Deirdre Breakenridge

My trip to New Jersey was inspired by a bland class assignment for my public relations course at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan: job shadow a public relations professional for a day and write a five-page paper about the experience. Shortly after moderating #PRStudChat in January, I thought this could be a great opportunity to venture out of Michigan and connect with #PRStudChat co-founder and one of the greatest minds in the PR 2.0 movement, Deirdre Breakenridge. She was completely onboard with my proposal, going above and beyond my request: I got to spend not just a day just with Deirdre, but three.

It’s that time again…#PRStudChat is almost here. Our next discussion is 3/17 (on Happy St. Patty’s Day) and we have a great session planned. Our #PRStudChat special guest is Beth Harte (@bethharte). Beth, formerly the community manager at MarketingProfs, just took a new role at Sergenti Communications. With a wealth of knowledge and experience, she will answer questions based on the various PR positions she’s held over the years. Our session is focused on our PR students, who are graduating in May, and what they should expect when they enter the real world of business, from the roles and responsibilities to how to reach new influencers on behalf of their brands. Our PR pros and educators will also be on hand to guide the discussion from their particular areas of expertise.

This must be the week of great PR announcements. Here is another special announcement about our very first #PRStudChat Tweetup. I’m happy to announcement that #PRStudchat is hosting a casual/informal event on Wednesday, March 10th at Gary Vaynerchuk’s (@garyvee) Wine Library (@winelibrary) in Springfield, New Jersey from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Here’s a special video announcement on #Chatmixer that will take place on Tuesday, March 9th at 8:00 p.m. EST. Looking forward to chatting with all of the different Twitter chat communities!

It wasn’t so long ago that I was sitting on a Brand Hackers panel in New York City debating who owns social media. It was the public relations professionals vs. the digital creatives. Unfortunately, the conversation was off to an ugly start and the debate became heated. Now, for those who know me, you must have heard me say on Twitter, Facebook, on my blog or at one of my speaking events that “no one really owns social media, but we all play an extremely important role.”

After the January #PRStudChat, I announced that we would have a February Valentine’s chat focused on relationships. Because public relations is focused on relationships and so is social media, for this session, @valeriesimon and I wanted to invite a special guest expert into the discussion. Our guest will really shed some light on relationships in the social sphere.

I had the honor and the pleasure of moderating @prsarahevans #journchat this past Monday night. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget. I’m very familiar with the Twitter chat session because of #PRStudChat. However, the #journchat community is considerably larger and moderating the conversation taught me a few more best practices with respect to creating and maintaining a dynamic community discussion. First and foremost, I want to thank so many of my colleagues/friends who showered me with incredible compliments that night. However, for the record, the true appreciation and the reason why I looked like I could “ROCK IT,” was a direct result of the passion, enthusiasm and incredible knowledge in this community. I just got the conversation started and the community did all of the work!

I’ve heard a lot of great feedback about the #PRStudChat January session, which celebrated the PR educator. We had @mikinzie as our special guest moderator and her preparation, passion and enthusiasm really added to the success of our Twitter discussion. Personally, this was one of my favorite sessions for a number of reasons: the knowledge, information, insight and sheer appreciation of the educator, as demonstrated by our entire community. @valeriesimon and I also tried something a little different at the end of our discussion…we gave everyone a homework assignment in preparation of the next session, which is scheduled for February 17th.