR Open Mic, Linked In, and other social media sites allow you to accomplish my number one thing, networking, and keep you in the loop of what's going on in the PR world.

4. Learn How to Plan, Implement, and Execute a PR campaign

This semester was my first opportunity to do this in a group setting and not with my entire class. I learned the things that worked and the things that did not work. I think that practice makes perfect when it comes to doing a campaign and the more you do them, the better you will become.

5. Read Blogs

So I will admit, I have recently become addicted to reading blogs. There are SO many blogs on so many different topics and have learned a lot through reading them once a week. Most PR professionals and agencies have blogs where they post information about what they are doing in PR and it is a great way to keep up with new things going on in PR. (See #3!)

6. Find your niche and go for it!

There are so many aspects in PR, from event planning, to writing press releases, social media, and more. I think I have found my niche in Corporate Social Responsibly and would love to be a part of helping a company develop their CSR.

7. The more experience the better

I have done practicums with our student newspaper, our student radio station, and The GIVE Center, the volunteer hub of GCSU. In my PR classes I have done PR for a non-profit healthcare clinic, planned an auction for our Athletic Auction, and helped promote two shows on The CW. I can take away different lessons from each task I was handed and encourage you to try out different fields of PR so you can accomplish #6!

8. Learn to relate with the media

As a PR professional, you will probably be the liaison between your company and the media. Learn how to pitch well and relate with the media.

9. Event planning is more than just throwing a party...

There is so much more that goes on behind the scenes, you would be amazed. One of my favorite things to see is an event unfold. There is just something magical about it.

10. Have fun!

Life is not worth it id your not enjoying what you're doing! Don't get stressed about the little things and enjoy the fruits of your labor!!

ltf signing off.

The Happiest Place on Earth! (In part to their CSR!)

I will admit it, I love all things Disney. If you read my previous blog posts, you can see hints of this. I have been blessed to visit Disney World more time than I can count on my fingers, and my family likes to say that The Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando is the only place where we can truly get along! As one of our final projects in my PR Campaigns class, we were asked to research the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) of a Fortune 500 company. When I found that The Walt Disney Company was on this list, I was more than excited to find out what they are doing in the realm of CSR. This semester I have learned that out of all the aspects of public relations, corporate social responsibility is something that interests me the most. Putting two of my favorite things together, Disney and CSR, I think I have found a possible career!

The Walt Disney Company has five main CSR objectives and they fall under five categories. These categories are Children and Family, Content and Products, Environment, Community, and Workplace.

• Children and families are at the heart of the Walt Disney Company and they deeply support the well-being of children and families. They have developed four guiding principles for children's content. They are encouraging positive development, making content for kids of all ages, partnering with parents and creating safe environments.
• Disney strives to create content and products responsibly. They have created many standards to which they produce their content and products.
• Since the company was founded, conserving the environment has been a major theme for the company. Disney has five major environmental commitments from climate and energy, waste, ecosystems, water, products, and education and action.
• The Walt Disney Company aims to be a positive and productive member in the communities in which their employees live and work. One way that Disney is accomplishing this is through their employee volunteer program, VoluntEARS.
• Disney is committed to fostering a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace. Many people consider Disney as an employer because of the way they treat their employees. Disney also aims to harbor good relations with their second party suppliers and manufacturers.

The Walt Disney Company encompasses so many different areas that covering all that they are doing in CSR would not fit on this little blog. I encourage you to PLEASE check out their CSR website and see how Disney's CSR is helping the company to become the "Happiest Place on Earth!"

The Times They Are A Changing...

Growing up I always knew that I wanted to go into the communication field. Little did I know that I would be graduating during one of the worst economic downturns our country has ever seen! My professor posted this Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates thanks to the people at Grady College at UGA. The info and statistics in this survey are not very surprising to me, but it still scares me to think about what I am going to do once I graduate in May.

One of the ways that I am trying to combat this economic downturn is to be a well rounded PR student. I am minoring in Spanish in order to broaden my skills and hopefully make me more marketable for employers. The Mass Communication Department at my university has done a great job preparing it's students for the real world and I think this past year's graduates can attest to this. Many people who graduated in May have now found jobs despite the economy at newspapers, television stations, and ad agencies. These connections that we have will hopefully benefit us in a few months!

