This is a post from PR columnist, Alison Kenney.
As a solo PR pro, I love any technology or technique that makes my work easier or more affordable. Those that make life both easier and affordable really take the prize!
Following are a few examples of services that are free and also leverage social media to help PR pros collaborate to make their work easier and more effective. Each of these examples replaces or competes with a service that either a) previously cost an arm and a leg or b) was something that every PR team did individually and then staunchly guarded.
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) – Founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneur Peter Shankman as a Facebook Groups page, HARO is one of the fastest-growing social media services in North America.
HARO enables journalists to connect with the right source and grants everyone – from home-based entrepreneurs to large businesses – access to reporters who may write about them. It’s comparable to PRNewswire’s Profnet but can be subscribed to for free versus Profnet’s $3,500 price tag.
PitchWithMe: a new concept from PR pro Heather Whaling that helps PR folks collaborate on pitches to discover potential resources and offer journalists more multiple resources. As Heather says on the PitchWithMe site, “within agencies, this kind of packaged pitching is already taking place; however, freelancers, boutique agencies and small businesses don’t always have these kinds of resources available. Until now.” Thanks Heather!
BloggerLinkUp: kind of like a HARO or Profnet for bloggers and those trying to reach bloggers, BloggerLinkUp was formed by Cathy Stucker as a free resource (via email subscription) for bloggers who are looking for expert sources, products to review or guest posts and for PR reps who have products they’d like reviewed or guest blog posts they’d like to see published. In addition to providing tactical solutions, what I think is so great about these services is that they are also shifting the emphasis in our daily PR jobs from process to content. Now that we all have access to reporters’s queries, bloggers requests and other PR reps to collaborate with, we can focus on creative strategies and hopefully improve the PR services we offer.
What do you think? What free collaborative social media tools do you recommend?
Alison Kenney an independent PR practitioner with more than 15 years of PR consulting experience. She is based on Boston’s North Shore and has worked with organizations in the technology, professional services and consumer industries. She writes a bi-monthly PR column on LindsayOlson.com. Learn more about Alison Kenney.
PRNewser is running an interesting series about how to get a job in social media via interviews with public relations and interactive agencies. The agency answers ten questions aimed at giving readers a sense of what an agency looks for in a social media hire and how social media inititatives are integrated in the agency. Lots of great information here for those of you looking for a social media focus.
Check out the interviews posted so far from R/GA, Ketchum, and Porter Novelli.
Digital and social media is definitely on the rise in 2010. Most of the new positions we've been getting in the past few months at Paradigm Staffing have been exclusively digital focused. Currently, we have three open searches - a VP Digital for a PR agency in New York, a SVP for a PR agency in Washington D.C., and a Social Media Manager for a healthcare company in San Francisco
This is a guest post by Kimberly Walsh.
I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of people who graduated with PR degrees had to learn social media in the great educational institution of life. We've taken our knowledge of creating mutually beneficial relationships through two-way communications and applied it to the many online tools at our disposal.
I'm lucky enough to have landed my dream job. It combines my love of books and of connecting and communicating with people and bringing it all together through technology. It's also a job that didn't and truly couldn't exist before the advent of web 2.0.
My job is essentially running an online book club through Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Book clubs have long been popular in our culture, made even more so by celebrity backings like Oprah in the USA and Richard & Judy in the UK. It's so much a part of society that American network CBS even attempted a failed "reality" show Tuesday Night Book Club.
Anyone who's ever been a member of a book club knows the pitfalls. And that's usually finding the right fit. Some members are hardcore bookworms armed with English lit degrees, some join in order to simply have an adult conversation, while others are there just for the wine.
So, the question in an online version becomes: how to engage a wide audience? And by engage, I'm talking about our precious two-way communications, not just broadcasting opinions. Books aren't exactly niche marketing. Everybody reads. While an online book club (or any club for that matter) can't provide refreshments, it can provide a friendly setting for all manner of discussions. In fact, the virtual world is ideal for the book club format.
First, a little background about the program I'm talking about: Canada Reads started as a one week radio program where five celebrity panelists each choose a book to defend on air during the course of five days. If a book makes onto the show, the Canada Reads "bump" means an average sales increase of more than 1700%. That's second in influence only to Canada's biggest literary award, The Scotiabank Giller Prize.
The CBC Book Club was launched in spring of this year on the heels of a Canada Reads victory by journalist Avi Lewis who defended Lawrence Hill's Book of Negroes (printed as Someone Knows My Name in the USA). Incidentally, the book was recently named one of the top 10 Canadian books of the decade by Maclean's magazine.
With the advent of social media, particularly in recent years where the uptake by mainstream audiences of sites like Facebook and Twitter has influenced strategic communications and marketing plans, the opportunity for conversation is almost limitless.
Some takeaways from the online successes of these programs:
The golden rule of web 2.0 should be know thy audience. The bigger the audience, the more diverse their needs. You're simply not going to be able to force everyone who wants to participate into joining social media sites. Don't punish them for making that decision. Provide them with content in other ways. Use widgets to show them your Twitter stream. Hold their hands a little if you need to by posting how-to tips.
