Akw11's Blog

Final-SMNR’s

akw11 — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 20:07:54 +0000

For our final I decided to write about Social Media News Releases, also known as SMNR’s. A social media news release is a press release format designed for the online media world. The press release was written with just the “press” in mind, but in the online world your story needs to be told in a format that is relevant to a wide variety of people – journalists, bloggers, publishers and the public at large. http://www.realwire.com/servicesSMNR.asp).
One of the advantages of an SMNR is how they are “formatted so information is easy to scan, utilizing bullets and lists of ready made quotes instead of dense text.” Michael Lissauer, the executive vice president of Business Wire, gives another advantage of writing an effective SMNR and how if you can “write a news release effectively, they can bypass the gatekeepers, the journalists, who always had the opportunity of interpreting the release how they wanted” Another advantage is how hyperlinks are often used in the text and they connect people to other social media networking sites. They also give people the opportunity to view news releases in a different aspect than other avenues (traditional news release) such as seeing a video or hearing a podcast. Consumers are just as big of the target audience as the media sources and The increase in common-person (vs. media outlet) viewing, allows SMNR sites to gain more of a community involvement toward SMNR’s sites, instead of just making it a strictly a corporate vehicle for big-business news sources. (http://lowoodward.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/final-smnr-blog/).
Some disadvantages of SMNR’s are that they contain too much information and sometimes include too many hyperlinks which draws the focus away from the main point of the message. Some people say that they are too expensive and not worth the money because no one reads them. Also, Some people say the online version of the news release takes away from the traditional offline news release.
PR practitioners should consider using an SMNR because they are very big with blogging and move across the web well and can reach many different and diverse audiences. Also, they don’t have a specific audience in mind, and are written broadly and presented blandly. (http://www.copyblogger.com/social-media-press-release/).
One website that is of excellent help on how to make an SMNR is http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/2006/12/20/prx-builder-smnr-wordpress-plugin/. Another one is http://pressitt.com/.
A link that to an SMNR that an organization has created is http://ford.digitalsnippets.com/focus/.
5-10 tips for SMNR creation:
*Be creative-do your own ideas and make them different from anyone else’s. Make sure that you stand out.(http://lowoodward.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/final-smnr-blog/).
*Be professional-take this seriously and do your best. Make sure that you proofread your work and look for things that you can change or possibly make better.
*Do not overdo it-Be creative and exciting but don’t go overboard. Make sure it is colorful and informative but deifinitely not over the top.
*Use short headlines and subheads to highlight main points and interest. They should not just be a repeat of the lead paragraph. (http://mc02131.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/social-media-news-releases-smnr/).
*Include links to pages where multiple instances of your key words/phrases reinforce your message.

PRCA3330-Week 9-Advice for Blogging

akw11 — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:38:39 +0000

What advice would you offer PR students who are new to blogging? Come up with your own Top 10 list

1. Always use the right grammer and punctuation and always proofread your posts.
2. Comment on other’s blogs. It will help you learn things and also help them better their blogging.
3. Make your page easy to read, exciting, and creative. It will make others want to read your blogs and interact with your page more.
4. Make sure what you post is informative and interesting. No one wants to read something that is of no use to them.
5. Do not worry about the length of your blogs. Write what you want and enough to get through to your readers.
6. Write something originial Use your own ideas and creativity.
7. Post frequently. Make sure your readers know that you will always have something interesting waiting for them to read.
8. Read others comments to you and take their advice. They are the one’s having to read what you write.
9. Add appropriate links to your blog that helped you with your topic or the information that you put into it.
10. Last but not lease, HAVE FUN! If you do it right and stick with it I promise that it can be something fun to do in your spare time!!

Week 8 Notes and Ideas

akw11 — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:18:05 +0000

From week 8 I learned:

* About writing emails, memos and proposals.
* E-mail was invented in 1971 and was widely adopted in the late 1980′s.
* A memo is really called a memorandum.
*A client will issue a Request for Proposal, known as an RFP, and circulate it to various public relations firms.

PR Connections #14

akw11 — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:13:21 +0000

52 Cool Facts about Social Media http://dannybrown.me/2010/07/03/cool-facts-about-social-media/. This article was extremely interesting to me and I picked out my favorite 10 that I thought everyone would enjoy!

1. There are currently 110 million users of Twitter’s services.
2. Members of LinkedIn come from more than 200 countries from every continent.
3. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
4. More than half of all bloggers are married and/or parents.
5. 90% of Internet users know at least one social network.
6. People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
7. Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day.
8. The very first video uploaded was called “Me at the Zoo”, on 23rd April 2005.
9. One in five bloggers update their blogs daily.
10. The average social user has 195 friends.

ENJOY!

PR Connections #13

akw11 — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:08:23 +0000

Teens experiencing Facebook Fatigue http://mashable.com/2010/06/30/teens-social-networks-study/. Many teens spend most of their time on the computer and the majority of that time is used for social networking. But many are starting to show fatigue.
“Of the group that are saying goodbye to Facebook(), 45% have lost interest, 16% are leaving because their parents are there, 14% say there are “too many adults/older people” and 13% are concerned about the privacy of their personal information.” But, facebook is still the most popular social netowork.
I guess we will have to see what’s in the future with facebook and other social networks and see what teens will get into next!