Community Relations

For our PR Campaigns class, we get to present a case study and discuss it with our class. My partner and I picked the chapter on Community Relations because we are both interested in non-profits and corporate social responsibility. This chapter gave a lot of insight on how to relate and impact your community. It is important to research your community so that you are able to best serve it. It is also important to know your companies strengths and find ways to use your strengths in service. There are many different ways for companies to give back. Some examples are event sponsorship and pro-bono work.

The case that we looked at involved a very small all-women college in New York, Wells College. In 2004, Wells saw a decrease in enrollment and was struggling financially as well. After looking into different options, the decision that the Board of Trustees and the President came to was to move towards co-education. The decision to allow men into this historically all female college was a shock to many, but overall Wells had a lot of support.

This case was interesting to me because when I first read it, I wondered how this fit into community relations. I realized that the college functioned as a community with it's student, faculty, large network of alumni and financial supporters. Community relations does not necessarily mean a non-profit or CSR. There are many different types of community relations and different ways to give back to your community.

Disney's Friends For Change: Project Green

So today is Blog Action Day and thanks to the help of my favorite PR Professor Ging, my PR class gets to participate! Blog Action Day is powered by change.org and seeks to spark discussion around a topic of global importance. The whole idea is not just to get big name blogs to participate, but little PR student blog's as well! This years issue is climate change and the first thing that I thought of was The Disney Channel.

Yep that is correct, The Disney Channel. This summer, Disney launched Disney's Friends For Change: Project Green in hopes of raising awareness to an audience that may be overlooked when it comes to going green. Disney viewers get to have a say in how $1 million will be spent in different charitable programs ranging from water, waste, and the blog action day topic of climate control.

Disney has enlisted all of it's tween a-listers from Miley Cyrus to the Jonas Brothers to help be the face for this campaign and to help raise awareness. They have done several PSA's and even recorded a very catchy song encouraging kids to "send it on".

One key factor in Disney's campaign is to get kids to take action on their own and not enlist the help of their parents. Simple things like turning off the lights when you leave a room and unplugging your cell phone charger when you are not using it are things that kids can do on their own. Getting kids thinking about ways they can make a difference in their world may be able to instill in them a more greener attitude that will stick with them for the rest of their lives. The many different causes, such as helping end deforestation in Central Mexico’s Oyamel forest and helping protect arctic wildlife such as polar bears from the effects of climate change makes kids more aware of what is going on in the world around them. Disney also encourages kids to enlist their friends in these causes also by letting kids know that there is power in numbers. One friend is powerful, but a million friends are unstoppable as one PSA put it.

So on this Blog Action Day 2009, I applause you Disney Channel for helping raise awareness in our youth and hopefully instilling in them values and determination to make the world that they live in a better place. This generation has the power to make a large impact and to conserve this precious planet we are a part of.

TV To Talk About...

This semester my PR Campaigns class is participating in a competition with PRSSA and The CW to promote two of their new shows, 90210 and Melrose Place. My class was split into three teams and we each had to plan and execute a campaign to help promote these shows on the college campus.

This past Thursday my group, Team 31061, had our event "TV to Talk About, Music to Jam About". Our group wanted to do something fun and laid back and something that students would enjoy. We had two music groups, Blake Whitworth and the Whales, come down and put on a concert on Front Campus. While people were enjoying the live music, they were able to enter a raffle with prizes from many different Milledgeville businesses. We also had fun interactive games like corn hole and ladder golf and gave out CW prizes to anyone who wanted to play. While doing this we got to talk to people about The CW and why we were doing this event.

Overall the event went really well, despite most of the student body leaving for our first ever Fall Break and some other events on Front Campus, but we made it work. We hope that after our event more people heard about these new shows and wanted to learn more about them!

Ethics

Since the beginning of my mass communication education, I have been taught the importance of ethics in the mass media. This past week my PR Campaigns class had a discussion on ethics and how our ethical views will influence what kind of job we look for after graduation. Some of the biggest influences on my ethical views has been my parents and my faith. Growing up, my parents never forced their views on me but allowed me to make my own decisions (and mistakes!) but I watched them and a lot of their values rubbed off on me. I think the role my faith has played in my life has been an even greater influence on my ethical views than my parents. The Bible is my favorite book and I want to live out what it teaches.

After college, I want to find a job that I enjoy doing and preferably makes a tangible difference in the world around them. I want to be successful in my career, but I will not compromise my morals in getting there and would not want to work for a company that does not stick to a code of ethics. I honestly don't care about the money that I can make, and would not take a job with a companies whose product I could not support, such as tobacco. Honesty is very important to me, and I would not want to work for a company who does not stand behind their word.

