Someone asked the other day … are you always on Twitter?  Hmmm … yes, I guess I’m on Twitter quite a bit.  Twitter allows me to interact with so many friends/followers in different ways.  Being on Twitter has taught me how to move my new friendships up the Twitter Relationship Stairway.  In keeping with the idea of moving up the stairs, I wanted to share with my community an opportunity to take our relationships a step further.  Being on Twitter is an excellent way to listen, learn, participate, make friends, bond and share incredible insight. And, as I review my calendar in the upcoming months, one more excellent way to move up the Twitter stairway is to meet my New York City friends/followers in person.

Here’s the opportunity: I’m going to be at two conferences in New York City, one in May and the other June.  Both are very different opportunities with friends.  The first is PRSA’s Digital Impact Conference on May 6^th and then the PRSA T3 Conference on June 11^th.  Here’s why each conference has the potential for a unique experience with my friends, and an opportunity to move up the Twitter stairway.

Digital Impact:  I’ll be at Digital Impact presenting on the topic “How to Create a Social Media Plan.”  My mind will be focused on helping people to develop strategy before tactics, and even how to “fix” what you’ve done before you take a new approach with different programs moving forward.  I’ll also discuss developing business goals and objectives, research initiatives, messaging and content creation, distribution channels, conversation monitoring and performance measures.  Here’s the opportunity, I’m at the conference to help people.  I remember when I was at the PRIA conference in Australia. After my keynote session I sat at the book signing table, but it was so much more than just signing books. I talked to each and every person who stopped by to visit with me.  It was an incredible experience.  Not only did I make new friends, but also was able to answer questions, offer insight on their projects and really get to know people.  Can this be done on Twitter?  Yes and no… yes until the conversations become in-depth and then you must move them into another form of communication beyond 140 characters.  In person, face-to-face is the best, when you’re able to shake hands and feel like you’ve made a great connection.

PRSA T3 Conference:  This is a unique opportunity for me. I’m the co-chair of the conference along with Rich Teplitsky and will devote my day to T3, and all of the conference attendees.  I can’t remember the last time I was at a conference for the all of the sessions, without running out the door to go to another event or leaving early to travel or get back to my office. It’s a fantastic opportunity for me to meet people, network and move relationships a step further. T3 will allow me to practice what I preach.

I’m also very excited to see @PRsarahevens and to hear her keynote presentation.  I participate frequently on #journchat, but it’s a different experience than hearing Sarah discuss what’s next in PR, strategy and technology and to engage with her in person.  I’m also going to meet Christine Perkett (@missusP) for the first time in person. She was one of our special guests for a #PRstudchat session, and of course, she was wonderful.  I’m a huge fan of Christine and looking forward to learning a great deal from her session, “Driving your Online Footprint: PR Experts as Influencers.”  Jacob Morgan (@jacobm) is another person I’m really looking forward to meeting for the first time. I read Jacob’s book, TwittFaced, and have been recommending the book ever since. It’s about time that we finally meet in person!  And, then there’s Justin Levy (@justinlevy), Director of Business Development, Corporate Strategy & Client Services at Facebook Marketing: Designing your Next Marketing Campaign.”  I’m looking forward to seeing Justin again and reading and reviewing his book on my blog. Of course, I could go down the list of all of the other speakers and people that I know who want to attend the conference, but then this blog post would be too long!

So, now I need to ask you a question … how are you moving up the Twitter Staircase and are you taking your relationships to the next level? And, if you are in NYC, is there an opportunity for us to meet at either Digital Impact or the T3 Conference.  I hope so, because meeting in person is the best way to take a relationship to the next level.  Hope to see you over the next couple of months.

It was an honor to be an international keynote at the PRIA National Conference in Brisbane, Australia.  The program was held at the Sofitel Brisbane, a beautiful hotel in the heart of the city.  I was able to walk around the day before the conference to see the sights of the City and to check out the local shopping.

