Deirdre Breakenridge

We’re nearing our 4th #PRStudChat and with each and every Twitter discussion our community grows. Valerie Simon (@valeriesimon) and I have been trying to keep the sessions dynamic, creative and exciting with interesting guests and challenges for participants. This session will not be any different. We announced the discussion as “Career Day” for the #PRStudChat participants. Our other special announcement is the introduction of Angela Hernandez (@angelahernandez), as our guest, student moderator that day. For those of you who do not know Angela, she is President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU)

Our October 21st #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.

There are a couple of Twitter books on my reading list including Twitterville by Shel Israel (@shelisrael) and Twitter Power by Joel Comm (@joelcomm). However, what I’m finding is that through experimentation with Twitter chats, I’m learning by doing and there are some excellent practices that I want to share.

I thought the September 16th #PRStudChat was a dynamic, passionate and valuable discussion between PR pros, educators and students. I want to thank @valeriesimon for organizing and hosting the session and @briansolis for his insightful comments and his recent post Using Twitter to Connect PR Students, Educators and Professionals. I just reviewed the transcript and the amount of information shared was unbelievable. The opportunity to collaborate and share experiences is priceless. I hope that with each session we grow and learn together.

I’m so excited for our #PRStudChat on Wednesday, September 16th at noon. @valeriesimon and I have a few exciting announcements for this session. First, there’s a Putting the Public Back in Public Relations book giveaway for the participant who is the chat MVP (the person whose comment is retweeted the most). And, we also have a special guest appearance by my co-author, Brian Solis (@briansolis).

As savvy students begin the process of building relationships with the professionals they met on August 19th, we have the opportunity to develop a true community of PR professionals, students and educators. The next live group chat will take place on September 15th, the result feedback from the group. 59 participants responded to a poll, the results split fairly evenly between a weekly and a monthly Twitter chat. With the hectic nature of the start of the school year, we have opted for a monthly chat, but will certainly change this if there is a demand for a more frequent discussion.

Valerie Simon (@valeriesimon) and I just announced that #PRStudChat will be a monthly event. I was thrilled by the enthusiasm and incredible response we received by students and PR professionals on August 19th when we held our first discussion. Our Twitter chat was a success and we’re preparing for the next one.

Our #prstudchat is this week! The session will be a discussion between PR students and industry professionals on August 18, 2009 at 12:00 p.m. Valerie Simon (@valeriesimon) wrote an awesome article discussing the value of students and pros coming together to discuss the PR industry and how the chat session will allow students to determine if “PR is Right for Me.” We also set up a LinkedIn group to get the conversations started. I thought it would be fitting in this blog post to discuss some of the PR questions that so many students want to know, but may not have had the opportunity to ask.