If I knew all the words

I’ve never really understood how people have a hard time deciphering what Public Relations Professionals do, What we do is in our title. We build relationships with the public in simple terms. It’s not just PR professional marketing and branding seem to interchange with both PR and Advertising. These cartoons below help to describe what Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing and Branding actually are.

A lot of the time PR people use branding behind their methods, and call on advertisers to relay that brand message. Marketers are used in every aspect of PR, AD and Branding. They all may stand alone, but when used together they can expand the message being relayed to the audience.

As tomorrow January 19, 2009 marks the United States national celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. I though it would be appropriate to take a minute to Remember Segregation . The agency I work for created this site last year and it helps send a powerful message.

Please take a minute to look around the site, and remember why we have a day off of school, or work. We are celebrating one of the greatest men, who after his death is still inspiring our nation to change the way we view the human race.

In Memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 15, 1929- April 4, 1968

I am a very lucky person to still be employed. But in the past two days I’ve receive word that 4 acquaintances have lost their jobs. One of which is a very respected peer and friend from the social media sphere. Today he repeated a comment someone made to him about his current state of unemployment, and my mom said this to me when I got home from my graduation trip in Europe: Your new job is Getting a Job!  and it’s so true. Looking for a job can be full time unpaid work, but I guess it does pay off in the end.

The Chicago Tribune wrote a great article titled, The Job of Finding a Job and provide 5 tips for the job search:

5 tips for the hunt:
1. Make finding a job your new job.
2. Tell everybody you’re job hunting.
3. Search online but also press the flesh.
4. Consider jobs outside your field.
5. During phone interviews, stand up to project more energy.

I really think #4 is an interesting tip. Because I ended up taking a job that wasn’t necessarily what I received my degree in. You can look for a job that is outside of your field but maybe dips more into your passion, such as social media, or advertising. Having your job be challenging will make you work harder.

Be patient. losing a job can be tramatizing. But be confident in your self and your skills because the minute you lose that confidence you take a step backwards. Keep your head up and good luck.

As the social media landscape expands, more organizations are taking advantage of the online tools available. There are thousands, and they are expanding as we speak.  Anything from fundraiser support sites, to picture and video sharing to niche social networks that can expand your reach as an organization. One tool that I find very helpful is go2web20.net. This site provides an overview and ratings of thousands of Web 2.0 sites.

By taking the time to assess the social landscape in which your organization wishes to immerse in,  you can identify key opinion leaders, the audience, and important topics in the conversation. Through assessing the conversation happening in different forms of social media you have the ability to pick and choose the right forum to your conversation. You must be picky when finding the right forum. There is no use having a conversation with people who don’t want to listen.

There are a few ways to find out what social media tools would be right for your organization to utilize in creating a presence online:

1. Research where your organization stands in all forms of mediums look on Facebook for support groups, on Youtube for videos, on twitter for organizations, competitors and supporters.
2. Listen to the Conversation Now that you’ve found forums with which your organization could fit into the conversation. Listen. See what others are saying about your product or service and assess the tone. If there is a negative tone, begin to strategist on how you can make negatives into a positive.
   
3. Narrow the Field Social media takes time. Don’t be too ambitious because if you begin to have a presence in a specific network and then become lazy and cannot keep up with it, you lose listeners and the point of getting involved in the social media sphere was to gain followers. Take a look at the possible tools you can utilize and assess their relativity to your goal. Then narrow the field.
   
4. Participate the hardest thing organizations will find is keeping up with all the forms of social media that are at its fingertips. Just because you are a part of Facebook or twitter doesn’t mean you’re actively participating in it. Make the effort, comment on blogs and message boards, tweet and reply to tweets participate in the social media and show a new audience that you’re doing everything in your means to make them a believer in your product or service.

Photo credit Brian Solis

I was inspired for this post by a friend and mentors blog PRos in Training. As a new professional I’ve been at my job for almost three months now, and I’ve been trying to find my footing and keep up with the routine that is work and attempting to have a social life outside of work. It’s rough, new city, new job, and trying to change my lifestyle. Things have been sacrificed in the process, the first thing to go, my blog.

At the end of last year I was teaching friends and younger underclassmen about the positives of blogging and engaging in social media and yet I’ve become lazy with it.

I’ve never been one to make New Years Resolutions, but I feel like this is something I was so passionate about not so long ago, I can’t let it die.

So my “Social” Resolutions for 2009 are:

Blog AT LEAST Once a week: I am very busy with work and other obligations in life, but that doesn’t mean on Sunday nights I can’t put aside an hour or two to blog as I’m watching TV.

Make a weekly Dent in my blog reader: I have over 1,000 unread blogs in my blog reader. It adds stress looking at all these unread blogs, if I make an effort to read atleast three aday I won’t have to press “Read All” and feel guilty for it.

Comment More: Enough said.

Tweet things other than personal things: I’ve gotten in the habit of using Twitter as a Facebook status. I got my job through twitter. This can be used as a much better tool than talking about the crazy person I’m sitting next to on the bus or to complain about my headache.

Hopefully I can hold myself accountable for these resolutions, but they will also get me back into the swing of things.