so this is mass communication?

For the past several years, I have experimented with having online office hours. I have a special AIM account that I put on the syllabus. I tell students that while I don’t schedule my time online, if they see me there then they know I’ve made myself available to them.

Today Dr. Alex Halavais (who seems to be providing all sorts of blog fodder for me lately) shared his version of online office hours. He’s live streaming video of himself, from home, via UStream. Office hours in UStream work like this:

• professor turns on vid cam (from home, office, sailboat)
• video and audio streams to anyone on the WWW who accesses the URL
• visitors to the stream can be anonymous & type in questions
• visitors could chose to log in using UStream or OpenID, if desired
• visitors type in an open streaming chat to communicate with professor & others on site

This is too cool for school.

I asked Alex what he thought about the ethics of student privacy if one were to do this in her real campus office hours. He said he would post a sign & advise the student upon entry that this was streaming on the Internet. You can liken it to having the door open during office hours because people in the hall can overhear what is happening inside the office. If the student has something private to discuss (grade, personal issue, etc) then you can turn the camera off. Simple.

Benefits:

• professor doesn’t HAVE to be on campus for office hours
• students don’t have to physically make it to obscure campus location to talk to professor
• some students have the same questions so answering in an open forum helps all
• courses which are taught via the Internet (distance learning) enable more personal communication with professor
• no special account necessary to view stream or type text questions
• extends office hour audience to colleagues (almost all of Alex’s “visitors” were other professors)
• may increase student comfort with visiting office hours (anonymity, lack of geographic constraints or campus parking space!)

Drawbacks:

• possibly reduces the “drop by” of former students, with whom you often have great interactions
• reduces the personal attention paid to single student that occurs when student visits professor for one-on-one office visit
• back channel of text chat means there are two conversations occurring at once (video & text)
• retains the class power structure of professor talking AT student, not having a conversation WITH the student
• requires webcam tech & good Internet connection by professor
• may reduce student comfort with visiting office hours (unsure of tech, shy, etc)

Yes, benefits also show up as drawbacks!

What do you think about these online office hours? As a professor, would you do it? As a student, would you use it?

Everyone talks about how social media is changing everything. Media, professional networking, credibility - you name it. Sometimes education is thrown into the mix, but I’ll have to admit that even I never thought about this new classroom I’ll describe here.

Thanks to Dr. Alex Halavais who posted a link the link through Twitter (@halavais), I found this post on Media Shift about what NYU’s very respected journalism school was doing in their teaching of social media in the newsroom. The post was by NYU student Alana Taylor.

And man, it was not pretty for NYU.

This represents a new classroom, where once-private teacher evaluations & complaints are more than public … especially when they are endorsed as a “special report” on a very credible Web site.

(sidenote, wonder what Dr. Jay Rosen, who teaches at NYU & writes PressThink, has to say about this?)

In all these days of talking about consumer-generated content and the increased level of credibility for “someone like me” that you’ve never even met has in recommending or rejecting something (Yelp, Amazon reviews, etc.), it never occurred to me that students could or would use it as a place to so one-sidedly air their grievances publicly about a class or professor. Never.

Now, mind you, I knew that this happens in spaces like RateMyProfessor or similar sites & I was fine with that.

But something about Alana’s tirade against her professor, her classes & the NYU journalism program as a whole really struck a nerve with me. Not to mention that her blog post happens to be published on a well-read media blog, hosted on the PBS server. I’d say that takes RateMyProfessor to the next level, wouldn’t you?

Gotta say I even I didn’t see that one coming.

In the beginning of the semester, especially in a newly developed elective course, it can be challenging to communicate the course to students. Assignments or projects may seem to lack the level of guidance presented in other classes, the professor may seem disorganized - lots of things can happen. Sometimes the professor really is disorganized, and sometimes it just takes time for the students to “get it.”

Traditionally, student complaints begin with adult and professional one-on-one discussions with the professor in office hours. If the complaint is not resolved, it continues up the chain of academic command.

This Media Shift/Alana Taylor method, however, is worrisome for so many different reasons in my view. Maybe when I get tenure, I’ll go into them all.

So anyway. Read that post if you haven’t already. And don’t forget to look at the comments.