A lot of these are ideal situations and I know that we do not live in an ideal world, so the chances of me finding a job with a company with a high corporate social responsibility that is making a difference in the world may be slim, but I will still continue to stick to my personal code of ethics.

One For One

Each week my Public Relation Campaigns class blogs about a topic in PR, and this week I have one of my classmates to thank for my inspiration for this blog. Lauren blogged about Corporate Social Responsibility this week and after reading her post I knew exactly what I was going to blog about!

Team LASC (my Campaigns class) knows how much I love TOMS Shoes and I can't believe I have yet to blog about this company! The TOMS Shoes website sums up their mission with this statement "TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we're all about." For every pair of shoes you buy, they give a pair to a child in need. Talk about corporate social responsibility! Since TOMS was started in 2006, they have given away more than 140,000 pairs of shoes.

TOMS Shoes uses many different media outlets to get their name out and has been featured in several magazines and newspapers such as Vogue, People, Time, and Rolling Stones. When TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie was featured in an AT&T commercial, The New York Times wrote an article on the impact this one 30 second commercial had on the company (check out the article here!) When the commercial premiered during the telecast of The Masters this year, it created a lot of exposure for the company and got people tweeting and commenting on YouTube. The feedback from the 30 second commercial led to AT&T expanding the spot to 60 seconds. TOMS Shoes was also the first real business to be featured in an AT&T commercial showcasing the theme "more bars, more places" as it followed Blake on shoe drops around the world. In the few months after the commercial aired, the TOMS website went from having 9,000 visitors a day to upwards of 90,000 visitors in one day! Woah! TOMS Shoes is on Twitter and has recently added Twitter pages for shoe support and friends of TOMS, which keeps you updated on shoe drops and other events happening with the company. TOMS has also collaborated with several celebrities, such as Dave Matthews and Brandon Boyd, to create limited edition styles.

Check out TOMS and see for yourself how one company is making a difference all around the world.

"Learning Is Not A Spectator Sport..." D. Blocher

When I look back over the past three years I have spent in college, learning about the world of Mass Communications and Public Relations, I have learned so much in the span of just a few short semesters. A few years ago I never would have known what a news release was, how many words should be in a lead, and wether or not to use a sans serif font or just a serif font.

There are many skills that help future PR professionals succeed in this business and this blog post lists several attributes for new PR professionals.

In looking at this list I feel like I need to grow in more areas than I have expertise in!

I am a social media junkie and really enjoy microblogging and social networking. I have come to find that sites such as Twitter and Facebook help get your product or event out to the public in a way that traditional media can't. In today's generation, I think these skills are very valuable and I enjoy finding new ways to apply them to PR. I also enjoy working with design elements and coding in websites, even though I am no where near an expert!

Some skills that I need some more experience in are media relations and proactiveness. I have had experience relating with the media and pitching ideas to the media, but they have always been in a group setting. Media Relations is one of the most important aspects of PR and is something that I want to become an expert in! I am also a procrastinator. In an article I read once, Katie Couric said that procrastination was one of her stregnths and helped her to work under pressure and deadlines. Now I love Katie and lived by this mantra for a while, but I have come to learn that being a procrastinator leaves you pulling very stressful all nighters. Learn to plan ahead and make the most of your free time.

In conclusion, learning is not a spectator sport. I feel that this is very true for PR. The more practice you have and the more experience you have in all areas of PR makes you a more skilled professional. So take advantage of every opportunity you've been given and push yourself to bigger and more challenging things. You never know what you are capable of if you don't try!

Should Of, Could Of, Would Of....

My venture into Mass Communications was not always in public relations. Ever since I was in the fifth grade I have always wanted to be the next Katie Couric. I have always had a love for television and always had a desire to anchor the evening news. Well that all changed after interning with WALB-TV in Albany my senior year of high school. I came to realize that the television business is not as glamorous as it seems!

Luckily I chose I college that had an excellent Mass Communications program which offered several different concentrations. I am not sure how I came to the decision of concentrating in PR, but I am glad that I have! Thinking back over the past few semesters of MSCM craziness, I really have learned so much.