The conference began on Monday, October 26^th with an international keynote from Scott Goodstein (@sgcatalyst), former external online director, Obama for America.  Some interesting highlights from Scott’s presentation that he shared included:

• The campaign allowed the new media team a seat at the table.  All of the campaign groups were integrated.
• The campaign groups understood the change in media and that the campaign had to be in the long tail (i.e., Google, YouTube, Facebook, Hulu and Twitter).
• The campaign positioned Obama to be known as the social media candidate or the new media candidate.
• The entire campaign was about change and the teams experimented with what worked and what didn’t work.
• Four important lessons from the campaign:
  • Don’t be afraid to experiment, for example, Twitter and live video streams gave early tastemakers more information.  However, the use of the mobile WAP handheld phones was not as successful.  Many people were not aware of their phone plans, and this particular part of the campaign was not promoted heavily.  The effort captured thousands, but not millions of people.
  • Use deadlines to test and move ideas, for example, the early vote hotlines.  The campaign also used text messages and MySpace to get more votes out.  The text message program at rallies worked very well because more volunteers wanted to be on the text message program.
  • Allow consensus to engage and validate, for example, the “Yes We Can” video had nothing to do with a formal campaign effort, many blogs were not about official campaign releases but rather how people were taking action and many artists gave artwork for the campaign and encouraged other artists to create original pieces of art for the campaign.
  • Market your online presence by being intriguing, relevant, eye catching and targeted, which sparked action!

I was also very happy to sit in on Christian Schultz’s presentation.  Christian is the head of communications for Mattel Europe.  He was an engaging speaking and his sense of humor had the audience learning and laughing at the same time.  Christian’s presentation focused on leadership and how public relations professionals need to align their PR program goals with the brand’s overall business goals.  Another important message from Christian’s presentation was, “Let it go.” Brands can no longer control the messages as consumers are and have been in control.

A few other interesting presentations included:

• Hank Jongen’s, General Manager Corporate Communications, discussion on Centrelink and how to assist people on becoming self sufficient and helping those in need.
• Andrew Humpherson, General Manager Government and Public Affairs at ANSTO presented on the nuclear facility’s community relations program.  He also discussed transparency in communication and proper damage control.
• Ross McSwain, Director of the Office of the Commissioner presented on behalf of the Queensland Corrective Services an interesting case study about the communication around the opening of a correctional facility in a community.

On Tuesday, October 27^th I presented my keynote presentation PR R(e)volution.  I was very pleased with the audience reaction and the many tweets throughout the discussion.  Of course I’d like to focus on the Q&A, which is the best part of the presentation because it gave me a gauge of my audience’s understanding of the material as well as the challenges they face practicing PR in Australia.

A few of the questions included:

• Australia is about five years behind the U.S. Are there other countries that are similar to the US and ahead in terms of social media communications?  I discussed that the US and Europe are in the forefront of social media.  According to O’Reilly media in August 2009, the regions with the most active users on Facebook include North America (37.1%), Europe (29.4%) and Asia (10.5%).  It should be noted that countries in Europe are experiencing growth as recorded in February 2009, with total Europe, age 15+, home and work locations.
  
  Also according to O’Reilly Media, Facebook growth in Europe, February 2009 – Total Europe, age 15+, home and work locations:
  

  - UK: 22,656,000 (+75%)
  - France: 13,698,000 (+518%)
  - Italy: 10,764,000 (+2,721%)
  - Spain: 5,662,000 (+999%)
  - Germany: 3,433,000 (+405%)

• How do you avoid the noise and social networking drain on your time and resources?  Social networking can take a tremendous amount of time and commitment. There are so many different networks and the more you engage; the more conversations that involve you or your brand.  There are two ways that I deal with the social networking drain or social network fatigue (SNF).  I wrote a blog post earlier this year about all of the things that I do when I start to fee burnt out from too much time in social communities.  From drawing and dancing to cooking and cleaning, you have to totally remove yourself from your networks and do something completely different to rejuvenate yourself.
  
  I also learned quickly that there’s a lot of noise in the social sphere and you have the filter out the less important or meaningless material, in order to maintain a constant flow of relevant and timely information. Friend selection and monitoring is very important. You don’t have to be friends with every person that follows you and you can use a number of monitoring tools, from Google Alerts to backtype (key word searches) to hear what’s important to your personal brand or to your company.  And, if you’re on Twitter, I use TweetDeck to create important groups of people that I want to follow and listen in on their conversations regularly.

