Top 5 Tips for the PR Super-Agent

1) Facebook is a major, major component of your online presence.

If you’re interviewing for a job, make sure you have cleaned up your Facebook profile ahead of time. Even if all of your privacy settings are customized for “friends only” or even “only me”, chances are high that you’ve been tagged in other photos by friends. Dimyka Roberts, Recruiter at Digitas Health, and Tia Jackson, Human Resources Manager at Porter Novelli, both stressed that potential employers will search and search until they find a back door into your Facebook profile. Employers want to know the real you, and that means Facebook. So do yourself a favor and untag or delete all those photos where you’ve got a drink in your hand, or you look drunk. Sure, Bonnaroo was an amazing experience. And sure, you were sober the entire time, but a prospective employer might perceive otherwise if they see a photo of you standing in the Hippie Fountain with some dude toking up in the background. Another good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if you’d want “that photo” to show up on the front page of the New York Times. If you’re okay with the consequences of that hypothetical situation, chances are, a future employer wouldn’t have a problem with it either.

2) Work-life “blending” is the new balance.

These days, the public relations professional is a busy, busy person. Public relations is one of those professions that’s often hard to leave at work once you head home for the day. People often refer to finding a balance between work and home, to avoid heavy bias in either direction. But with the integration of social media and the ease of multi-platform, mobile communication in so many facets of daily life, where does work stop and home begin? It has become far too easy to work at home, or play at work. Craig Hodges, Vice President at Edelman, talked about “blending” work and life to find a sustainable mix of the two. If you’re still emailing clients or working on a project once you get home, are you also able to simultaneously interact with your partner/children/pets? How long do you keep the laptop open once you’re home? Do you answer emails on your phone during dinner? Do you care? Does your partner care? The answer is different for everybody, but it’s important to keep tabs on your own happiness, your professional productivity, and your personal relationships (whether it’s with another human or your pet), and find the best blend for your situation.

3) Underpromise and overdeliver.

For entry level public relations professionals, being able to meet expectations is essential to gaining trust and respect from your boss. For long-term professionals, the same is true in client situations. Elizabeth McMillan, Account Director at William Mills Agency stated that an excellent strategy is to under promise what you believe is possible in a situation, but then always strive to over deliver. Of course, if a deadline is crucial, you’re not going to say it can’t be met, but make sure you understand what is being asked of you, and seriously consider the resources you have available to accomplish the task at hand. If you need help, it’s always okay to ask for it. If you can consistently over deliver, people will take notice. Another question: If you’ve got an internship, do you always leave five minutes early? Are you unsure what you should be working on? At the end of each day, employers love it when interns ask if anything else needs to be done before heading home. A strong work ethic and flexibility with hours are easily recognized traits in a good intern. Interns with those qualities are typically the ones offered full time positions when an internship is over.

4) What’s your elevator speech?

If you found yourself in an elevator with the hiring manager or VP from the agency that you desperately want to work for, and the ride from the lobby to the 16th floor takes 30 seconds, how would you use those crucial seconds? Would you make small talk, mumble, or look down at your shoes the whole time? Would you stare at the doors, silently freaking out about what you should be saying, but are too afraid? Hopefully not! Instead, you should pitch yourself like it’s the only chance you’ll ever get. Stephen Brown, the Senior VP of MSL Group in Atlanta says that it’s a great idea to have 2 or 3 scenarios rehearsed beforehand, so you can nail that once-in-a-lifetime elevator ride with confidence and ease. Keep it simple, straightforward and to the point. The most important part to remember is that you are, in no way, asking for a job (that’s what the formal interview is for, right?): Instead, use the 30 seconds to tell this VP one interesting idea you have, what amazing skill you can bring to his or her agency, and how you can make his or her life easier. It’s as simple as that. With any luck you’ll make a great first impression and give yourself a head start over the other candidates applying for the same job.

5) Interpersonal networking is still incredibly relevant.

The past two to six years have exploded with opportunities to connect with industry professionals via online social networks. It’s great that you’ve created a LinkedIn profile, and you’re following the PR industry heavyweights on Twitter. But do they know who you are? What’s your in? As a public relations n00b, you need more than a digital presence. Stephen Brown kicked off Real World Atlanta, 2011, with a great talk on the advantages of interpersonal networking. He stressed the importance of going to local PR events or conferences and talking to people face-to-face. Even if the person you’re talking to doesn’t work in the same PR sphere as where you want to be, they might know somebody who does. You need to work that room and let people know who you are. Dress professionally, keep a stash of business cards on you (even if it just has your name and blog URL, that’s good enough), and stay positive! It’s a small world: Work some charm, establish some connections, and you’ll be surprised at how far it can take you.

Taken from http://elwinpr.wordpress.com

PR is Much More Than Getting Press Coverage

If you, like many people, equate public relations with getting news coverage, then you just don’t understand PR.    True PR is about helping to create positive, mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics (internal and external). Media relations are just one of many ways of reach this objective. If you’re limiting your PR efforts to media relations, then you’re not getting the full benefit of PR.

Effective PR starts with a strategy and a plan. There are PR “experts” out there delivering four or five bullet points of advice and calling it a PR plan.

A PR plan should include:

• an assessment of the external environment
• a view of the industry
• background and history about the organization
• analysis of the product/service/issue
• a look at promotions, including past successes and failures, competitors’ activities, and ad/PR/marketing strategies, themes and campaigns
• a look at market share
• a review of the competition
• available resources, including current attitudes and opinions that are beneficial
• a SWOT analysis
• a thorough breakdown of public profiles
• specific, measurable, time-bound objectives to support the accomplishment of a goal
• a selection of communication channels and tactics for reaching each public

Staged events, workplace communication, social media networks, tv, radio, video, billboards, blogs, landing pages, and mobile communication are some of the other many PR channels that are available.  Solely relying upon media relations, or leaning on it too heavily, probably won’t achieve the best results possible as far as desired stakeholder responses.