For the things that I wish I would of known before starting...Let's see. I think that I lucked out by knowing exactly what I wanted to major in and sticking with it, and thanks to that I will be graduating on time! If there has been one thing I have learned about PR and Mass Communications it is the importance of networking. I wish I could of started networking even back in high school with the TV station that I interned with. There have been several people that I have met at events that I never asked for their business card or contact info. I have learned that no matter who the contact is, the more the better! Public Relations is something that I feel is ever changing and adapts to the different generations and publics targeted. Always be open minded and don't be afraid if something does not work on the first try. Public Relations encompasses so much and I feel like there is something for everyone in PR. You might be surprised at how much you use it in your daily life!

Viva South Africa!

This summer I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Johannesburg, South Africa with Campus Outreach, a campus ministry that aims to glorify God through building laborers on the campus for the lost world. During the seven weeks that I spent there, our team of 18 college students from all over Georgia partnered with Campus Outreach Johannesburg, specifically on the campus of The University of Johannesburg Bunting Road Campus. Our goal was to partner along side CO-Johannesburg and help strengthen and encourage their ministry on the Bunting Road campus. The time I spent in South Africa was full of exciting adventures, such as going on a safari on a game reserve and being 10 feet from three FULL GROWN lions, spending weekends loving on little children and trying to learn Zulu in order to communicate with them, many days spent in the dorms of UJB playing South African games and building relationships with students on the UJB campus, and even eating zebra,

antelope, and crocodile!

TIA! This is Africa!

Some of my CCP team and the leaders at COJ

Even thoughmy time there was not spent doing things that related directly to public relations, I was surprised at how many times PR came into practice! I was really excited to learn that Public Relations is also a major at the University of Johannesburg! Spending most of our week in the dorms allowed me to meet a good number of students who were PR majors and I was excited to talk to them about the differences about PR in South Africa and in America. In South Africa, Public Relations is more of the promotion of a business or product and does not contain as much event planning as PR in America. While I was in South Africa I got to put my PR skills to good use. Each Friday night we would plan a Friday Night Event that aimed to get first year student’s connected with the leaders and let them know more about what Campus Outreach was. My Friday Night Event was a trivia night and we had the biggest turnout!

I can say without a doubt that this was the best summer of my life! The things that I got to experience can in no way be encompassed in this little blog and my favorite part is that apart from God I never would of got this experience! So now as I approach my senior year in college, I am not sure what awaits me after May. I would love to find some way to encompass both my PR skills and my desire to help those in need. As I begin to look for internships and careers I hope that what I learned this summer will help in the many years to come. I’ve been bitten by the travel bug, so don’t be surprised if in ten or fifteen years I’m living in some remote country doing something unexpected!

-ltf

Playing with kids in a village called Butlang..Favorite part :)

Below: Me and a real lion cub! And our team with Nelson Mandela!

PR In Action at Chick-Fil-A

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If you know me, you know that my favorite restaurant is Chick-Fil-A. This little southern fast food chain has the best sweet and chicken nuggets I've ever had. But one thing I also love about Chick-Fil-A is how they do PR. Their "Eat Mor Chikin" campaign is one of the most memorable and recognizable campaigns in the fast food market. I also like how each different restaurant does their own special events and tries to reach out to the community. The Milledgeville Chick-Fil-A hosts school nights each week, with a percentage of profits made going directly to the schools. Being the frequent Chick-Fil-A eater that I am, many times I end up inside on one of these school night to see many families lined up for nuggets and the original chicken sandwich. One night my roommate and I happened to stumble upon Daddy Daughter Date Night. They had a red carpet, balloon arch, tablecloths, centerpieces, and even flowers for each little girl. The video that I posted shows a little bit of what went on and how Chick-Fil-A does PR in Action! And I apologize ahead of time, I am not the best Filmer! 

PR Open Mic

I first joined PR Open Mic back in February, after following them on Twitter. I became interested in this social media site after noticing that they were posting notes and outlines from PR Real World break out sessions. I attended PR Real World in February and really enjoyed hearing the speakers there. When I noticed that people were posting their notes from different breakout sessions, I was so excited! There were many sessions that I was unable to attend, but with the help of PR Open Mic, I was able to get all the valuable information. 

Browsing around PR Open Mic, it reminds me a lot of Facebook. You can connect with other PR people and chat with others on the site. I really like that they offer links to various blogs in the PR community. I enjoy reading blogs and seeing what other people are learning in public relations. I am still fairly new to PR Open Mic...I'll admit I kind of forgot about it since finding the PR Real World links, but I can definitely see how this can be a very valuable tool in PR. 

