Teaching PR

The Week's Best, 29 June 2009

• I Tweet, Therefore I'm Unemployable, Bruce Benidt
• Signs of Hope for the Transparent Future of the FDA, Rohit Bhargava 
• My Shifting Social Media Presence: From Student to Professional, Meg Roberts 
• Can Nokia's Reputation Be Saved?, Katie Paine 
• How to Find a Mentor, Kathryn Marion 
• The Dynamics of Public Trust in Business (PDF), Page Society/Business Roundtable 
• Portfolio: What's Yours Is NOT Theirs, Susan Kirkland (via @DylanFan) 
• Online Community: 25 Motivations and Incentives for Getting Involved, Sean Moffitt 

Yes, you probably are setting young PR pros up for failure

David Mullen is absolutely right when he says We're Setting Up Young PR Pros for Failure. Assuming that they'll be good at using social media for PR or marketing purposes just because they're young is wrong.

Think of it this way: You grew up using the telephone. Does that mean you just inherently knew how to do a great phone pitch?

Of course not. Knowing how to use a particular tool, whether Facebook or a telephone, doesn't mean you know how to use it for public relations purposes. Moreover, students don't necessarily like to see marketing in social media. Mihaela Vorvoreanu's focus group research, presented at UGA's Connect conference last fall, showed that students don't want to be marketed to on Facebook -- they consider it their own space to interact with friends. Why in the heck would they be good at something they don't like, much less respect?

Students and new graduates do have an advantage in using social media, even if they haven't been trained in it for public relations purposes. They know how to navigate these online tools, and they understand how their peer group uses them. Recent graduates who have been trained in social media can be a real asset to an organization (read one of my student success stories).

But, as David says, organizations may have "unrealistic expectations" of 22-year-olds when it comes to using social media for PR. Don't assume -- find out what they actually know about social media before you turn it over to them.

Social media principles in PR education

Okay, so I thought I had this all figured out, until the contrarian caught me in a contradiction. In my post about social media and PR curriculum, I argued that we should incorporate the principles of social media into our teaching, suggesting that they are different. Then, in my response to Bill Sledzik's comment, I argued that the principles, like collaboration. are not actually different. Huh?

I defend myself by pointing out that I did say it was a work in progress.

Here are the five principles I had identified as present in social media:

• Collaboration: harnessing collective intelligence
• Narrative: characterized by transmedia storytelling (term borrowed from Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture) 
• Entrepreneurship: seeing a problem, taking risks to try something new to solve it
• Identity production: of individuals, of brands, of organizations
• Culture: online culture as well as cross-cultural communication, necessitated by global nature of online communication 

(There are undoubtedly others; these were just a few I thought of in preparation for the summit.)

In looking over my list again, I think these are all present in traditional PR as well as online PR, but I think they are enacted differently online, and that by moving online their implications are sometimes different. So I retract my statement that they're the different and replace it with something weasel-ish like "they're the same and different."

I want to again emphasize that teaching these principles is more important than teaching tools. Teaching blogging or podcasting is like teaching typing or grammar rather than writing. Having said that, we all recognize that we do have to teach grammar and spelling at times -- but we do so toward a larger purpose, like writing strategically -- and teaching blogging or podcasting should be done in the same spirit. Within a few years we'll have a different kind of Web so the tools will be irrelevant anyway. The principles stand a better chance of lasting.

OK, feedback time. Agree or disagree with the principles I've outlined? More to add? My next post will discuss ways the principles can be taught, providing examples of assignments and/or student work when possible, but I'd like your thoughts before I move ahead. Just in case a helpful contrarian spies a flaw in my logic.

The Week's Best, 22 June 2009

• Introducing a New, Maple-Infused Definition of Public Relations, In Both Official Languages, Judy Gombita; The New Canadian Definition of Public Relations, Bob Batchelor; and Definitions of PR: Keeping It Honest, Paul Seaman
• CNN Loses Ground to Crowdsourced News, Valeria Maltoni; and Porous Social Networks Aid Democracy, David Kamerer
• How Not to Get a Job in Public Relations, Buck Banks (via Alexandra Generales) 
• 10 Things I've Learned During My First Month at an Agency, Rachel Esterline 
• Don't Let Your Intern Pitch, Jeremy Porter (via @bfliu)
• Good Careers With Bad Reputations, Melissa Ezarik (via @dbortree) 

My "must read" blogs

At the request of faithful reader Lelia, and after much deliberation, here's a list of my "must-read" blogs. There are so many more that I read faithfully and enjoy every time, but I aimed for variety here. If you're interested, they're all on my newly updated blog roll, so you can click through to check them out. 

