September 16th #PRStudChat

I’m so excited for our #PRStudChat on Wednesday, September 16^th 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).

We’ve been listening to everyone’s comments and suggestions on our LinkedIn group. We also plan to incorporate a great idea suggested by @cubanaLF and @rachelakay during the August 19th event; in order to better facilitate networking and help provide context for the tweets, we recommend that participants begin their tweets with a “P” for professional, “S” for student or “E” for (Educator) designation.

Valerie and I have both been thinking about our discussion on the 16^th and brainstorming interesting topics/questions.  But, even before we created our list, members of the LinkedIn discussion group started giving us ideas on questions/topics:

• Lauren Novo commented on a possible topic that is great for all of us to think about:  What do you do if you no longer believe in the client or the issue you are a representing?  Should ethical responsibilities take precedence over professional responsibilities?
• Eve Binette gave an excellent suggestion regarding the role of PR when it comes to a widespread public health scare such as AH1N1, so that the facts are reported accurately, and the “scare” is minimized; a timely and relevant topic for discussion.
• Sarah Tiemberg wanted to know: What’s in a PR portfolio, a really thought provoking question, which could elicit many different responses

Here are some other possible questions and topics that could generate passionate and dynamic discussions amongst PR pros, educators and students:

• What are some non-related PR classes that you found beneficial for the field of public relations?
• Who owns social media?  Is it the PR/Communications department within the organization?
• What are your favorite monitoring tools or PR technology platforms to help with reporting and measurement?
• How has measurement changed from traditional PR to social media measurement?
• What are some of the best PR and social media conferences for students, educators and PR pros?
• How important is it to be a member of a professional PR association?
• How important is it for a student to be a part of a student association and does this help to secure a job after graduation
• How important is it for PR people to understand search engine optimization and search engine marketing?
• Why is social media communications more about sociology than technology?
• How important is social media education in the college or university setting and how many universities have this type of curriculum?

There are so many other questions.  If you have a few favorite questions/topics from the list above, then please let us know.  We will take the most popular questions and make sure that they are discussed at the #PRStudChat on September 16^th.  Or, if you have a few questions of your own, feel free to suggest them.  Unfortunately, we can’t talk about everything, because we only have an hour.  But, the good news is our chat can always continue on the LinkedIn discussion group, or carry forward to the next month’s session (date TBD).

Looking forward to hearing your comments and suggestions on topics/questions!