I also like how different colleges and universities have the opportunity to run PR Open Mic. This week Oklahoma State University's Social Media class has the opportunity to provided the content for the site for the entire week. They post different questions and information for the members to take part in. I really like how PR Open Mic is helping students grow and giving them opportunities for some real world experience in PR. Hey Ging, maybe we could get PR Admin to do this?! Ha! 

Thunder Rolls: GCSU's 11th Annual Athletic Auction

This past weekend I helped plan and carry out my first "big" event! My PR Admin class had the pleasure of planning the annual Athletic Auction that the Georgia College Athletic Program puts on every year. It is their biggest fundraiser, and much of the money raised goes towards scholarships for student athletes. Our professor began talking about this event last semester in our Writing for PR class, telling us that this was one of her favorite events to plan.  On the first day of class this semester, we were split up into four different teams. We were each in charge of pitching our idea for the auction, planning everything from the theme, the invitations, the decorations, and even the menu. After a couple of weeks of planning, we presented our pitches to the Athletic Department. This was my first big pitch, complete with unfamiliar faces and held in the Dean's Conference Room. For a second, I felt like I was part of an agency!

Once the AE's were picked we began rolling (pun intented!) with the theme "Thunder Rolls". Finally, after all our hard work, Atheletic Auction weekend was upon us! We spent many hours decorating, making gift baskets for corporate tables, and blowing up hundreds of silver, green, and blue balloons. (PS-I am now a professional balloon arch maker and available for weddings, birthdays, and other special e

vents...) Seeing the final product Saturday afternoon was so rewarding. 

During the auction, I was responsible for selling "Split The Pot" raffle tickets and was able to see somethings that we learned from The Tipping Point first hand. I am not a salesperson, so being thrown a money bag and stack of tickets and told "Go sell all of these please!" I kind of freaked out. I started off going up to people and timidly asking them, "Would you like to buy a raffle ticket? You get a chance to win $260!". This did not work very well. After a coup

le of minutes, the guy that threw me the tickets (that I later found out was the tennis coach) began to help me. This guy was a salesperson and a connector in one! He began to go up to people he knew at the auction, which was pre

tty much everyone, and schmoozed his way into helping me sell my 52 tickets in ten minutes! He showed me that you've got to be aggressive w

hen given the task of selling something and reinforced the importance of networking.  

Playing a part in the planning of the Athletic Auction has shown me that I really enjoy planning events. There is something that just gets me really excited about being behind the scenes and being a part of big events. I think it is safe to say that event planning is becoming my favorite part of PR!

Here are some pictures from the event! 

Not Another Blog About Social Media...

I'll admit it, sometimes it is very hard for me to find something PR related to write for my blog. Not that I don't enjoy blogging, but I would rather be blogging about my current favorite song or my plans for the summer (but I think I would be the only one reading it!) I try to find things in my everyday life that can relate to PR but many are not long enough for a blog post...So around this time every week I check many websites and Twitter pages to find something that sparks my eye. If you look at previous post that I made, many have to do with social media. Imagine my surprise when I come across Stop writing about social media to be a successful blogger. 

Woah, really?! I had to read on!

The blogger points out that social media is an obsession for many people and something that we all have in common. This would make for a good topic to blog about but social media is something that can not be placed in a box, it covers many different facets. It is individual to every different user and we each use it differently. Something we all can take away from the blog is that writing about social media does not make us experts but actually using it and finding new and innovative ways to use it. Be an influencer, not an observer. Get out there and start something! Be original and don't just go with the flow. So this is not another post saying how much I love Twitter or that PR Open Mic is pretty niffty but one telling you to step out and try something new! 

Brand Yourself

Recently I have become increasing more aware of the need to "Brand Yourself" and make your self available and appealing to potential employers. There are many ways that you can do this, through your resume, blog, and even having your own website. I asked a friend what I should write my post about this week and she told me "Weebly". Weebly is a free website creator that lets you make your own website fairy easily. I had first heard about it when Dr. Carter's senior seminar class had to put their portfolios online. I decided to check it out and it is great tool in helping brand yourself. With this site it is very easy for you to place your resume and samples of things you've done online for employers to see. This semester I am taking a class on Web Design and learning things like Dreamweaver and Fireworks and a lot about HTML. For one of our projects, we had to make a website about ourselves. I was able to make slide shows of the many fliers, brochures, and even t-shirts I have designed for my sorority. I placed writing samples and found a way to link my website to articles I had written for our schools newspaper, The Colonnade. I also had a page for my resume and contact info. I can now take these pages and put them in Weebly and publish it for the world to see! But if some of these words like HTML and Dreamweaver are Greek to you, Weebly is very easy to use and helps you along the way. So as we are applying for internships and thinking about the future, remember to start branding yourself now! You never know what opportunities can come your way! 