So make sure the PR advice you’re getting has examined all of the options – and don’t confuse PR as simply news coverage.

Whether PR has been slow to adapt to New Media

This is a video presentation of an assignment for the New Media module of a student of Master's programme in Public Relations from the University of Westminster. Let's watch and sharing...Definitely reality in PR industry...So, are we as PR practitioner ready to take action and adapt it quickly?

New Media: We Never Ever Done Learning about It

We have a Twitter, blogging, podcasting, creating profiles on social networks, putting videos on YouTube or uploading artwork on Flickr.  But do we know which social network will be on top or which iPhone app will be the quintessential tool for public relations professionals in a year time period?

If we think now we already master in new media, actually there’s always more to learn. 

The change in new media is inevitable.  Are we as a PR practitioner ready for it?  Back a decade or two decade ago, the traditional media largely dominated the field of PR – such as newspaper, press conferences, etc.  But, in 21^st century, with the birth of Internet and other technologies, PR naturally blends in the digitally-driven industry that is constantly changing. 

With the technology development that hit in the 21^st century, there are many methods of communication as in blogs, mobile technology, social media platforms in which each of it has distinct advantage over traditional methods but presents challenges. 

For PR practitioner, it is worthwhile to keep up to date with all these changes.  Those who took time to learn new media technology are well rewarded in today PR world.  The etiquette and culture across the country can be learning from various social sites. 

The field of PR constantly changing. We must be able to adapt.

 

The society also adjusting to the new media technology.  Now, they can buy airline tickets directly through the Facebook fan page.  This trend surely will continue.  People expected the latest technology to be better and more advance. 

So, we should never stop learning.  We need to alert with the new media changes and keep up with it.   The new media are never done to be learn and we never be the new media “expert” even if we thought so…

Citizen Journalism - New Media Opportunities in Reporting

Citizen journalism also known as ‘grassroots journalism’, is any type of news that been reported by ordinary citizen rather than a trained journalist.  This journalist often describe as ‘public, participatory street journalist who plays a role in collecting, analyzing, reporting and disseminating news’. 

Part of the reason of the existed of citizen journalism is because of the modern technology.  The Web has made it easier for people to report news.  This new technology making it easy for anyone to create a blog or website. 

Citizen journalism is very common and large influence on the mainstream media.  The citizen news blogs are brave to touch on subject that the mainstream media outlets afraid to talk about.  The reason is there is a strictly regulated by the government in some countries.  The urge of citizen to give a new perspective as the eyewitness reporters on the scene results the new dimension in journalism reports.  Citizen news blog also an open, public blog that give an opportunity for public to keep track of news going on. 

However, the citizen journalism also can’t avoid the controversies.  Because most of the citizen journalists are not professional trained, there is some ethics that been violated.  For example, plagiarism, standard of succinctly news and more.  These caused the professional journalists less respect on the citizen journalism.  They argue citizen journalism as a legitimate field.  For media outlets, the source from citizen journalism are more arguable and very limited to be accept as a news source.  Still, the standards for traditional journalism and citizen journalism are arguably not the same.  In an effort to retain democracy, citizen journalists can fill the void.

Where Social Media Leads You???

It is an agreement that social media strengths are the power of the community to shape experience in a positive manner and the notion of shared knowledge.  However, sometime we, as the user of social media easily to get seduce by the lure of the “in crowd”.  It means as in the first ones to be there, has large community network friends, the first ones to talk about the topic and so on. 

I’m an avid follower for those social networks too.  My involvement is based on the reason to learn.  There is a major lesson that I learned from here, that there is some dark points from there.  In the social network, you will follow, listen and learn which in the end; you will find it is hard to form your own opinions.  Your opinion will attract others only if it was popular foul or otherwise it will be ignore.  Suddenly, we become a hypocrite to just follow others and hide our own opinions.  It is important to taking a moment to think before you post your own comment. 

Does publicity your comment and profile are more important that saying out loud about the truth?  What happened to everyone's own honest opinions on stuff?  Sure, we all need to feel part of a community. And yeah, duh, that's why we're all here. And it's a powerful, beautiful thing. Just make sure your own voice is heard.

As we known that those of our writing is being read by others, why not we just being moderate and respect among each other?  This is what we call back to basic as an ethics of human beings.  You don’t need to shout out loud your mind without thinking about others, which will give yourself a perception as a person without brain to take action without thinking.  So think before you write...

How Social Media Changed Our World

On Jan 25, 2011, there is a new revolution hit Egyptian.  On that particular day, it is remarked as the day commemorating the start of the modern Egypt.  Finally, the internet and wireless services are enabling entirely in that country.  The disability of both services disability has been implied as the “mouths-shutting” to control the freedom of expression among the citizens.  The Government implied that the social media are “threat” for them as it will become as part of medium for anti-government to disseminate rumors.  The Egyptian youngsters quickly form a ‘New World Order’ – utilizing new media after t

The Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez also decided to join the social media, Twitter a few months ago, and invited Cuban head Fidel Castro to join him on Twitter.  He had previously called Twitter a potential “tool of terror”.  Even in Malaysia, our Prime Minister joined Facebook and this step has been followed by other ministers and political leaders. 

In some countries there are some restrictions that are made.  The countries are such as Iran, Syria, China and other South American countries are limiting the use of these social as precautions. 

Does social media really can change and harm the country?  Of course it will have positive and negative value as an implication.  All of this will come around as how the users adopt and their intentions.