• Authenticities, Edelman Digital (global)
• Communication Overtones, Kami Huyse 
• davefleet.com, Dave Fleet  
• KD Paine's PR Measurement, Katie Paine 
• Mengel Musings, Amy Mengel 
• Ruder Finn Ethics
• Solo PR Pro, Kellye Crane  
• The Social Path, David Griner 
• Web Strategy, Jeremiah Owyang 
• 360 Digital Influence, Ogilvy (global)

There are also several blogs by PR faculty that I love, but that may not be as relevant to experienced pros like Lelia; nonetheless, this is my must-read list so here they are, too. 

• PR Connections, Mihaela Vorvoreanu
• PR Conversations, group blog (global) 
• PR Studies, Richard Bailey   
• PRos in Training, Kelli Matthews 
• Tough Sledding, Bill Sledzik 

Thanks for the inspiration, Lelia. Not only did I get a post out of this, but I finally got around to updating my blog roll. 

Social media in the public relations curriculum

Last week I was one of the speakers on a luncheon panel at the PR Week/Edelman New Media Academic Summit in Washington, D.C. In preparation for the discussion, I spent some time thinking about how we've incorporated social media into our PR curriculum at UGA, as well as how I think it should be taught in individual classes. The nature of a panel is that you never get to say everything you've thought about in advance, so I'm going to lay out some additional thoughts here.

One of the FAQ's about integrating social media into the curriculum is, "Should it be a separate class, or should it be taught in all the classes?" At UGA we first taught it as a couple of special topics classes, then began moving it into the curriculum more generally. I've come to realize that the choice here depends upon what you think social media means to public relations practice. If you believe it offers a set of tools that can be used to help spread a PR message and/or facilitate research, it should be taught as a tools and techniques class (of course, ethics and social and cultural effects would also be included). On the other hand, if you believe social media can be transformative to public relations, it must infuse the entire curriculum because it would need to be included in research, management, writing and graphics, and all of the other classes typically included in a PR curriculum.

Moreover, if you believe social media are or can be transformative to public relations practice, then as an educator you have to change not only what you teach but how you teach it. During the NMAS session I described some principles that I think should be included in teaching about social media, such as collaboration, entrepreneurship and transmedia storytelling; I would also include identity production and culture. I'm going to do a separate post on those principles with examples of how they can be taught, but for now suffice it to say that if you are going to teach students to be collaborative, you're going to have to include collaborative learning in the syllabus; if you expect them to use transmedia storytelling, you must incorporate it into your own presentation of material; and so forth. Even lecture method must change. For example, are you willing to display a class Twitterstream as you lecture? It stands to reason that if you're going to teach your students to use Twitter, there will be a Twitterstream to reckon with. (I haven't done this yet, but others have.) 

In other words, the principles of social media participation should also be the characteristics of the public relations classroom.

After much consideration, I have concluded that organizational participation in social media does not create Habermas's ideal speech situation, although it's a closer approximation than other mass media; nor, as RIchard Bailey has so clearly argued, have we seen symmetrical communication brought about by social media programs. However, I do believe that the principles of participation in social media are different from those used in other forms of communication (including mass, controlled, and face-to-face), and therefore they change the way we should teach public relations.

This is still a work in progress. What do you think?