Look Whose Using Twitter!

When I had to join Twitter for my PR Admin class this semester, I thought it would be an easy way to keep in touch with the other students in my class and our professor. Little did I know how many people and companies were on the microblogging site! I have now been on Twitter for almost three months and now have 57 followers and I am following 68 people...Not bad for a little PR student! 

In the past few months, Twitter has been all over the television and Internet. People on newscasts are talking about it and even Ellen DeGeneres did a whole monologue on her talk show about Twitter, after P. Diddy introduced it to her! But not only are celebrities and journalist on Twitter, but also CEO's of companies and different products. I came across an article in Forbes about how many cult brands and their fans are flocking to twitter. Read the article here.  This article gives examples such as Kodak and Dunkin' Doughnuts who have employees tweeting about products, promotions, and even their personal lives. The Dunkin' Doughnuts tweets are very laid back and easygoing, mirroring the "Average Joe Dunkin" that the company seeks to attract. Twitter is also helping get the word out to consumers about promotions companies have, and the consumers are listening. Dell claims that it has sold over $1 million worth of refurbished computers thanks to its "DellOutlet" Twitter page, which has 153,527 followers. The other day I tweeted about how I had Krystals for dinner and the next day Krystals Fast Food was following me! Its is interesting how companies can find you on Twitter! 

Overall Twitter is a great site and if your not on it already, I suggest you jump on the bandwagon and start following people! I will end this post with a quote from the article that I feel sums up Twitter and it's advantages. "Marketers like that Twitter isn't obtrusive. Users select the people--and brands--they want to follow. Companies have an audience that has already shown an affinity for what they sell. Their challenge is to figure out what to do with that connection." 

Tip That Point!

For my Public Relations and Administration class we had to read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. The front cover of this book says, “How little things can make a big difference” and I think that this sums up what Gladwell talks about in his book.

Throughout the book Gladwell talks about how one small occurrence or happening causes an idea, disease, event, or anything of that nature to “tip”. When it tips, it spreads at an exponential rate. This tipping occurs through three different rules, the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. When all of these three things come together correctly, you have a tipping point. In his book, Gladwell cites examples such as the comeback of Hushpuppies, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, and others as events that, thanks to the use of these three rules, were able to tip and influence far more people than expected. This tipping point can be both a good thing and a bad thing. One of the negative tipping points Gladwell cited was an epidemic of syphilis in Baltimore. Cases of syphilis tipped so quickly that in the span of a year, the number of children born with the disease increased by 500 percent. It is numbers like these that show just how influential tipping points can be.

In the Law of the Few Gladwell divides people into three different “types”. These are the Connectors, the Mavens, and the Salesmen. The Connector is a person who knows lots of people. They are people who have an extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances. These people have an intricate network of “weak ties” that they are able to use to their advantage. The second group is the Maven, someone who accumulates knowledge. The Maven does not keep this wealth of knowledge to themselves but passes it along to others. Mavens want to solve others problems, and they generally do this by solving their own. “The fact that mavens want to help, for no other reason than because they like to help, turns out to be an awfully effective way of getting someone’s attention.” (67) The last group of people is the Salesmen. Salesmen have skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we hear. They are bubbly and energetic people who draw you in and make you feel welcome. These three types of people together are the glue that makes a tipping point.

Out of these three people, I believe that I am a Maven. I love learning about new things and then telling others about them. When I gain information, I am quick to pass it along to others who I know are interested. I feel like I am more of Maven in certain areas than others. For example, I check People.com all day every day and my friends are quick to call me the pop-culture junkie. In the book, Gladwell talks about how many Connectors get their information from Mavens and I have a real life example of this! I have a good friend who works at a PR Firm in Athens and she is defiantly a Connector. One afternoon she called me after work wanting to know if I knew of any well-known women who lived in the Denver, Colorado area who would be a good person to speak at an event for a new Nike product for women. I was able to do a little digging on the Internet and was able to find her a list of a couple of well-known celebrities who lived in Colorado. I am not sure if the information was helpful or not, but knowing that I was someone she could come to for information was satisfying to me.

