-Dave Fleet takes us “Back to Pitching Basics”-
This posts makes it clear about what to do and what not to do as far as pitching goes – and Dr. V has us on the right track.
I saw this post linked to on PRos in Training and it’s definitely useful to our class. My group just met today to work on a PR assignment and we found ourselves talking and being strategic about what makes a good pitch – when we finished we thought we had done a pretty good job pitching for this assignment.
This post puts our thoughts about what makes a good pitch into black and white and reaffirms some of the guesses about which direction to take in pitching.
p.s.: Read the comments, some PRofessionals are a bit wary about what us upcoming PR practitioners are learning- just proof that we should know a/b what this post is discussing, so check it out!
So, I am officially back to school. Back to long days and late nights. Back to hauling books and laptops up and down the hills of the Clemson University campus. Back to…okay just kidding…I enjoy college [for the most part].
But, I am back to PR class – part 2 to be exact – the continuation of all that I learned last year: Stakeholder Communication with Dr. V (again 
). This semester we began similar to last semester: taking out time to ponder over our strengths and weaknesses in relation to the field of PR, and then making goals. But this time we watched a video called “PR Professional of the Future” with insight from top PR professionals on PROpenMic to remind us of some of what exactly we should be aiming for.
After watching this video I jotted down what I wanted to work on throughout the year and in the future:
- I want to work on Speed. In the video this was mentioned twice and it stuck out to me as something I can definitely improve on. I am the type of person that likes to analyze everything before I make a move. I am learning that this isn’t always best…especially in the changing and fast world of PR. When I shared this goal with Dr. V she said this goal would come along with experience and becoming more comfortable with my own judgment. So, this year as we examine situations from a PR perspective and as I gain more experience in the future and become more confident-I hope this confidence will transfer into some lightning-speed PR skills
My little brother has this poster in his room. The quote at the bottom reads: “I’M SO FAST that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.”-Muhammad Ali
That is how much speed I want to have 
- I also want to become more of an out of the box thinker. I want to get away from the standard and the usual flow of ideas. I don’t want to limit myself or my creativity. This goal is sort of a continuation of motivation sparked by the post “Practice Creativity” by my fellow aspiring young PR pro Tiffany Sellers.
- Lastly, I want to become a better storyteller. No, I DO NOT want to learn how to put a spin on an issue or learn to stretch the truth. I want to learn how to better connect whatever story I’m telling to the people I’m telling it to. I’m not only working on this goal in my PR Stakeholder Theory class, but I’m getting to work on this in my Journalism- Feature Writing class.
It would have been easy to keep these 3 goals to myself, but in this instance something about blogging them made them official to me. I’m now more accountable to what I say I want to do.
So…see you later blogosphere…I’m off to become a lightning-fast, out-of-the-box thinkin’, storytelling PR Pro of the future!
I saw a commercial for Walgreens TakeCare health tour that lead me to the website.
What is the heatlh tour? Basically, Walgreens is putting nurses and health-care-savvy experts on a bus and doing a 300-city tour in the US and Puerto Rico where they offer free screenings for cholesterol, blood pressure, bone density, glucose levels, waist circumference and body mass index. The idea is to increase health awareness in communities and offer possible early detection of diseases and health issues for anyone who comes.
As far as PR goes: First of all, the way that the commercial showed the website: ‘walgreens.com/takecare’ is an example of excellent PR because it proves that research is going on. This code automatically takes viewers to the TakeCare site and it provides PR people a way to track how many people came to the Web site as a result of seeing the commercial on TV.
Another reason why this is excellent PR: Walgreens launched their TakeCare health clinics in select stores a few years ago. Other pharmacies like CVS have started similar programs recently as well like MinuteClinic. This TakeCare bus tour is also giving the Walgreens in-store clinics a leg up on the competition by the relationships it’s creating beyond its customers.
This campaign shows customers and members of the community that Walgreens cares about them. The services Walgreens is offering on the one-year tour are worth about $115 (according to the website). Although the ultimate goal of Walgreens is to gain customers, this is a good way to build relationships with the community and potential customers at the same time.
This semester my professor (Dr. V) introduced me to the blogosphere for pretty much the first time. Yes, I knew what blogging was and yes, I had read a few posts before, but this semester is the first time I’ve learned about how to blog, what makes a good blog, and about the power of blogging.
When learning about how to blog one of the first things my professor and other in-class guest speakers suggested was: READ. We learned that a crucial part of being a blogger is reading. You must know what’s out there and what other bloggers are talking about on a topic. You must know who has valuable info to bring to the table. Reading may be more important than actually writing a blog when trying to become a part of the world of blogging.
This first step of reading has been hard for me to get into. So many blogs that my professor has suggested are so useful. They are full of information and issues that I should know about and understand, but BeingCheryl offers a perfect blend of useful information and a style of writing that keeps the reader scrolling.
A few things I’m learning and that I appreciate about the BeingCheryl blog:
- Honesty: In class we’ve learned about developing our writing style and about being honest and true to who we are while writing. This concept is at work in this blog. The [brutal] honesty used in this blog works . For example, I was reading the blog and talking to my roommates at the same time about how I didn’t want to pay $1200 for an internship class this summer at Clemson. I’d just said that I’d rather do an internship during the fall, but I felt like I didn’t have time…When I looked down at BeingCheryl’s post on Career Building for College students in the section about “Fitting it into Your Schedule” my excuses about this matter were confronted with the truth- I do have time…I just need to manage my time better.
- Humanity: This blog definitely has the ‘human feel’ that we are always discussing in class. Don’t fill up your blog with jargon, technical language, and big words that mean nothing- just be human and be yourself. Everyone can’t ‘BeCheryl’ but everyone does have their own voice, so from this I learn how much being yourself adds to your blog. Being yourself is what makes you different from everyone else and it can be the difference in what makes your blog the one to read.