The Week's Best, 15 June 2009

• Four Things That Only Took Me Five Years to Learn, Frank Ovaitt
• Should PR Terminate Textbooks?, Heather Yaxley 
• {Rules of PR No. 10} PR Fail 'Loss of Potential -- Boys Club vs. Flirty Nerd,' Sasha H. Muradali
• The Social Media Leech, Beth Harte, and Our Responsibility to Our Communities, Amber Naslund
• Behind the Spin (via Richard Bailey) 
• PR in a World of Expression, Richard Edelman  
• Zuck: Facebook's Future Is Not as a Web Site, Nicholas Carlson (via @SocialMedia411) 
• The Roots of Word of Mouth, Ben McConnell (via @Armano)

New Media Academic Summit: What's Next

The last session of the conference featured:

David Weinberger, Harvard Berkman Center

Steve Rubel, Edelman

Peter Spande, Federated Media

David: identified major theme of "loosening of boundaries." As an example he pointed to Richard Edelman's concept of public engagement. It would be a mistake to think that's the same as WOM marketing -- public engagement means you don't know what the outcome is going to be; it's open-ended, and you have to be open to change because of it. Otherwise you're just pushing messages through. That removes a big boundary from the old public relations process. Another example: how do you handle when people post negative stuff on your own site? In a hyperlinked world the boundaries of your business are automatically transgressed. Maybe boundaries will re-form, but maybe not -- the erasing of boundaries is the new state. It's a far messier world, and that's good; there are benefits as well as problems with that. Another effect is on authority, and the old basis of authority is wiped away. Trusting "people like me" is efficient, although it can also be small-minded. Finally, metadata creates a new condition for trust and authority.

Steve: It's really easy to be wrong in predicting what's next. Two examples of when he was wrong: first, Second Life -- "digital marketing's Vietnam." Went in with guns blazing, and Rubel said they should be there, and that turned out to be wrong. Second, Twitter -- thought it was going nowhere, but that was wrong. With that caveat in mind:

Trends and directions

• Social as a "thing" -- every Web site and experience will have some kind of social aspect to it, i.e. see what reviewers have said on Amazon.com, but also what they've said on other platforms. 
• Search within social networks and trends from friends. 
• Semantic Web -- example: CNET ratings within Google search results
• Tangible forms of media will be gone by 2012, or 2013 (movies, digitally downloaded games, Kindle, etc.) 
• Mobile is going to be huge; the geolocation technology will connect online and offline
• Utility -- people visit an average of 111 domains a month; that funnel is not big, and people will have to break through by creating utilities that people can use in their daily lives 

Peter: (missed the first part of his talk, this is from Q&A) early marketing was similar in principle 300 years ago; advent of broadcasting changed advertising. At some point the boxes/spaces/time given to marketing versus time given to the content creator is going to get more and more fuzzy. (Steve: monetizing content and community -- social networks will not make big money from advertising; where they will make money is in data.) Marketing budgets are going to Web site development, subsidizing content, etc. rather than TV or print ads. There are so many options for entertainment, education, etc. that you have to create compelling content -- students now in their future jobs will have to make that connection in an authentic and genuine way.

New Media Academic Summit: NGOs -- Advancing Issues

Dan Morrison, 1Well.org

Doug Ulman, Lance Armstrong Foundation

Kira Marchenese, Environmental Defense Fund

Dan: peer-to-peer giving and lending platform -- they identify projects and partners in high-need communities around the world (sanitation facilities, childcare, etc.) that are small but have a huge impact on the community, such as $1000 for a water pump. "Social venture capitalists" -- people who mobilize their networks for a cause. Not trying to figure out how 1Well can use social media tools, but building a platform for others to use to start a conversation, drive to action. Give up control of the message and allow people to talk about you.

**Sees resumes that emphasize communication, branding, etc.; would love to see students who are trained in fostering dialogue

Kira: EDF is viewed as centrist and academic in approach, but not a field organization like Greenpeace or other NGOs. Social media not always a good fit -- for example, sometimes can't be transparent, as when they choose not to publicize members of Congress who are considering voting for a bill they're trying to build support for. Nonetheless they are committed to social media. For example, they've had modest success in membership because they have a consistent presence on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Their e-mail list is a more cost-effective way to communicate with and mobilize members, however, so this is still in an experimental phase. Another example: use social media to interact with reporters, corrected a mistake one made, etc. 