When looking at our PR Admin class, I feel like we have good examples of all three types of people. I believe that if we can come together and put all of our skills, information, and contacts to good use, we can make the Athletic Auction a success. I believe that one thing that can be very influential in “tipping” the Auction is spreading the word around the community. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool in getting something to tip. I feel that many people who live in Milledgeville and are prime people to buy tickets may not know about it. I think that if we use our connections and get the word out about the auction, by having press releases in the local newspapers, radio ads, even television spots as well, I think we can get people to come. I think that we also need to find some simple way to make it appealing and sticky to those around Milledgeville. Since college students are not necessarily our main target audience, this might take some thinking.

As for how this all applies to using social media, I am not quite sure if I have figured this out yet. Since I have gotten an account on Twitter, I have heard so much about it on the Internet, television newscasts such as The Today Show, and newspapers. I feel like many more people of all ages, races, and professions are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon in the past couple of months. We may just be on the verge of a tipping point of how we use social media to get breaking up to the minute news! 

Do Your Research!

As I was looking through tweets and blog posts trying to find something to write about this week, I came across a blog called The PR Practitioner. I am always surprised at how many different people of different occupations have blogs. When do they have time to update them during the busy work day?! Well back to this blog that I came across...His most recent post is titled "PR Students: Research before reaching out." The title grabbed my attention and I decided to further look into it. His post talks about the importance of researching before you contact people. He said that he is seeing a trend in PR students that do not research before reaching out. He gave an example of a college student that e-mailed him questions that he could easily have answered himself if he had looked around the blog. At PR Real World I went to the Media Relations seminar and the panel also talked about the importance of researching. In PR, it can make both your job and the reporters job easier if you put a little effort into researching who exactly would be the best person for you to contact with a story idea, news release, or product pitch. Just because they have a username or website that is similar to what you are looking for, does not mean that they are an expert in the field! So take a little time to do some research before reaching out!

My PR Real World Experience

This past Friday I attended PR Real World in Atlanta. It is put on by PRSA and features different breakout sessions and speakers relating to many different aspects of public relations. I was not sure what I was getting myself into, but I think that the information I learned will benefit me in the coming years. One thing that I really liked about PR Real World was the variety of the speakers. Our first session featured three people from CNN, who covered a broad range of professions. They were the first of many to speak on the importance of social media. I do not think that there was one session that did not mention it's importance. One of the speakers, Victor Hernandez, who is the Director of Coverage at CNN, gave one of my favorite quotes of the day. He said, "Social media tools are like running shoes. You never fall in love with the your first pair. You have to look around and find the one that works best f

or you." I feel this is very true. It takes some time to get used to the different types of social media and it takes some time to figure out which one works best for your needs. 

A lot of the professionals at PR Real World told us that our generation has an upper hand on social media because there has almost never been a time when we have not had access to it. In middle school we had AIM Instant Messenger and Xangas, and now we have Facebook, Twitter, and so many more! Today's PR professionals have a very active presence on these social media sites and already knowing how they work puts us one step ahead. 

I also really enjoyed the variety of the sessions. I was able to attend sessions on Internships, Non-Profits, Media Relations, and Sports and Entertainment PR. During our lunch, we also got to hear from the Director of US Communications for the one and only McDonald's! I am not sure where else you could find all these people in one room! PR Real World helped me to see that I think my future lies somewhere in non-profit public relations or event planning. I really don't see myself working for an agency or corporation. I really enjoyed PR Real World and hopefully will be able to go back next year! 

Just some of the GCSU PRSSA Chapter at PR Real World

For more information about PR Real World and PRSA, click here!

Who owns the right to your Facebook?

This morning when I signed into my Facebook page, I was greeted with a message letting me know that there was a "Terms Of Use" Update. Normally I would ignore such a message, but when I got on Twitter I saw that people had made tweets about how if you didn't want Facebook owning your content, you better "dump" it now. I decided to look into it more and came across an article in the Chicago Tribune entitle Facebook's friendship comes with fine print.  

This article discusses Facebook's privacy policy and hints on the fact that when you sign up for Facebook, you agree to a Terms of Use that gives Facebook license to share your information with others on the social network. With this new terms of use, some users showed concern over weather Facebook can use your information forever. Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, said this in one blog post "In reality, we wouldn't share your information in a way you wouldn't want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. Our goal is to build great products and to communicate clearly to help people share more information in this trusted environment." In this day and age, when everyone uses the Internet to share and find information,

it is interesting to think of who actually has the right to it and who all can access it. I post lots

information on Facebook and Twitter and even though I would never think it interesting enough

for someone to take and distribute elsewhere, in reality they could. So be careful what you post

and make sure that you check into the terms of use before you sign up for any social networking site!