• Part of my presentation discussed new PR 2.0 vocabulary and “losing” words including messages, pitching and audiences.  The question arose: why should we stop talking about messages?  A key part of public relations is developing key messages?  It’s not that we will stop developing the overall key messages of the brand, however, the way that we engage in conversations, tell business stories and offer information about our companies will change from blasting a one size fits all story with crafted messages, to one-on-one communication that is based on listening to the market and offering people relevant content based on what you hear and what they need.  The messages that should go away are the canned messages that show up in news releases that do not mean anything to the people reading them.  When you listen you can offer communication (or messages) that help people.

I will never forget the PRIA National Conference 2009 or my first trip to Australia.  It was truly a fantastic experience.  I met the most incredible people and learned a tremendous amount by engaging in PR in Australia. I hope to keep in touch with many of my new friends!

Dear friends…I’m going away to Australia and I won’t be posting on Monday, October 26^th, like I usually do.  I’ll be participating in the PRIA National Conference and will have a new post up as soon as I return from my trip.  Hope you enjoy today’s post!

Our October 21^st #PRStudChat Challenge was a big hit!  The PR discussion between students, professors and PR pros with @missusp as our special guest (she was fantastic), attracted around 409 contributors and there were approximately 1,995 tweets (we were trending for a little while).  Our community is growing and the amount of information and insight being shared is incredibly valuable.  The #PRStudChat challenge, with over 40 schools participating, helped to get everyone excited and revved up for a dynamic discussion. Although the conversations started long before the actual chat session, the group discussed everything from ethics and social media communications to the purpose of our blogs and the importance of learning web technology.

Of course, just like the last chat session in September, there were many questions asked by the members of the community that I didn’t get to answer (the Twitter chat stream flies by so quickly and there were so many more questions due to the growth of the community). So, I wanted to take the time to hand pick a few of the questions that I missed.  If, I didn’t select your question in my post, and you would like me to answer it, please comment or reach out to me on Twitter.

Here are a few of the questions:

Is there any one type of internship that is more highly valued in the industry? Great question, I think the most highly valued internship is the one that lets you be a part of the team. You should be able to brainstorm, contribute to the strategy and planning of a PR program and then roll up your sleeves and help to execute the campaign.  This type of experience can occur in any organization. Although every company provides a different experience, I never felt that being in a large agency vs. a small agency or working in an in-house, for profit PR department vs. a non-profit was more highly valued over another; you can find value in any organization as long as they allow you to be a part of the process.

When you were in school, how did you know what kind of PR you would be most interested in? I don’t think I actually knew what type of PR I wanted to practice when I was in college at Glassboro State College (now Rowan University).  I developed my likes and dislikes for different types of PR when I was in my first job. However, I did learn quickly that working in a smaller PR agency setting allowed me to wear many hats and experience different types of PR.  In my opinion, the smaller agency enables you to develop your skills and passion and find out quickly what type of PR you like the most.

Is it unlikely to receive a job after graduation as opposed to an internship? When I was looking for my first PR job, there were many positions available.  I found that working in New York City brought more choices and opportunity.  However, today is a tougher with the economy.  I’m seeing a lot of graduates take paid internships as they search for an entry level position.  By taking this approach, you are gaining experience as you find the job that’s right for you.

How do you determine which aspects of social media are important to your job? I would think your role in social media has a direct correlation to your industry and your brand’s customers.  Right now, I’m finding that there’s a big difference between the PR person’s responsibilities who is in the B2C company or a technology start up versus the B2B company, i.e., healthcare, legal or accounting.  If your customers are engaged in social media, then that determines how much and where the company needs to engage (which directly affects the PR professional’s role).

Does anyone believe that social media could be a phase? I don’t think that social media is a phase or a fad.  It’s very much a part of the consumer lifestyle, with the numbers of social media use growing daily.  Businesses need to connect with their customers and other stakeholders.  Similar to how we view the Internet (as here to stay), social media participation is an excellent means of communication outreach that will help brands to better understand the market, connect and receive feedback from customers, and to develop products and services that are meaningful to the groups they serve.

Do you think social media will do more harm than good for an organization? I’m going to keep this answer short and sweet.  You will do your brand more harm if your customers are having conversations about you in their web communities and you are not there to listen and participate.  One of the first things that I learned about social media and the rise of the citizen journalist, the conversations go on with or without the company’s knowledge, permission and/or participation.

I’m sure there were many excellent questions and discussions that ensued during our #PRStudChat challenge.  I hope my answers are helpful and that your experience with #PRStudChat will continue to be a good one.  Feel free to comment about your answers to any of these questions