Is PR on the out?

Many in the industry have been talking about PR becoming extinct. Not only does this outrage me because I am not even in the work force yet, but it also scares me to death.

I do not believe that PR is on the out, I only believe that it is changing and adapting to the technology that is available. Social media for example. Some say social media sites, such as, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others are slowly squeezing the life out of P bR, but it merely aids in promoting businesses. It has become a PR tactic.

PR will never be extinct because good PR is more than just sending out a news release, media alert and throwing it up on the company site. PR is very strategic. Research must be done to understand audiences and stigmas. Special tactics are used, like events, promotions, and social media. A new two-way conversation has started with companies, employees, customers and investors with blogs and discussion boards. These are run by PR professionals. These tactics drive traffic and generate sales and revenue.

Crisis Management is also a huge part of PR. Or as I like call it CPR (Crisis PR) and it gives life back to companies that need it. With the troubling economy and big companies with GM and Chrysler filing for bankruptcy. CPR is essential to gain back customer and shareholder trust.  It can save a company’s hard-earned reputation.

PR will forever evolve with the technology and will continue to grow. Just like any industry you must change or you will be left behind. I think the PR industry will be just fine.

PR and the Importance of Social Media

Social media has been an explosion on the PR, communication and networking world. From Facebook, to Twitter and Delicious, social media and social networking has changed the way people communicate with each other and share information.

Thousands of people all over the world are on social media and social networking sites. Social media is said to be media that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other and can take many different forms. In layman’s terms social media is people having conversations on line.

These forms include information sharing, picture and video sharing, classifieds and job searching, among many more. These networks and media allow for easy peer-to-peer, student to professor, employer to employee, company to consumer and group conversations and exchange of content.

Here’s a little social media history for you. Social media sites started in 1997 with SixDegrees.com, which closed in late 2000. After its slow start, social media and social networking boomed in 2003 with the start of MySpace.com. Many quickly followed, like Flickr, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

There are so many different uses of social media, the biggest being networking. One example of a social networking site is FriendFeed.com. FriendFeed helps you find classmates, colleagues and other people that you may know. Then once you find them it gives you an update on what social media they have been on and what they have posted on these sites.

Another use of social media is sharing photos and video. There are many site examples of photo and video sharing, such as Facebook.com, YouTube.com and Webshots.com. YouTube.com is a video site, where you can start an account and upload videos of any kind to share with people. You can also search for videos on almost anything. I learned how to make baby booties for a pregnant friend and fairy wings from scratch for Halloween by searching on YouTube.com.

Webshots.com is a photo sharing site. People can create an account, upload photos, put them in albums and people can view them, one at a time or in a picture slideshow.

Micro-blogging is a relatively new phenomenon. Twitter.com is the main micro-blogging site. Micro-blogging is basically a blog of 140 characters or less. Most people who are on Twitter.com use this as a status update, but you can also use it to promote your company, make announcements, and put out a classified and many others.

Promotion is another big use of social media. MySpace.com has special music pages, where bands can upload pictures and their songs for members of MySpace.com to hear. Members can also add these songs to their own personal profiles, which are played when users visit a personal page.

Social media sites have been growing rapidly. Twitter.com has grown more than 300% from 2007 to 2008 according to news.cnet.com. The biggest social network in the U.S. is still MySpace.com, but it has only grown by 1% since September 2007.

Social media makes communicating with other so much easier. Photo and video sharing sites make sending things to family members and friends across the country as easy as the click of a mouse. Promotion spreads to thousands of people in seconds with social media and you can literally get the word out to millions of people in 140 characters or less using micro-blogs like Twitter.com. You can find a job using social media or you can recruit for wanted positions in your company using sites like LinkedIn.com. You can even use it to help you do research of any kind using bookmarking sites like Delicious.com and Digg.com. Social media has changed how information and learning is received.

This year in the 2008 election social media has been used to increase voting of citizens ages 18-25, which historically have the lowest voting average. News feeds, like on Facebook.com, have become available and will continue to grow and become more popular.

And finally keep it professional, for the most part. I say this because the internet and most of these sites are open for anyone to access. If you are a budding professional you don’t want potential employers looking up your social media pages and seeing you drunk passed out on your apartment floor. At the same time you can share family photos and personal things on social media sites. Just be careful what you post. You never know if it can work against you.

PRSSA National Conference 2008 (recap)

Let me start by saying that the national conference was AMAZING! I truly know now why I am so addicted to public relations.

The conference started for me Friday night at the Motown Premiere “Bring Us Something PRSSA” social. All the chapters from around the Country met, mingled and passed about PRSSA things from each respective school. CMU brought PRSSA magnets and key chains, classy I know. After some “hot” wings and a bad displayed of Motown karaoke we took this fabulous group picture!

The next morning, Saturday, was the official Welcome to National Conference. We met the PRSSA National Committee, whose VP of Regional Activities is CMU’s very own Jena Johnson. We also got to hear from Betsy Plank, aka the Godmother of PRSSA and our keynote of the day Ofield Dukes, APR, Fellow PRSA and President of Ofield Dukes and Associates. He was very soft spoken, but the impact of his words is indescribable. I got to talk to him later for a brief couple of minutes and he taught me and a couple other PRSSA members the importance of a good hand shake.

The rest of the day was filled with varies sessions from “Ethics in Public Relations” with John Bailey of John Bailey and Associates, “Reaching for the Stars: Entertainment PR” with Rita Tateel, president of The Celebrity Source, “Diversifying Your Donors:Donor/Fund-raising PR” with Richard Martin, VP of advancement at Lutheran Social Services of Michigan and a session with other chapter vice president, like myself, from the other chapters around the country. This last session was interesting to me because other chapters run a lot differently than our chapter at CMU. After talking to other chapter vice presidents I got a lot of good ideas to improve our chapter.

MORE COMING SOON!!!!!!!