Skewed Views

Earlier this week, I was looking through some tweets of the people I've been following on Twitter and came across a re-tweet about an article in USA Today. This article, entitled "Despite Dim view of public relations, it may be needed", discussed how many people view the PR world. 

If you would like to read this article, you can click here. 

As I began to read it, the article brought up many issues that I have heard of and some of which I have already experienced. Many people seems to think that public relations is manipulative and does whatever it can to get their client's name out into the world. They also talk about how some believe in public relations the truth is not always told and little white lies are part of the package. The article also mentions the "feud" between PR professionals and journalists. During my senior year of high school, I interned at our local television station in Albany and had a great chance to get exposed to the world of mass communications. While working with producers, I was told numerous times how much they did not like PR people and felt like their job was so much easier than that of the television producer. Since taking classes dealing with PR, I believe that this is not true! One of the quotes from the article that stands out to me is this, "Yet without the PR industry, argue Morris and Goldsworthy, there would be very little news." Many of the stories we find on television and in newspapers were most likely pitched by some type of PR person. Working with my client last semester and doing PR for "Yours Anne" has shown me that this true. Even working at the TV station my senior year I saw this as well, every day at the staff meeting people would have printed out press releases (which back then, I had no idea what they were...)  when discussing story ideas for the day. Good public relations, I feel, should be the backbone to any company. Even if many people are not sure what it is, or think that it is just putting a "spin" on things, pubic relations is hopefully something that is here to stay and helps rather than hinders how we go about our daily routine. 

Tweet Tweet Tweet

Hello, my name is Taylor Ferrell and I am addicted to Twitter. 

Can I just say that I think Twitter is one of the coolest things that I have seen in a while. When I was searching for people to follow I decided to just type in random things that I enjoy and would possibly want to work for one day and I came across some interesting tweeters...

1. I love any and everything Disney. On Twitter, I came across a couple of good Disney tweeters that gives you inside deals going on at Disney and answers any questions that you have about all thing Mouse, official Walt Disney World news like when new attractions are opening and other insider info, and my favorite is probably disneyauditions that tells you auditions going on for Disney movies and Walt Disney World Attractions. But to the PR part of this...I have always wanted to work for Disney at some point in my life. I've been looking into internships and other things that they offer and hopefully, one day my dream will come true. Maybe following all of these people will open doors in the future! 

2. I love Pandora Radio. If you've never used it, try it out. You can create you own radio stations that play music similar to artists that you choose. I came across the community manager for Pandora on Twitter. I told her that I liked her product and she sent me a dm back! It is cool to think that we can use Twitter to communicate with 'big people' and they might even listen to our comments we have! 

Along with these random people that I have followed, I am following lots of PR professionals and students. One is my best friend that is a PR major at Georgia and in looking through some other PR Professors, I came across a girl I went to elementary school with and is now a PR major at Auburn. What a small small world! And Twitter is making it smaller!  

Social Media in 2009

As I was reading the PRSA Tactics the other day, I came across an article entitled "Social Media in 2009: A Tale Of Two Futures" by Jim Nail. It talked about the importance of PR company's using social media and how much use has increased over the past few years. The article said that there was a 33% increase in the number of online consumers using social media in 2008 than in 2007. Nail gives two predictions about how the use of social media will change in the coming year. The first he said was that the time that users spend in the many types of social media will certainly increase this year. I totally agree. I spend more time checking Facebook, Twitter, my e-mail, Blogs, and other websites that I frequent a lot more than I watch television or read newspapers. His second prediction was that conferences and webinars will continue to grow social media.

 He brings up two good directions that social medias can take PR. The first is using social media to build relationships with publics and use it to help consumer's voice their opinion. The second is going the route of overloading the publics with too much information and becoming like pop-up ads that no one pays attention to. 

I think that social media is a great way for PR professionals to really see what their clients want and ways they can improve products. They are fast and most are easy to use, giving the PR professional fast feedback.

One other point that the article made that I thought was interesting was the effect that consumers are having with social media. He references things like Facebook users revolting against the Beacon Ad program the company was trying to use and the uprising on Twitter with the Motrin Moms dislike of their ad campaign. In the Twitter example, it lead to the company removing the ad from the airwaves.

As we begin using many different types of social media in our Admin class, I am excited to see firsthand how this type of media continues to grow over the next few months.