Courtney in College Round 2
I'm a first year…Tweet, tweet…
Twitter. Ok so in my Style and Design class my senior year at Auburn University, Robert French made us sign up for Twitter. this was before any celebrity had Twitter, before tweet was a word and before this is before there was even an ap for Twitter. I had no clue what it was and when you’re trying to explain it to someone that doesn’t know what Twitter is-it sounds dumb (just to verify, I am a HUGE Twitter fan and that will be revealed later in this post…) But what is it? A status update in 140 characters or less? Don’t we have facebook status updates for this? What is this @courtbreslin stuff? I’m confused…
So I signed up for Twitter and didn’t touch it for about a year unless Robert made us tweet. So then I got it on my phone. And then all my friends got Twitter. And then I started really liking it. Now, I follow about 40 people on Twitter, a handful of celebrities and then mostly my friends. I have protected tweets and I only let me friends follow me. This is why I like Twitter: I have about 12 really good friends, and instead of calling each other and telling all 12 what we are doing and what we are up to, Twitter kind of takes care of that. I tweet “Wanna go to the pool?” instead of texting 12 girls and if someone is free to join, they do.
So as a PR practitioner, I use Twitter for all the wrong reason, just for personal use. I don’t retweet articles or anything intellectual whatsoever. I do think Twitter is an awesome tool for public relations. You can send out a micro message that reaches your publics on their phone or computer. Also, the benefit of trending topics can really help your cause because if you can get a lot of people to retweet your message or tweet about your message, it become a trending topic.
I like Twitter. In fact, I just tweeted that I finished this blog. -@Courtbreslin
Crackberry….is there an app for that?
I didn’t even know what a phone could do until the day my Junior year in college when I received my Blackberry. I started slow with the Pearl, where I learned that I could receive my e-mail, Facebook, send pictures, do voicenotes and BBM with such great pleasure. My senior year I moved up at a Curve and with that bigger screen, I could not be happier. I love smartphones so much that I couldn’t decide between a Blackberry or an iPhone and so therefore I settled on an iTouch in addition to my Blackberry (that way I’m not missing out on anything that either leaders in the industry can do)
Now that’s I’ve established my credibility as a smartphone user (ha, get that Comm 1000 people?) I’m moving on to the actual point of my blog: what is so great about the smartphones and are they changing the way social media operates?
Smartphones are connecting the world at an unbelievable speed. Organizations can send information out using social media and it can be accessible from a smartphone in a matter of seconds. Business people can communicate internationally sending files or photos at an amazing rate. Basically, this theme of a “Global Village” is being achieved faster and faster by smartphones. The messages that are disseminated onto the publics from an organization using social media (such as social press releases, YouTube videos, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) can be accessed immediately from the apps and/or internet on a smartphone.
Smartphones do widen the gap between technology users and non users. If you have a smartphone, you will obviously be able to receive information quicker and easier. The people that are not accessible to smartphones will be left behind.
To close it up, I love my Blackberry because I get sent pictures of my adorable niece on a daily basis who I never get to see. My sister would murder me if I put a picture up of her on my public blog, but the photo I will show you was one from this past weekend when I went to the Braves game at Turner field. I took a picture of where I was sitting and sent it to all my family members and then my Dad sent me back on of my whole group on TV. Nuts huh?
Get on YouTube and search…
What would social media be without YouTube? It is so crazy to think that five years ago, YouTube barely existed. Now, I can search any song I want and watch the music video. It’s like having my own MTV channel on the computer. Not to mention the hilarious videos that can be watched. That sounds really uncool of me, but I am not ashamed to say that I play YouTube on my computer almost every morning while I get ready for school and I am an expert on music videos. In social situations, when I hear a song, I can expand in detail about what the music video is like all because of YouTube. Okay, reeling it back in….