I was very pleased to present a paper, “On the Ballot & in the Loop: The Dialogic Capacity of Candidate Blogs in the 2008 Election,” on behalf of my team of co-authors at AEJMC last week in Chicago. The paper stemmed from a project in my undergraduate public relations research course at UGA.

In this paper, we compared 80 different blogs from gubernatorial, house, senate & presidential candidate blogs during the primary leading up to this November’s election. This paper focused on the female candidates and their use of blogs.

Thanks to Grady doctoral student Kristin English, we have video!

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

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Wikis are Web sites where users can all collaborate on a document. Some wikis are password protected and some are public (like the wiki of all wiks: Wikipedia). Google has similar technology in their Google Doc and a more power place, in Google Groups, where users can also upload files & thread discussion reactions to pages (which are, essentially, wikis).

While most talk in the PR practice about wikis deals with an organization’s Wikipedia entry and the ethics of editing Wikipedia, there is a great internal use for wikis and similar technology like Google Doc/Groups. Collaboration! Think of how frustrating it is to be working on a document (press release, research paper, etc.) only to find that someone else on your team already updated it and you are now working off an older version? Wiki and the Google equivalent (a Google Doc that can be shared among users or made public) is a great solution!

In the classroom, encourage students who are working in teams with one another to write their papers using wikis or make a Google Group. My students use Google Groups (they are the ones who told me about it in the first place) and said that it was one of the best things they could do to not only keep track of all the documents associated with the project in one place, but all work together on the final writing of the project without making time-costing mistakes of double-editing.

For your own research, consider making different Google Groups or wikis for the various team research projects you work on. I am working with colleagues from New York, to Tennessee to Hawaii and I use either a wiki or Google Group with all and it has really streamlined collaborative research writing.

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

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Social bookmark sites, like del.icio.us, allow users to post their Web site “bookmarks” online (so you can access from any computer, anywhere) and with others. When you bookmark a site that others have bookmarked, it will show you not only how many others but who. Why is this so interesting? Well, if you bookmark something that I bookmark then chances are we are interested in the same things … so you may find some really interesting Web sites over on my del.icio.us page and vice versa.

Social bookmarking can be used in the industry as a way to distribute daily clips to management. Additionally, you can check social bookmark sites to see how many people might have bookmarked a recent news article, press release or white paper.

In the classroom, social bookmarking can become a repository of extra online resources for your students. For examples, see my pages for my Public Relations Research Method (ADPR3510) course: http://del.icio.us/kaye.sweetser/adpr3510

Tips

• For each bookmark you add, you will want to create a “tag” for it. Think of these tags like keywords; they are just general organizational items. Each bookmark can get several tags. I often use content labels (like SPSS or IRB for my research class) as well as the class name (ADPR3510) when I bookmark something for a class.
• Post the del.icio.us URL for your class on the syllabus
• Tell the class to subscribe to your class del.icio.us RSS
• When you see that others have bookmarked the same thing you have, click on that link then start exploring their del.icio.us links to see you have other interests in common (this is how I found a lot of really great online tutorials for my classes)
• To create a “class del.icio.us page,” simply give all items you want your class to see a common tag (e.g., ADPR3510) then type in the URL to see just that tag on your del.icio.us account (http://del.icio.us/username/classtag can become http://del.icio.us/kaye.sweetser/adpr3510)
• Subscribe to others’ del.icio.us RSS feeds as a way to keep up with your own interests, in PR practice and education I suggest:
  • http://del.icio.us/kamichat
  • http://del.icio.us/cbasturea
  • http://del.icio.us/Tiffany_Derville
  • http://del.icio.us/kellimatthews
  • http://del.icio.us/KarenRussell
  • http://del.icio.us/kaye.sweetser
  • http://del.icio.us/geoffliving

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.

Related note: I previously posted on the topic of teaching through Twitter, Dr. Karen Miller Russell posted a write-up of 48 hours of Twitter & Dr. Mihaela Vorvorneau outlined her method for using it as a teaching tool.

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This assignment is ideal for PR Writing, Administration or capstone Campaigns courses.

In this assignment, students experiment how a presence application/microblogging tool such as Twitter could be used by an organization as a means to communicate with publics. Twitter, which limits all postings to 140 characters or less, seem to be fun solutions for providing a more human image of an organization, provide unique marketing opportunities if “coupon codes” or Twitter-only specials are announce on it and might be most appropriately used during a crisis to quickly move information from the scene of a crisis to headquarters, media outlets and citizens simultaneously (see Red Cross use of Twitter during 2007 California Wildfires as an example).

