so this is mass communication?

At the Edelman Digital Bootcamp, I presented a number of social media assignments that I have worked into my traditional PR classes. This assignment is one of those assignments.

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This assignment is ideal for PR Writing, PR Cases Studies or Administration courses.

In this assignment, students write a blog post that might appear on their company’s official organizational blog. Client can be picked by student or assigned

Directions to students: Compose a message that might appear on an organization’s official blog. The voice of this blog post should be informal but the content should be informative. Blog posts should contain hyperlinks and not appear too over-the-top regarding company promotion/advertising or overt public relations. Use this as a personal platform to begin an unmediated, direct conversation with your publics.

> Learning objectives

• Use blog platform to communicate with and engage publics professionally in a human voice
• Apply Web-writing composition techniques
• Reflect on ethical public relations tactics in nuanced social media communities

> Layout and content recommendations

• Indicate the organization’s name at the top of the page
• Before starting the blog post, provide a 1-2 sentence introduction to instructor explaining what the purpose of the blog post is or the scenario that is being addressed in the post (this is not part of the post but provides context). For example, if this post is written during the middle of a crisis for the organization, describe that scenario.
• Title the blog post
• Write a post of 350 words or less (this excludes intro statement, title and URLs – this limit is ONLY on blog post text)
• Include at least two hyperlinks with properly composed hypertext. The hypertext should be underlined. The actual URL should follow the hypertext & be in brackets. See GM blog post for example. Remember, “Click Here” is not properly composed hypertext.

> Tips and resources

• Keep it real: be honest and forthcoming in your post
• Be transparent – don’t lie about who you are or why you’re writing about a particular topic
• Write it from a first-person perspective and make it conversational
• Try to humanize the organization
• Encourage feedback
• Compose well-written Web text appropriate for blogs
• See these resources for additional tips
  • http://www.edelman.com/image/insights/content/ISwp_TrustMEdia_FINAL.pdf
  • http://pkellypr.com/blog/2005/0913/tips-on-writing-content-for-your-blog/
  • http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/30/tens-tips-for-writing-a-blog-post/
  • http://www.prblogger.com/2005/09/tips-on-writing-content-for-your-blog-cont/
  • http://write-better.blogspot.com/2007/12/writing-effective-copy-for-your.html
  • http://hyku.com/blog/archives/001309.html

> Grading rubric

When grading the blog post, consider how well it fits into the nuanced community of blogging. If it is overly promotional or mere cut and paste of a press release then it is a very bad blog post (e.g., D or C for a letter grade). However, if it begins/continues a conversation, offers information/resources related to the company’s industry (but isn’t promoting a specific company or affiliate product) or tells a “behind the scenes” type story then it is likely an excellent blog post (e.g., A or B for a letter grade). All writing and writing-for-the-Web principles should be followed so that students practice professional communication on a medium they are used to being less formal on.

> Example

The following post is a good example and is taken from GM’s “Fast Lane” blog and was edited to meet the requirements of this assignment. The original post is at http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2005/04/clearing_the_ai_1.html

Scenario: The Los Angeles Times published content that GM felt was inaccurate and misrepresented their company and products. GM filed a complaint with the Times, and withdrew advertising to the publication. This itself became a news story, with GM receiving criticism for its response.

Clearing the Air

By Gary Grates

Vice President, Communications, GM North America

There is a lot of criticism regarding our dispute with the Los Angeles Times [http://www.latimes.com]. And there is praise from those who agree with us that the newspaper’s coverage is not always fair [http://www.hedgehogreport.com/index.php/3848].

By far, the most frequently asked question has been: “Why doesn’t GM publicly detail the Times’ errors and misrepresentations?”

Since this became a news story last week, we declined to participate in a public airing of our complaint out of respect to the Times. To its credit, the Times has an ombudsman investigating these issues. We want to let the Times consider our complaint and announce its conclusions before we comment.

This has not been a popular decision with those who would prefer to portray this as a “battle” or “war.”

This is far from reality.

We were frank in our criticism, and the Times editors so far have taken our complaint seriously.

We knew going into this that our action would be portrayed negatively. GM was attacked relentlessly in as being “thin skinned.” But think about that for a moment: GM has been particularly “newsworthy” in the last month. Many weighed in on our challenges and our products. If ceasing our advertising in the Times were simply a symptom of our alleged “thin skin,” then why focus solely on the Times, a newspaper that covers GM minimally?

In fact, GM is not averse to fair criticism, and we appreciate the role journalists play in our society.

We expect critics to point out where we have done well with our products and where, in their opinion, we could do better.

When we disagree, we take it up privately. We are not so naïve to expect that the media should only write positive things about us, as some have opined.

We anticipate saying more once the Times reaches its own conclusions, and we’ll share that with you here when the time comes. Until then, acting in good faith and out of respect for the Times’ process for dealing with such issues, we will opt to not add fuel to the media fire.

Other good organizational blog posts:

• Facebook encourages users to interact: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=8183627130 .
• Renowned English tailor provides advice for high-dollar dressing on low budget: http://www.englishcut.com/archives/000101.html

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