YouTube’s tagline is Broadcast Yourself. This pretty much is how the site operates. Anyone can set up an account and upload any video. This has set up another world of YouTube; it is it’s own society or community in some ways. Celebrities have dance offs in the world of YouTube (Miley Cyrus) and they create videos “battling” each other, people set up vlogs, or video blogs that are personal diaries but in the form of a video, or sit in their rooms alone and let the inner performer come out. Which is what brings me to my favorite YouTube video of all time, it actually might have been my first video I ever viewed on YouTube, so it’s near and dear to my heart. That’s right folks, Numa Numa. Is it weird that I get so much satisfaction over a dude that I don’t know, sitting in front of his computer, clearly during the almost bed-time time of night where his hair is wet from his nighttime shower and the lights are dim because it’s just a bit too late, singing a foreign song with headphones on that he so obviously rehearsed way too much, and made up the weirdest dance moves that if done in front of me at a club, I would be scared but since this awesome combination is displayed on YouTube, I for some reason think it’s perfection.
For PR purposes, I know YouTube can be helpful, but I think that it still has strides to go. To me, YouTube is more of an entertainment, self-outlet, people talking to a camera website. Yes, I do think it is a great channel of communication to get your message out to your target audience, but when I want information about a company, I neglect YouTube. I look to other social media channels first, so maybe the problem is with me, or maybe YouTube needs to get a little more serious. But then, I think what makes YouTube so awesome is that people of all ages can sit back and watch a funny video anytime. All I know is…well that Numa Numa still makes me giggle.
I’m not even sure what song this is
I’m not even sure what song this is
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Podcasts are pretty cool. Let me explain what they are, its like a mini media player that is embedded in your website and can play audio clips. I just spend about an hour trying to figure out how to embed this podcast into my blog and I am still unsuccessful. I don’t even know if it’s possible, so fellow readers, if it is- let me know. In the meantime, I have settled on uploading my podcast onto my Podbean account, which Dr. Youngblood introduced us to. Podbean.com is like a blog for podcasts, and it makes it super easy to upload a file. When I went to embed it from podbean, it didn’t work- more unsuccessful attempts.
Also, one might think you can upload any audio/mp3 clip into a podcast and play away. Thank goodness Dr. Youngblood turned us away from that because it is illegal. I was about to upload one of my iTunes songs and call it a day, oops- that’s not allowed. Sooooo, I went to Archive.org and eventually downloaded a HUGE file of songs that I assume are Grateful Dead (hopefully Dr. Youngblood doesn’t read this, he might shudder at the fact that I am not keen on his favorite band.) Archive.org has a lot of audio clips and mostly Grateful Dead music available for free. I downloaded about 30 songs in a zip file, extracted it, and then uploaded one of the songs onto my Podbean. I have no idea what song it is, so don’t even ask. Also, I don’t even know if I can do that action again since I clicked away on Archive.org for 30 minutes straight. Another issue I stumbled onto is that a lot of these files are Quicktime files which you can’t save onto your computer, that is when I had to stumble upon a huge file and unzip it. Pod away people. I would have much rather podcasted T-pain, I couldn’t figure out how.
Online Forums
Online forums or message boards are online discussion sites where people with similar interests. The first thing that pops in to my head is creepy chatrooms, but this is definitely not the case. Forums have many advantages. They can help answer people’s questions. For example, if there is a new product that was just launched and before you buy it, you want to chat with users of the product…presenting…an online forum. You can chat there.
You can register as a member of a forum or use the site anonymously. There are rules and policies in some forums also that are maintained by the administrators. I never use forums myself so this is a world that I haven’t even entered into. From a PR perspective, organizations can set up forums and have employees and customers openly discuss needs and wants. However, it be can a disadvantage because publics can be speaking negatively and publicly about an organization.
Start googling online forums and you’re bound to find one about a subject that you’re keen on: theology, education, politics, poker, the list goes on and on and on. Start chatting away.
Tag me!
Facebook. I wonder how many hours the average college student spends on Facebook. I tried looking it up but kept getting different statistics so therefore I’m just offering the thought up, if I had to guess we spend a LOT of time on Facebook.
Facebook, MySpace and other sites similar to this are known as social networking sites. These sites are literately changing peoples lives and I’m not sure how I feel about a website taking over the world, but it sure has made a difference and I am definitely guilty of taking part of the social networking indulgence. People put up photos, tag, chat, connect, message, poke, wall write and a million other actions that don’t require face-to-face communication.