**Asked what students should know: People need training in what tools to use for what purposes (for example, proposing a Twitter campaign that's not personality based = not understanding Twitter)

Doug: everything has changed in the nonprofit field in the last 10 years. Example: a big database is obsolete -- they don't have a paper newsletter, don't use direct mail anymore. Two years ago a staff member suggested they should have a full-time digital person; he was a skeptic but they've found there's a core group of dedicated people that can be activated through social media (in other words, the number of people is less significant than how they use the tools). A staffer created a Twitter tutorial for their followers to explain how they can use Twitter to help promote the cause, and followed up with a conference call where people could call in to ask questions. Social media has allowed Lance Armstrong Foundation to be incredibly transparent. A donor gave $25,000 and asked that the foundation allow people to choose; so they did a Twitpoll that listed programs, and 16,000 people voted for which program to support.

**What students should know: There must be a personal and passionate approach; it's not about us (the organization) but about empowering people

New Media Academic Summit: Advancing Reputation

This panel explored the idea RIchard Edelman introduced this morning, "every organization is a media company." The speakers were Mike Slaby, Obama for America, now at TomorrowVentures; Debbie Curtis-Magley, UPS, and David Liu, AOL.

According to Nancy Ruscheinski (Edelman), Andy Heyward of CBS was the first to say that every company is a media company; everyone can produce and distribute their own content.

Debbie: There are strategic advantages to engaging the public and attracting the attention of key audiences. She said the company can reach out to customers who have questions or concerns; also reaching out on discussion forums and blog posts where people are talking -- if you offer help when someone's venting frustrations, you can turn them into an advocate. They also used social media with a new product launch: they used a football theme to show how you could "intercept" and redirect a package; collected videos of amateur football interceptions. They also extend the reach of information that might've just been kept on the company Web site, by putting it on YouTube, etc. Other examples: they used a Facebook app for digital re-gifting and got a lot of media coverage as well as participation online, and employees did parody videos of the famous whiteboard ad campaign and voted on the best ones.

David: AOL has expertise in real-time or synchronous communication as a core competency, whether one-to-one (such as AIM and ICQ) or one-to-many. AOL employees all use AIM internally, daily. People have asked him if new media will replace traditional media; he thinks not. He argues that social media amplifies what people do, good and bad. An example at AOL is a new application that uses realtime conversation like AIM but it's opening the network and is desktop-based. It will allow broadcast communication to the person's buddy list; so, for example, the CDC could make an announcement and send it realtime to individuals, who could forward it to their buddies.

Mike: Social media and new media got a lot of attention regarding the Obama campaign, and a lot of mythology has built up around it. Short answer: was the Obama campaign a media company? Yes. Mike recognized that "We had a once-in-a-lifetime candidate. His skills are hard to match" -- there was a movement going on, and our job was to get the candidate in front of the media more. He insists that in social media you are not broadcasting, but participating as an equal member of a community. You can't just set up a profile and walk away. At the same time, you can't just talk about your products all the time; you have to figure out a way to have a personality -- easy with a candidate, harder with an organization. People miss the opportunity with social media when they treat it like a broadcast medium; it's all about telling a story. We went out to find people in as many places as we could -- big, small, niche social networks -- and tell the same story, one set of values, one narrative; but you need to speak in language of the network (for example, a Facebook status update is not the same as Twitter). Mike also emphasized trust, saying that at some point the communicator has to trust that you have a good company/campaign etc. -- the Obama campaign took out hate speech but otherwise allowed people to talk, and they took some hits for it (as when Hannity took a blog comment to mean that the campaign had been endorsed by the Black Panther party). Mike concludes that they did best was talk about their values and then trust people. For example, they gave out high-resolution photos and let people use them. While the quality of the art was sometimes debatable, it gave people a sense of ownership. "The sense of being in partnership, of trying to do something together, was palpable in the campaign," he said. This approach is uncomfortable because it's new, it's not messaging or other familiar tactics, he said, but it works. Debunking the myth, he says that the Internet didn't win the campaign, because in the end politics is only relevant to what happens on the ground: having millions of Facebook friends doesn't matter if they don't vote. Mike concluded that not all companies are media companies, but they could be; they have to weigh the commitment of resources, including money, to decide if it makes sense or if that's where they want to go.

