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#PRStudChat Gathers on September 26th to Discuss How to Advance Your PR Toolkit

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Ever wonder which tool is most effective to create infographics, manage social media channels, or record the clearest podcast? Maybe you are overwhelmed by all of the apps and options and don’t know where to begin.

On Thursday, September 26th at 12:00 p.m. ET, the #PRStudChat community will discuss how to advance your PR Toolkit with the best tools, apps, websites, and more. Leading the Twitter chat discussion, sponsored by @spinsucks, will be Syracuse University @NewhousePR Professor @GinaLuttrell sharing her favorite go-to resources.

Syracuse University Newhouse PR Professor Gina Luttrell

Some of the topics/questions Gina and the #PRStudChat community will answer include:

Q1. Where do you go to learn about your favorite tools, apps, and resources?

Q2. What are some of your favorite social media monitoring tools?

Q3. What can you recommend for creative tools and resources?

Q4. With so many daily responsibilities, are you using any time-saving apps?

Q5. What tools do you use to manage content for an organization or your personal brand?

Q6. What resources provide the best measurement for social media engagement?

Q7. Are there any tools you like for content curation?

Q8. What are your favorite free social media resources?

Q9. When investing in a new tool what are some of the questions you should ask?

Q10. What apps do you have on your phone that you can’t do without?

As always, you can tweet in advance to @PRStudChat, @SpinSucks, @LKPetrolino, @ValerieSimon, or @DBreakenridge with any additional questions you would like answered.

Get ready to advance your PR Toolkit by learning about the best tools, apps, websites, and resources from the #PRStudChat community.

Hope to see you on the 26th at 12:00 p.m. ET.

PRStudChat

PRStudChat & PR20Chat Kick off the Busy Season With a “Back to School #PRToolkit” Twitter Chat on Sept. 9th

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PRStudChatWhere did the summer go? It’s September, which, for most, marks the busy season. Vacation is over and our students, educators and pros are either back in the classroom or busy at work. On September 9th at 8:30 p.m. ET, the #PRStudChat and #PR20Chat communities will gather for a joint Twitter chat discussion on finding the most effective resources to include in a “Back to School #PRToolkit.”

We’re kicking off our special #PRToolkit (follow this hashtag) chat session to help students and professionals maximize their PR, marketing and social media initiatives in the fall and into 2015. We’ll be discussing everything from networking, relationship building and ethical communication to channel participation, new tools and productive apps.

A few of the questions our community members will answer, include:

– What resources can help with an internship or job search?

– How can you take advantage of social media in a search?

– What advice can our professional community members share on what they wished they knew as a student?

– Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, WordPress – oh my! Are there certain channels where students REALLY need to be active?

– Where can you learn more about ethical communications, especially in an age of public conversations?

– What platforms or apps help you to be more focused and productive?

– What bloggers, influencers and media outlets give the best recommendations on the latest technology and tools?

Don’t miss the Back to School #PRToolkit session to learn how you can advance your resources and add to your own toolkit, by chatting with peers. If you have any questions around the topic or thoughts you want to share, in advance of the session, feel free to DM us or post your questions in our LinkedIn Discussion Group.  We hope you’ll join us for a dynamic Twitter chat session on September 9th.  “See” you then! 

A Little More About PRStudChat:

It began with a simple question asked by Angela Hernandez, then President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). “Is PR Right for me?” A follow up blog post by PR 2.0 expert Deirdre Breakenridge inspired a series of direct messages on Twitter between Breakenridge and fellow PR industry pro, Valerie Simon. This was an important question and one that should be explored beyond one student or one blog post. Why not build a community to help students across the country, and even the globe, learn from the experience and perspective of industry professionals… A community where everyone can learn and grow together.

 

What’s in Your New PR Toolkit?

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In 2003, my book “The New PR Toolkit” was published by Prentice Hall. I co-authored this manuscript with a very talented journalist, Thomas DeLoughry, who at the time was the editor of Internet Week.  Our goal was to present to PR professionals a better way to develop and implement online media relations strategies, from both a PR professional and an editor’s point of view. To this day, it was one of my favorite projects and a book that I believe did a good job educating PR people on early web PR (or web 1.0) best practices.

Last night I took a stroll down memory lane to identify the core elements of, what I called at the time, my “PR toolkit.” These were the tools that Tom and I felt helped PR professionals to succeed with their online PR initiatives and relationship building efforts. What were Tom and I focusing on back then?  Here’s the list:

  • Online research:  surveys, polls and online focus panels.
  • Smarter e-mail communication to journalists, which produced better results.
  • E-Newsletters to build better relationships with the media and other constituents.
  • Monitoring tools to track online news stories, competitor initiatives and editorial coverage.
  • Webcasts including training seminars, Town Hall meetings and speaking engagements/seminars.
  • Crisis websites that mirrored public sites and could be switched on “live” if crisis struck.
  • Online newsrooms with interactive features and information available for the media 24/7, to build stories and reach their deadlines.

I had a big smile on my face when I remembered toward the end of the book, what’s to come (now remember we started writing this book in 2001). In Chapter 15, we discussed how blogs are coming!  And, they sure did. About seven years later, it’s really interesting to compare yesterday’s PR toolkit with today’s social media PR toolkit.  Let’s take a look at what should comprise your NEW PR or PR 2.0 toolkit:

  • A solid social media policy or set of guidelines for your organization to help employees engage the right way in social communities.
  • A plan for social media communications that maps out your company’s social media journey from planning to execution.  Elements of your plan/map may include the following:

The MAP

Or, you plan may include the following components:

Strategy Wheel

Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge

  • Monitoring/tracking tools – either paid software including Radian 6, Nielsen BuzzMetrics, BurrellesLuce, Meltwater News, Vocus, Scoutlabs or free resources including Techrigy, SocialMention, Collecta, Backtype, etc.
  • Authority/ranking tools – Technorati, Blogpulse, Klout, Twitter and/or Facebook Grader, Alltop, etc.
  • Social Media Releases (SMR) and Video News Release 2.0
  • Blogs/social networking communities – after listening to determine where it makes sense for the brand to engage with customers and stakeholders
  • Blogger relations guidelines on how to build relationships the right way with bloggers and how to not spam anyone along the way, with self serving messages.
  • Blogger ethics (WOMMA has an ethics toolkit)
  • Interactive company websites set up for community building and collaboration (including your newsroom area)
  • A new guide to metrics (understanding the difference between capturing ROI (the bottom line) and Return on Engagement (ROE), Return on Participation (ROP) and Return on Involvement (another type of ROI).
  • Web analytics to capture unique visitors, page views, bounce rates, a visitor’s location, amount of time spent on a page, etc.
  • Other tools to consider:  wikis, widgets, RSS, video streaming and podcasts.

Building your toolkit is simple.  Some find working in a wiki really easy, so your team can share more ideas and everyone can build the social media PR toolkit together.  You can also spark ideas about what to add to the kit by bookmarking interesting articles on Delicious or Digg for your group to share.

There’s a big difference between what Tom and I discussed in early 2000, and what’s going on now in public relations.  Today, your toolkit should be based on meaningful collaboration with people, and valuable information and idea sharing.  We’re still focusing on PR to build relationships with all stakeholders, although I have to admit that my book in 2003 was really focused on relationships with journalists.  Today, we know that social media has all of us, as professionals, and our brands, connecting with the customer as well as many other different groups.

Your social media PR toolkit will grow with technology.  You will continue to add to this PR repository to better guide your overall strategy, planning and execution of new PR programs. What’s in your toolkit?  What do you think are the most important tools/items that we should all have?