PRCA3330-Week9-PR people drive journalists crazy!

akw11 — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:03:25 +0000

1. PR people can be annoying to journalists!-To avoid this make sure that you let the journalists breathe and trust that they will write the right article about your client. Give them enough instructions and information but do not be overbearing.

2. Give enough information!-Make sure that you give your journalist enough information so that they have something to work with. If you don’t give them enough information it is going to be hard to write about your client and will probably end up not being a good article.

3. Always be able to be reached!-When a journalist needs you, they are going to expect you to answer. Make sure that you are always available via e-mail or telephone in case the jounalist has a question that they need an answer to immediately.

4. Don’t try and tell journalists how to do their job! (http://lowoodward.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/week-thirteen-10-ways-pr-people-drive-journalist-crazy/)- Journalists went to school too and they hate it when PR people try and tell them what to do. Relax, and have faith that they know what they are doing.

5. Do not get mad if your story did not get covered! (http://lowoodward.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/week-thirteen-10-ways-pr-people-drive-journalist-crazy/)- Journalists are constantly getting asked to cover stories and different news and they CANNOT do it all! Don’t freak out, bug, or get mad at journalists if they don’t cover your story. It won’t be the first or last time that will happen.

6. Make sure you meet your deadline! (http://kk00700.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/10-ways-pr-people-drive-journalists-crazy/)- It is very important to comeplete your work on time and get everything into the journalist that he/she needs so that they can get the story in on time. It is very irritating to have to wait on something and journalists to not like to rush.

7. Double check your work, no mistakes!- Journalists try and make their work grammatically as correct as possible, so PR people should as well. Double check your work and make sure that there are as few mistakes as possible.

8. Do not overwhelm them with gifts! (http://tajanicole20.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/10-ways-pr-practitioners-can-drive-a-journalist-crazy/)- Gifts are good and all but they can get kind of annoying. Don’t try and persuade journalists with gifts, it can get over the top.

9. Get them the best news!- Often journalists think that PR people do not know what is “newsworthy.” Make sure that the news is interesting and not something that is easy or that fits your agenda. Give the journalist something good to work with so that they will want to work with you again.

10. Sending news releases to, or leaving voice-mail messages for, multiple reporters and editors without revealing that other people on staff have been contacted for the same reason!(http://www.pionline.com/article/20100614/PRINTSUB/306149974)- This can be a very big time waster for journalists. Be considerate.

Week 7 Notes and Ideas

akw11 — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:26:02 +0000

From week 7 I learned:

* How to work with multimedia storytelling and use audio and video when storytelling.
* That a public relations professional should contact interested reporters who were unable to attend a news conference.
* In public relations, press tours are also called junkets. All-expense-paid junkets are NOT an effective way to guarantee a well written, positive story.
* A Web page with a strong marketing emphasis may have several main sections, including: a section about the organization and its reputation for service and reliability.
*Navigation tools are a priority on a Web site.

PRCA3330-5 Steps to MultiMedia Storytelling-Week 7

akw11 — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:20:00 +0000

This week we took the 5 Steps to Multimedia Storytelling. While taking it I learned the best way to choose a story, how to make a storyboard, how to report with multimedia, how to edit for the web, and how to produce the story. It was very interesting and taught me a lot.
Now I am able to: Identify the elements in a multimedia story, understand which stories are more suitable for multimedia, sketch a concept for a story, and identify tools needed to gather content in the field. I never knew that all this was needed in order to make sure a good multimedia story. It was actually a lot harder than I expected it to be.
Like I just said, what surprised me was how hard it actually was and how much was to go into it. I did not think that it would be that complicating. It was need how to learn how to do all the audio and how much it actually helped the story once you figured out how to do it. It added so much more and so much more depth to what you are trying to get out to your audience. I would like to know more about this subject and more on exactly what to do in further depth. I would also like for someone to explain it to me instead of me having to do it by myself because I think that I would better understand it to have someone explain it to me instead of having to read it.
I really liked this exercise and thought it was extremely interesting. It fascinated me how much you can really add to writing by using video and audio to help spice up what you are trying to replay to your audience! Writing can be exciting if you try!!

Comment #15

akw11 — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:48:44 +0000

http://hrobins2.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/tow-why-blogging-is-important/#respond

6/28/10

I feel the same way that you do about this! When I saw that we were required to blog, I was thinking “what is the point of this?” I didn’t think that people really did this for fun or like I just read from your post that they got paid! That is really unreal and I can’t believe that people get paid to write a blog post.
You can learn so much from reading people’s and companies blogs and really find out what is going on in the PR world. I learned that it can also help your companies business and really get the word out there about the success that you are trying to have. It’s really crazy that there are so many social media things out there that can really help your business and help you learn so much about anything and everything.

Comment #14

akw11 — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:41:03 +0000

http://amylynn0711.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/tweet-week/#respond

6/28/10

Amy, you are such a little Twitter lover! ha. I knew that when we got this assignment that you would love it! But, I agree with you, I learned a lot more about Twitter than when I usually use it to just stalk celebrities or see what some of my friends are up to. I couldn’t believe that PR professionals and PR companies really use Twitter as much as they do until Dr. Nixon made it mandatory for us to follow them, which I think was a great idea! Like you, I learned that people talk about more things than just what they are doing at the moment. It can be actually be a great learning experience to learn about things going on around the world and in the PR world!