If this assignment is used in a writing class, professors could ask students to write 10 tweets as a part of the assignment (not actually posting on Twitter but simply writing the content). If this assignment is used in a capstone campaigns class, students could be encouraged to use Twitter as a campaign tactic aimed to building communities and informing publics on the campaign or a particular event.

Directions to students: Twitter is a microblogging site that requires each update to be 140 characters or less. It begins by asking, “what are you doing?” which is why some call it a presence application as well. Twitter is fun, addictive and represents an excellent opportunity for companies to build communities and inform their publics. The best tweets will display a human voice, include others in the conversation and offer unique information that couldn’t be found elsewhere. Don’t use Twitter as a way to reiterate a standard press release – use it to engage your publics and share urgent information with them (if in a crisis).

> Learning objectives

• Apply Web-writing composition techniques
• Practice properly targeting and engaging publics

> Layout and content recommendations

• Indicate the organization’s name at the top of the page
• Compose tweets, indicating time and date items would be posted on Twitter
• Keep tweets to 140 characters or less

> Tips and resources

• Keep it real: be honest and forthcoming in your tweets
• Don’t simply shill releases or products – tell stories instead
• 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
• Use the “tinyURL” site to take long URLs and turn them into small ones (it redirects you to page)
• Make the company logo the profile icon to continue branding (make sure it looks good at that size!)
• Involve others on Twitter by replying to their tweets and following others
• Consider using during a crisis to simultaneously release information from the scene of a crisis back to headquarters, media and publics simultaneously
• See these resources for additional tips
  • http://www.pr-squared.com/2007/09/prsquareds_social_media_tactic_2.html
  • http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/in-disasters-ev.html
  • http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/2007/10/red-cross-uses-social-media-tools-to.html
  • http://stephensonstrategies.com/2007/10/01/new-on-youtube-use-twitter-in-emergencies
  • http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/index.php/2007/09/27/3-scenarios-for-using-twitter-with-your-students/
  • http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2699/a-professors-tips-for-using-twitter-in-the-classroom
  • http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/02/15/teaching-students-to-twitter-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

> Grading rubric

When grading the Twitter, consider how well it fits into the nuanced community of Twittering. Notice the CNN breaking news account – while we know CNN is reporting news 24-7, they only tweet “breaking news” once every 2 or so days so. Think of it as the boy who cried wolf; don’t over saturate your audience and only put engaging and meaningful information up. If it is overly promotional, only containing links to press releases or product related material then it is very bad Twitter content (e.g., D or C for a letter grade). However, if it begins/responds to/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 excellent (e.g., A or B for a letter grade). Promotional material (e.g., “Registration now online for event!” or “Next five people to walk into Smoothie King and say ‘ssooooo smoooth’ get a free smoothie”) from time-to-time is acceptable, but the Twitter account should be much more than that.

> Example

The Red Cross Twitter account is a good example of an organization, who has used Twitter to communicate during crises (fires, tornadoes, etc).

Other good organizational Twitter accounts:

• http://twitter.com/UGAprssa
• http://twitter.com/Poynter
• http://twitter.com/franklinpolice
• http://twitter.com/CICM
• http://twitter.com/converseon
• http://twitter.com/technorati
• http://twitter.com/socialmediaclub
• http://twitter.com/cnnbrk
• http://twitter.com/EDB_Lindsey
• http://twitter.com/EDB_erin

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 and to be used in publicity for capstone Campaigns courses.