Edelman New Media Academic Summit: Richard Edelman

I'm attending Edelman's academic summit for the second time, this year at Georgetown University. Not going to try to blog it all -- based on last year's experience I know there's too much for one person to keep up with. But, I'll do what I can. First up: "From PR to Public Engagement: The Opportunity for the Industry," a talk by Richard Edelman.

Edelman said that Jeff Jarvis forecasted the end of PR, but he wants to challenge that, arguing that there is a role for PR. The hypothesis: PR has an enormous opportunity in a world of expersion, where authoridty is dispersed, where trust is created through continuous conversation, etc.

Edelman noted that we're in a period of profound tectonic shift. For example, people expect a relationship with companies/brand; we are witnessing the rise of activist government; there's been profound chage of behavior and rise of new influences. Also, we're seeing a loss of trust in authority figures.

Part I

1. complete meltdown of the old media models

2. dispersion of authority -- people use 8 sources of info, but spend less time on each

3. More media consumption, but a different mix -- digital pennies replacing print ad dollars; reliance on TV down but videogames, SMS, etc. up

4. 90% of all web traffic goes through search; PR must be in that game

5. Online video (breadth and quality) improving

Implications: the pitch and catch model eroding; different news approach, i.e. continous filing, more video; mass is dead, so put content in more places; less control of message, more sources; pay for play

Part II introducing public engagement

Edelman argues that the Milton Friedman approach of shareholder value is now outmoded. Social value as well as shareholder value has to be considered.

Tenets: Action and words (do and say)

Integrated into search (rethinking content and outreach based on how people think/talk about and look for things they need)

Engage with influencers

Democratic and decentralized

Inform the conversation, quick, informal transparent

Every company is a media company

Omnipresent: when people open a door, we must be there

Explanation:

1. Advisor on policy -- social responsblitity, new level of relationship with influencers such as NGOs, research to discern attitudes of influencers (new and established)

2. Search: a necessity -- PR can help with reputational search, use key words high up in press materials; social search (example: searches within Twitter), put embassies inside social networks that discuss mutal benefit

3. Mobilizing the influentials and amplifiers (democratic and decentralized) -- involve those with connection to company/brand: employees, shareholders, retirees, cutomers, suppliers, communities; influencers are thought starters, so work to start conversation

4. Inform the conversation -- go where the people are (blogs, Facebook, Twitter), don't expect them to come to you, post where they are. Example: create utilities such as iPhone app or widget, offer valuable insight

5. Every company is a media company -- depth of content and objective tone on subjects in the sweet spot; allow users to repurpose content, make available on a range of platforms, curate (aggregate the best conversations around given product categoies). Don't just build destination sites to attract supporters; export social features to all sites

6. We must be present everywhere -- must hear a message 3-5 times in order to achieve belief (because trust has been broken and because of partial attention). Adapt mesage and style to forum (entertain on YouTube, conversation on Facebook, etc.)

7. Democratic and decentralized -- facilitate repurposing, post the good and the bad, enable the "Vox Populi"

Act III: how public engagement works

Do, not just say -- Edelman provided some examples of things that get people to act. Example: get people to complete a fuel saving module for Shell Oil to get discount; Butterball -- turkey tips not just on helpline but Web chats, mobile texting, worked with "Top Chef" on Bravo.

Addition: here are Richard Edelman's slides.

The Week's Best, 8 June 2009

• Should PR Students Choose Between Skills and Knowledge?, Heather Yaxley
• Can PR Save a Company?, Mihaela Vorvoreanu  
• The "Death of PR" and the Social Media Echo Chamber, Bob Batchelor 
• Twitter: A Potential Problem for Some Marketers?, David Reich 
• How Do Journalists View Follow-Up Calls?, Jeremy Porter 
• "The PR Front" (podcast), NPR (via @molamme) 
• Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I Learned In J-School, Ann Handley (via @armano) 
• How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live, Steven Johnson (TIME magazine) 

Grady alum guest post: Kristina Summers on PR and social media

I recently received a note from a former student, Kristina Summers, updating me on changes in her job. Given the pushback I had from my PR students last semester, I was just happy that someone benefited from my addiction interest in social media. I asked her to write a guest post about her experiences to show my PR students why I'm so adamant that they learn about social media, even if they don't embrace it. Here's what Kristina has to say to my current (and future) students:

I work in public affairs for state government. When I was hired I was told that one of the most attractive things about my resume was my involvement with and knowledge of social media tools such as blogs, social networks and video and photo sharing applications. The world of PR and journalism is changing rapidly and it is all many organizations can do just to keep up. My employer wanted to "upgrade" their media relations tactics and felt that I would be a good person to spearhead the initiative. 