In the PR world, the social networking sites have helped a lot when used correctly. There are a lot of ways you can use social networking to help promote your cause. Creating events, inviting people to become fans of a page, status updates and other ways are great uses of social networking in PR. Social networking sites can also be channels for uploading videos and pictures to show the publics you are trying to target.
Whether you use social networking sites for fun and photo tagging or as an outlet to communicate to your publics and promote an organization, make sure it doesn’t consume the whole project because social networking is just an option not the entire operation.
RSS Feeds
This week I must write about RSS feeds. I will come right out and admit: I do not like RSS feeds. (audience gasp) I think they’re pointless and complicated, which is weird because RSS feeds are trying to simplify the internet.
First off, what is a RSS feed you may ask? Even if you’re computer savvy, you still might not know what a RSS feed is. A RSS feed is a Really Simple Sydnication. Basically, it is a website that subscribes you to the websites that you frequently visit and then it gives you updates on the website. Also, RSS feeds offer websites that you might be interested in. Google Reader is a popular RSS feed that you can sign up for through a Gmail account.
I do not like RSS feeds because the internet makes people lazy already. A RSS feed is actually putting people’s daily internet activities all on one website so you don’t have to bother clicking and searching and visiting your website. Gah. Please. One of my daily joys is visiting Anthony Bourdain’s website, please don’t take that away from me.
Blogging
I am going to write a blog about blogs, don’t you worry, I see the irony here, but that is what I was assigned, so here we go.
Blogs are becoming a huge part of digital world. They are giving individuals power over these massive markets, such as fashion and whatnot, because they are actively being the consumer and shockingly, people are influenced by online journal-like things. Ok, wait, I am not saying that if you start writing a blog about Julia Childs cookbook, you are guaranteed to be in a major motion picture and Julia Childs will show up at your door leading a throng of people supporting your blog (Julia Childs never even agreed to meet that girl interestingly enough…those of you that know what I’m talking about), but I think blogs can have a lot of power and are something that major corporations and especially PR people need to be aware of. If people are writing about how furious they are with your company for jacking the price of blankets on an airplane from free to eight dollars (uhh…I’m talking to you, American Airlines), then one of your “publics” is upset and informing other consumers about it, and then you’ve got a problem on your hands, AA.
Pros and cons: An obvious characteristic to blogging is that anyone, anywhere can write anything on the internet and people may take it seriously. I am going to throw that one in the con category because there are a lot of crazies out there and there are a lot of gullible people; you can assume the result. Another con of blogging is that is decreases privacy. So I might be watching one too many Criminal Minds episodes, and I am competely aware that it is not normal to think serial killers are lurking everywhere, but people blogging about their personal life and their every daily move…listen up: THAT IS NOT SAFE. You are inviting random strangers all over the world to read about your adventures, look at your pictures, listen to your routine and thoughts and more.
Moving on to the pros of blogging. Blogging can be used in a beneficial way to review products and services of a company. The awesome thing about this is that if you are a good blogger, then you get free stuff! Example: Fashion bloggers such as purseblog.com or Mademoiselle Robot (she’s a fashion blogger from the U.K) get FREE wardrobe additions often. Also, as a consumer, it is nice to look up a product that you’re unsure about (such as the iPad?) and read blog reviews about it.
Moving on to another pro of blogging is getting to read and enjoy the hilariousness of your favorite blogger. I want to be Anthony Bourdain when I grow up. I don’t know how to make this happen, but I’m pretty sure receiving a Master’s of Communication and Journalism isn’t the path so it looks like I’m doomed (culinary school might have been the better choice for my Tonydream but I doubt my parents would have funded that adventure). Nonetheless, I get to enjoy his travel show everyday and read his hilarious blog. This is what I consider the greatest pro when it comes to blogging because if it weren’t for Anthony Bourdain’s wit and humor transfered to his blog everyday, my life would be a bit sadder. Read his blog and enjoy.