In this assignment, students write a social media press release. In February 2006, Tom Foremski wrote a blog post titled “Die! Press Release! Die!” where he asked public relations professionals to move beyond the traditional press release and provide content in a better format for journalists. He suggested leaving behind the already-written content and instead simply providing bulleted facts, quotes and multimedia. This call led to the re-vamp of the press release into what is now known as the social media press release or new media release; SHIFT Communications released a template (pdf) for the SMPR in May 2006. In early 2008, IABC took a leadership role in devloping the new type of release. Essentially, the release is comprised of short bulleted facts, multimedia (images, video, audio), quotes and suggested tags. The movement behind the SMPR cites that the format allows those who receive the release the opportunity to “re-mix” the content to report the story without PR influence. In this assignment, students are asked to create their own social media press release for an assigned client. If desired, you can have them actually lay out the SMPR in the free online SMPR tool (just don’t release it to the wire!) and have the students e-mail the SMPR directly to you in order to turn in. While students may not completely abandon the traditional press release in their practice, the SMPR is the first major evolution to the press release format in more than 100 years and is being adopted by Fortune 500 companies. Additionally, SMPR can be used for blogger relations and the use of it can assist in providing real metrics on the success of a release.

Directions to students: Compose quotes and content for a social media press release that might be released by your client. Write acceptable quotes, use bulleted facts and link to multimedia to attract press coverage and interest.

> Learning objectives

• Use journalistic news values to determine best news facts and angle to include
• Understand how multimedia linking multimedia to a release can make content more attractive
• Understand the proper composition of a social media press release

> Layout and content recommendations

• Use PRX Builder [http://www.prxbuilder.com/] to format the text of your SMPR (create username)
• Create a new social media release through PRX Builder, save the page/file by your lastname.xml (smith.xml)
• List yourself as the point of contact (you can be a spokesperson)
• Indicate your organization’s name and other relevant contact info
• Provide contact information, making you the PR point of contact (equivalent of writing your name on paper)
• Have a headline and subhead for the release
• Provide dateline information to include both location and date of release
• Write several core news facts as bulleted items
• Link to multimedia (images, video, games, quizzes) to go along with the release (make these URLs up)
• Write several bulleted quotes from various people in your organization about the issue, 3^rd party quotes also acceptable
• Provide company information (such as a boilerplate) that is concisely written and avoid PR fluff
• Suggest keywords for tags
• Optional: Link to other relevant coverage to date or blogger coverage of the issue, so the media knows that this has already generated interest (will increase your chances of getting published)
• Optional: Link to RSS feed (just make up link or just place the standard RSS graphic there)

> Tips

• Save everything in MS Word – the Web site or program might crash and you can’t retrieve it
• Remember journalists will have to write a story from this – so make sure you include a lot of facts and solid quotes
• Consider quoting someone from outside the client’s organization (reputable source whose opinion is valuable)
• Compose well-written Web text appropriate for blogs
• See these resources for additional tips
  • http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/shift/24521
  • http://www.pr-squared.com/2008/02/prsquareds_social_media_tactic_6.html
  • http://www.briansolis.com/2008/02/definitive-guide-to-social-media.html
  • http://www.socialmediarelease.org/2006/11/02/elements-of-the-social-media-release
  • http://www.socialmediarelease.org/2006/11/03/how-to-write-a-social-media-release-for-everyone-involved-in-pr-marketing-and-communications
  • http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/10/why-use-social-media-with-your-press-release
  • http://www.socialmediarelease.org/2008/02/15/social-media-releases-a-report-from-the-field
  • http://newpersuasion.typepad.com/new_persuasion/2006/09/using_the_socia.html

> Grading rubric

When grading an SMPR, treat it much like you would a traditional release. Did the student accurately communicate facts in a concise and well-written manner? Did the student adhere to AP Style? The difference, of course, with SMPRs is the inclusion of multimedia and offering a variety of extra resources for the recipient of the release (podcast, YouTube video, white paper reports, etc.). Additionally, did the student select quality facts for the news bullets? A good SMPR will have excellent news facts, solid quotes (typically no more than 2 per source), quotes from sources outside the organization and lots of multimedia by way of logos, head shots, videos, photos, etc. Additionally, the good SMPR will have well thought out tags suggested for those who may want to re-mix the content. A poorly written SMPR does not include any multimedia, includes meaningless facts, does not use Web writing techniques and does not have quality tags.

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 or capstone Campaigns courses.

In this assignment, students experiment with engaging bloggers (or pitching to bloggers, though they don’t like that term!). Engaging bloggers must be personal, transparent and is often better received when you’re not even pitching anything from your company at all. Many social media PR practitioners suggest that instead of pitching bloggers to write about their companies, they instead build relationships with bloggers & talk to them about the industry or send them links to information that blogger might be interested in. Some practitioners never even mention their own company or product – if the blogger is interested, then the blogger will ask. Until then, it is just pure relationship building with one’s publics. This is a great opportunity to widen the student’s understanding of media relations. While bloggers may not have a large reach, they represent a specific niche that might be very interested in your organization and engagement could reap great benefits. NASA and U.S. Central Command both have well-known blogger engagement program, which have been known to lead to credentialing of bloggers and treating this group more like traditional media outlets.