I have now been employed here for a year and a half and the changes are dramatic. We have gone from just e-mailed news releases to being on YouTube and Twitter and having an agency blog. I think that the best thing about all of these changes was that I basically got to create my own position, write my job description and then continue to modify it as needed. I have made contacts that would never have been possible without the use of social media and have been able to indulge my passion by creating an initiative that will help conserve wildlife in the state of Georgia in a totally new way. 

Yes, I am glad I had to learn about social media. My blog has become a job in itself, with a loyal readership and syndicated on three different Web sites. I receive invitations to speak on social media at conventions and have even been interviewed about my contributions to conservation using social media. I have grown as a PR professional, a writer and as a person and all because I decided that Dr. Russell wasn't crazy after all for being so excited about this thing we call social media. 

Hopefully you will have an equally valuable experience whether you are in her class or just a fan of her blog. Here are just a few lessons from her class to show how learning about social media and its various tools helped me to get to where I am today. 

Blog to be a Better Writer 

Starting a blog was a class assignment. While I was hesitant at first, I quickly realized that writing for such a public medium made me more aware of my writing style and really helped me to develop my writing skills as far as being able to market effectively to a select audience. Writing in a conversational style forces you to consider your content in new and different ways. You have to ask yourself, "would I want to read this online?" 

Blog to be a Better PR Professional 

PR is all about building relationships, building trust. Blogging has helped me to learn about how to do that in an entirely new way. Getting your content in front of more eyeballs is one of the biggest challenges for those in PR. Using the blog-o-sphere requires that you understand how to distribute the content in a way that won't immediately go into the trash/spam folder. Blogging taught me about writing more concisely, creating quality over quantity, getting to the point and how to reach out to new and unconventional audiences. 

Understanding the Power of Social Networks 

Like many college students I created a Facebook page and a Twitter profile while in school. What I didn't realize at first was the power and leverage that these social media tools can provide. Although I do use my Facebook page for personal use, to connect with friends, share photos, etc. I also use it in a professional sense in that I have developed personal relationships with many of my media contacts and I use my Facebook platform to share things I think they might find newsworthy. For example, when I come across an interesting news article that talks about wildlife conservation or DNR, I share it on my Facebook page. I also post the occasional news release or photo from the field. There have been many times I have gotten a message on FB about these posts from my media contacts. The same goes for Twitter. I tweet about just about anything that I find interesting or relevant to my line of work. As I gain followers I pay attention to where they are coming from, which gives me an idea of where my content is being read. 

I hope that you found this useful. Good luck!

Social media book presentations

Taking a cue from my colleague Kaye Sweetser, and from Richard Bailey's comment about wanting a follow-up post about my book assignment, I've uploaded video of my students' presentations. I'm not including their names because we just did a segment on "stalkers, spam and trolls" so I'm paranoid on their behalf. Thus the videos start rather awkwardly after they've already started talking.

Groundswell (first team)

 

Here are the team's fail videos from this presentation.

Groundswell (second team)

Gatewatching

Convergence Culture

Unfortunately, this one ends before the team presented their Google doc about chapter six, but here's the team's blog from this presentation.

The Week's Best, 1 June 2009

• Get the Picture or Get Lost--Why PR Needs Visual Thinking, Kevin Dugan
• Wikipedia Bans Scientologists in Propaganda Row, Bobbie Johnson (via Gerry McCusker)
• 10 Examples of How Crowdsourcing Is Changing the World, David Griner 
• The Graduates, Richard Edelman 
• Six Steps for Success in Your First Job, Alexandra Levit 
• Public Relations: The Decision Is (Ultimately) Yours, Lauren Fernandez 
• NBA PR Man Admits He's Anonymous Commenter, Chris Matyszczyk (via PRNewser)