- Helpful: Write about things that are helpful. What have I learned that will help out someone who might be reading my blog? BeingCheryl discusses things that are helpful to readers.
Lesson: The 3 H’s of blogging from BeingCheryl–> Be honest. Be human. Be helpful. These are things that I’ve learned after thinking about what it is that makes BeingCheryl a must read!
The blog includes topics that are relevant to me as a student and someone interested in learning about PR AND it is fun to read. I have to say that it is definitely one of a kind…so check it out!
Yesterday my professor told our class we were invited to participate in Blog Action Day and that the topic this year is Poverty. The idea is to raise awareness about Poverty and for people everywhere to call attention to the same topic. Our instructions were to blog from the heart, and if our hearts have nothing to say, keep quiet. So I had to write something.
Poverty is definitely a serious problem- as most people would agree. But the problem comes in when we say it’s a serious problem, and silently think – but it’s not my problem. This relates to the idea of Poverty and the Other. The way that I realized I can avoid thinking like this is by this Bible verse: Proverbs 22:2 “The rich and the poor have a common bond; the Lord is the maker of them all.” We are all fellow human beings – regardless of why we are facing poverty or how we get into situations- we are our brother’s keepers.
This Blog Action Day has been successful in making me realize that I’m not doing enough to help. If you’re not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem, right? Just reading other posts on the Blog Action Day site are inspiring to me- they affirm that the effort of every person- My effort- is significant.
Writing this post is my first step in being a part of the solution.
Since we are learning the odds and ends of social media in class, this post by Chris Brogan: 50 Applications and Sites to Consider is perfect for getting an idea of what exactly is out there in the blogosphere.
In this post (before he begins listing sites) I noticed that fact that Chris Brogan has an account on each of these sites, even though he might not use it; this echoes the advice of Dr. V in class: if you are looking to work in PR, even if you don’t use all of these Web sites, you at least need to stay on top of what’s out there.
Comments on the 50 Applications & Sites List:
- For free blogging and hosting Blogger seems cool. Just from taking a quick look at it, it seems to be very educational. For example the first thing you see on the home page is the question: What is a blog?(Maybe if we had used this in class, Dr. V wouldn’t have had to do so many tutorials on her class blog. It explains very clearly what blogging is and several terms related to blogging as well).
- After looking at all of the blogging sites listed, they all focus on how easy it is to create a blog. Especially Tumblr which highlights the words: “Sign up in 10 seconds”.
- For microblogging BrightKite looks cool. Its theme as a Web site really focuses on community and meeting friends. Instead of saying “Join Now” like many other sites do, it uses the phrase “Get an invite”.
- Friendfeed has this same appeal to community and meeting friends (hence the name Friendfeed), but I don’t like the design on the home page. It does not make me want to be a part of this community…
- Identi.ca looks cool too. It seems to keep it simple. I like the tag feature it uses. You can read recent posts on particular topics by selecting a tag.
- Learned something new about microblogging while on Jaiku – the short posts that people type on these microblogging sites about what they are doing or whatever are called activity streams. (Didn’t know that). Something funny on Jaiku: while I was looking at the map feature a woman said: I still wish Jaiku was as nice as Twitter.
- Posterous looks very interesting – different from the others. I might have to explore this one a little further. It again stresses the ease of creating an account (it crosses out the words “Create an account”).
- As far as bookmarking sites go: Ma.gnolia has a list of tutorials to watch (I could appreciate that) to get to know the site. StumbleUpon makes me want to try out one of these bookmarking sites for sure (great name, too )
- Social media news sites: After browsing over these, I see that they are worth being acquainted with- these appear to come in with the listening factor that so many class guests and other people talk about when they discuss how to be a part of this online world. Digg, Mixx – I’m definitely coming back to these sites.
Basically, this is a great post just to start getting an idea of what exists online. Most of these sites focus on how simple it is to get started and on becoming a part of a community. Some of them go on to teach you what the site does and how to use it (which is very helpful). I’m just getting started on exploring this list of 50 – which will probably lead to learning about more
I just learned so much in this class about the power of social networking! I almost feel like knowledge overload has taken place. We live-twittered in class, so I not only learned from my professor, but from other classmates who were twittering, and from @pistachio who spoke to our class via Skype. @pistachio- (Laura Fitton) who we learned is referred to as the “Twitter Queen” told us about how she learned how to use her voice online and how she got to where she is today (she is an expert microblogger and communications consultant who teaches her clients how to incorporate social media into their interactions). Today I learned that if someone can learn to use their voice the right way, then their voice can be louder and more influential than that of a large corporation.
More noteworthy points: @pistachio also talked to us about the best ways to use social media networks like twitter . One thing that stuck out to me on this topic was that if you are using a social network for business purposes, don’t always focus on promoting, but use that human voice that everyone has to relate to others. She shared her thoughts about how newspaper columnists’ jobs will change drastically in the future- in ways that we cannot even imagine- possibly to columns that are actually online communities.
Main Lesson: The overall theme of what I learned in from our speaker today in class and from our last reading of the Cluetrain Manifesto is not to fall into the cycle of continuing to build the “golden wall” that separates organizations from publics, but just be genuine in making those connections with others – regardless of what channel of communication is being used. It sounds like a simple lesson, but it also appears to be one that has been forgotten.
Comment on “Ghosts in the Blogosphere”
I comment on “Ghosts in the Blogosphere” by Kel Kelly – January 30, 2008. Since we just talked about ghostwriting in our last class and had this very discussion, I thought it would be interesting to hear about the topic from someone else and to reinforce what we learned in class.