so this is mass communication?

When I talk to someone not as invested in the social media world as I, the question typically comes up:

what social media tools are you using right now?

The question is sometimes asked with a slight tilt of the head & a look like that person is expecting the equivalent of a stock tip from a big city stock broker. No, I’m not kidding.

So since my obsessions with a few tools keeps me away from blogging, I thought I’d share what I’m getting into these days.

Twitter! Who would have thought that the person who signed up for the microblogging tool & kept her status as “napping” for nearly 9 months would be obsessed with Twitter? Well it is true! I can’t get enough. For me, this is my one personal social media indulgence - the only thing I do without care or concern to my professional life (and that is why I locked my tweets & will now only approve people that I actually do know). My tweets are not fun nor interesting, but they are true to the tool in that I’m always answering that magic question of “what are you doing?”

Video! I used to talk a big game about the importance of multimedia in social media and a general Web space. But I never really thought I could get into it. It seemed too time intensive, too complicated, etc. Then Robert French gave a demo of his little flip cam at the Edelman Digital Bootcamp & talked about how he had his students use them (they buy the $100 video camera instead of a text book). The tipping point was a week later when Phil Gomes gave me a flip camera as a speaker’s gift. I seriously was so excited I tore through the hard plastic packaging with my keys while on the flight home. After making a few one-shot videos (no editing, as it happens video), I finally made an edited video in iMovie for my YouTube channel this weekend. It only took about 3 hours (most of that time was spent trying to find a song that I could use without going to jail for copyright violations). So with the magic of a $100 USB video camera, standard movie making software on my Mac & podsafe music search site I actually became a movie maker!

PR Open Mic! I was totally one to groan ‘another social network?’ thinking this world does not need more — but I love PR Open Mic! Started a few weeks ago by Auburn’s Robert French, this network brings together PR students, professionals & educators in one place to discuss the issues of our professional lives. For students it’s about finding internships, jobs, networking etc. For professionals it lets you connect with young talent & ideas, while opening up your network for also receiving advice on the work projects that keep you up at night. My favorite part, which will not come as a surprise, are actually the videos that go up. Phil Gomes started ‘A Minute with Phil,’ which he admits has gone over a minute each time. His concept is that he gets questions from students & educators all the time so he’ll take the time to create a few short little videos each week to answer that question. It’s great!

So those are the tools that have my attention. Here’s my latest little video just in case you haven’t had enough.

Now it’s your turn - what tools are you using these days?

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.