If this assignment is used in a writing class, professors could ask students to write a proposed e-mail message to an appropriate blogger that deals with the assigned or selected client. The student would write the e-mail text and submit it to the professor as a graded assignment (not actually send it to the blogger!). If this assignment is used in a capstone campaigns class, students could be encouraged to engage bloggers as appropriate as a campaign tactic aimed building communities and informing publics on the campaign or a particular event. If this is the case, it is strongly recommended that the professor and client approve the engagement text prior to students engaging the blogger.

Warning: Engaging can be tricky, so it is recommended that professors and students read through all of the resources below before beginning this assignment. Bloggers are known to copy and paste an entire e-mail message (both good & bad pitches) to post them on their blogs. Additionally, transparency is a must: practitioners must practice ethical public relations at all times and identify one’s self as a practitioner for the organization. See the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s code of ethics for more on this.

Directions to student: Compose an e-mail message “pitch” to engage a blogger. The communication to the blogger should be personal and show that you know who he/she, have read the blog and understand what interests the blogger. One would never send a “form letter” type pitch to a blogger. Offer up information or resources – have a reason for e-mailing the blogger. The voice of this e-mail message should be informal but the content should be informative. The e-mail message should include at least one hyperlink and not appear too over-the-top regarding advertising or public relations. Use this as a personal platform to begin an unmediated, direct conversation with your publics. You may use the in-class resources provided, notes or the Internet for tips on writing a good blogger “pitch.”

> Learning objectives

• Practice relationship-building with publics
• Apply Web-writing composition techniques
• Diversifying “pitch”/outreach/engagement skill set to include non-traditional media sources

> Layout and content recommendations

• Indicate your organization’s name at the top of the page
• Before starting the e-mail pitch, provide a 1-2 sentence intro to instructor explaining the blog you chose to engage and why (this is not part of the pitch “e-mail” but provides context)
• Have a subject line for the e-mail message. Subjects should be short, yet informative. Make it relevant to what you talk about in the e-mail message (avoid “Question” or “Your Blog” as subject lines)
• Limit e-mail text to no more than 150 words (excludes intro statement, subject and URLs – this limit is ONLY on blog pitch e-mail text)
• Contain at least one hyperlink properly placed in the message. Note that many bloggers like to see the hyperlink first and so it is recommended that the first line of the e-mail contain any hyperlinks you may talk about later in the text.

> Tips and resources

• Clearly identify yourself as a practitioner from your organization, read Word of Mouth Marketing Association ethics
• Show the blogger you know who he/she is by referring to past posts or general interests of the blogger
• Provide useful information or suggest a resource (it doesn’t always have to be about your company)
• Write it from a first-person perspective and make it conversational
• Try to humanize the organization
• Don’t PITCH — ENGAGE!
• Never ask the blogger to lie or misrepresent information or the practitioner as a source of information
• Compose well-written and properly formatted e-mail message
• See these resources for additional tips
  • http://marshallk.com/5-pr-pitches-the-good-and-bad
  • http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/02/10/how-to-pitch-bloggers
  • http://www.ryanablock.com/archive/2006/12/how-not-to-pitch-a-blogger
  • http://mobhappy.typepad.com/russell_buckleys_mobhappy/2005/07/pr_solutions.html
  • http://www.globalprblogweek.com/archives/the_pr_lessons_of_a_.php
  • http://www.womma.org/blogger
  • http://badpitch.blogspot.com
  • http://hyku.com/blog/archives/001531.html
  • http://blogsurvey.backbonemedia.com/archives/2006/04/clicktv_pitch_p.html
  • http://dring.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/good-organization-bad-bad-pitch

> Grading rubric

When grading the blog engagement e-mail, ask if it looks or feels like a “normal pitch” that went to a group of people (without any personalization). If the answer is yes, then it is a very bad e-mail engagement (e.g., D or C for a letter grade). Frankly, what makes a bad pitch in traditional media relations also makes a bad pitch in blogger relations. Additionally, practitioners must identify themselves (their company), never ask someone to lie or hide anything & behave ethically at all times. If the blogger e-mail fails to adhere to these ethical standards, the student should be marked down. However, if it includes hyperlinks to third-party independent resources, talks about something the blogger has said on his/her blog and seems to be a very personal e-mail offering up information or helpful resources the blogger may want access to then it is likely excellent (e.g., A or B for a letter grade). Blog pitches have to be personal – you can’t write one and then send it to 10 people. It is highly recommended that prior to grading the blog pitches, you read over the recourses in the tips section above because it shows examples of pitches gone wrong and those well done.

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 Research, PR Cases Studies, Administration and to use for the research function of capstone Campaigns courses.

In this assignment, students monitor the online conversation occurring about an organization on posted by that organization’s publics (i.e., environmental scanning of blogs for discussion of company issues). Adoption trends show that the number of people reading blogs jumps each six months and more than half of journalists turn to blogs for sources, story ideas and to “break scandals.” Academic research finds that people who read blogs cite them as credible sources of information and there are several notable anecdotes about stories jumping from blogs to the mainstream media. As such, it is important for public relations students to learn how to monitor blog and other social media content in a systematic way that provides the same insight that more traditional environmental scanning methods do. Remember though, these scans are good only if they include the entire online world — don’t just look at blogs but include microblogging sites like Twitter, and multimedia sites like YouTube or Flickr.

Directions to students: Many people will discuss your organization and its products/services on their own Web sites, outside of traditional media. Just as it is important for you to know what the media and your community are saying about your issues and organization, it is important to know what is being said in social media sites like blogs and message boards. In this assignment you will listen to the “cyberchatter” about an assigned client for one week. During this time you will (1) monitor social media sites, (2) assess the importance/impact of each site that discusses your organization and (3) write a short analysis of the week’s conversation. Additionally, you may make suggestions for action or engagement based on this analysis.

> Learning objectives

• Apply environmental scanning and issues management approaches to non-traditional information sources
• Practice research skills in diverse information environments
• Connect environmental scanning practices with emergent technology
• Familiarize yourself with potentially powerful, persuasive and relevant conversations occurring about your organization outside the mainstream media

> Layout and content recommendations

• Assign a client to students or allow them to pick their own clients (suggest large Fortune 500 companies)
• Identify key search terms with students for their client. Don’t just rely on the organization’s name. Include CEO, product names, issues and common misspellings for associated organizational terms.
• Demonstrate key word searches on various blog search engines like IceRocket, Technorati, blogsearch.google.com
• Show students how to set up Google alerts on key words
• Explain RSS feeds, how to identify them, subscriptions & readers such as BlogLines or Google Reader (note: you can do an initial search on the blog search engines & then subscribe to that search to make life a little easier)
• Explain tags (often used on blogs, Flickr, YouTube, etc)
• Explain that blog site importance/impact can sometimes be determined through reading the “about” page of the blogger and reading the comments on posts

> Tips

• Monitor inbound links to the company’s Web site through Technorati or IceRocket and by typing link:url (with url being your company’s URL) into Google
• Do Web searches on the company name (including common misspellings) and products/services
• Start with quality search terms
• Follow key words on Twitter
• Always follow links in a blog post – the link may contain all of the meaning
• Always read all of the comments on a blog post – the post may appear neutral then the comments might contain a heated discussion
• See these resources for additional tips
  • http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/01/blog_monitoring.html
  • http://www.globalprblogweek.com/2005/09/21/wyman-reputation-management/
  • http://hyku.com/blog/archives/001728.html
  • http://hyku.com/blog/archives/000189.html
  • http://technorati.com/weblog/2007/05/354.html
  • http://radiofreeblogistan.com/2005/04/29/assessing_blog_authority.html

> Grading rubric

When grading the online conversation monitoring report, treat it much like you would any traditional environmental scanning report. The only difference here is that the net for area to be monitored is cast much wider. The best thing a student can come away from this assignment understanding is that one is always monitoring one’s organization – and it is important to add social media sites to this list of sites monitored. Once systems are in place (e-mail alerts, etc.) the work is streamlined and much easier.

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