Not everyone is going to be comfortable with learning a new technology. Heck, you might even be nervous about it, too. Let them know they're not alone.
Let your personality shine. Your audience doesn't want to constantly be sold on an idea, product or service. Social media is the wrong platform for that. People want conversation with a real live human being who has opinions. Common sense and a smart code of conduct go a long way.
Content may be queen but a prime minister is needed to manage it. Post all you want, but know that there's such a thing as information overload. More importantly, don't make your audience work to find content. Information architecture are words you should get comfortable with but also think about options for sending out updates. It can be as easy as a well-crafted tweet with an appropriately shortened link, an RSS feed for updates, or a combination of options. Remember each user is different and will experience your content and site in a variety of ways.
Embrace change but know what your breadwinners are. It's all well and good to have a strategic communications plan setting out short- and long-term goals but social media is a moving target at times. You need to build in the flexibility to change with shifting interests in various platforms.
Take calculated risks. When those interests do shift to the next shiny web 2.0 tool, evaluate whether it's the right one for you before making the leap. At the Book Club one of the great value-added tools we added to our toolkit is CoverItLive for moderated chats with authors. Ultimately, it's a win in terms of bonus interactivity but it wasn't without a bit of sweat and elbow grease to get it just right.
What are some of your success stories in building online communities?
Kimberly Walsh (aka @AliasGrace) is a geek girl, bookworm, writer and PR thinker in one. By day, she works as a web content producer and social media manager for the CBC in literary programming.
This is a guest post by Alison Kenney.
It seems that every job description and prospective client wants to work with a PR pro who is social media savvy. Interestingly, this can mean different things to different people. At the extremes it could mean the difference between someone who thinks they are savvy about social media because they actively participate on Twitter and Facebook and someone who integrates, implements and measures SEO in all PR and business communications. Demonstrate your social media savvy-ness by being prepared to answer the following types of questions:
- How personally familiar are you with social media?
- When conducting a job search, which social media, online networks and Web-based communities do you turn to?
- Do you have a search- and social media-friendly Web site?
- Do you blog?
- Which blogs do you read on a regular basis? How often do you comment on blogs?
- Are you familiar with the popular feed readers? Which one do you recommend?
- Have you ever uploaded a video to YouTube?
- Have you ever uploaded digital photos to a site like Flickr?
- What social networks do you belong to? Do you use them for personal or professional reasons?
- How many followers do you have on Twitter? How many Friends on Facebook? Connections on LinkedIn?
- How do you use your cell phone besides making calls?
- Do you use Skype or ooVoo?
- How have you worked with social media for business purposes?
- How do you address both SEO and social media?
- How do you measure the ROI of your social media engagement efforts?
- Do you help clients/companies develop a blog strategy?
- Give some examples of podcasts you′ve developed for clients.
- Have you coordinated Live Chats for clients? What tools/medium do you use?
- Describe a successful blogger relations effort that you were part of.
- Have you ever been blacklisted by a blogger?
- How do you write a social media or SEO-enabled press release? What are the components?
- How do you integrate social media into your PR programs?
- Which key digital influencers do you participate in conversations with and what methods do you use for communicating with them?
- What kind of coverage can you expect when distributing a new social media release?
- How do you track and analyze online coverage and link-backs?
- What do you do when something negative appears about you/your client/your company on the blogosphere?
- How do you discriminate between different social media efforts?
- Which online press release distribution sites offer the best value?
- How do you gauge whether it′s worth spending time with an online community?
- Do some media types rank higher on search result pages than others?
How do you demonstrate your social media expertise?
Alison Kenney is an independent PR practitioner with more than 15 years of PR consulting experience. She is based on Boston′s North Shore and has worked with organizations in the technology, professional services and consumer industries. She can be reached at alisonkenney at comcast dot net.
This is a guest post by Alison Kenney.
Social media has not only shaken up job-seekers′ lives — it′s also changed the way staffing and recruiting firms operate. Perhaps you linked to this blog from Twitter, or Facebook. Do you also interact with recruiters or staffing firms on those social media platforms?
There are two general ways that staffing firms use social media:
- To build their brand and position themselves as thought-leaders by passing along news, links to articles, etc that are industry-related
- To post open job opportunities
Boston-based temporary staffing firm Hollister is one of the most social media-savvy firms in the industry. Earlier this year, Hollister partnered with 451 Marketing, a Boston-based new media communications agency, and launched its "Recruiting 2.0" for using social media to recruit candidates. The effort includes building more than 30 online communities across LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. The communities are for both active and passive job seekers and are organized by profession to mirror Hollister′s service lines, including Accounting and Finance, Administrative, Creative and Marketing, Technology, and Human Resources.
For example, on LinkedIn the Hollister/451 Marketing team manages groups called Boston HR Leaders, Boston Accounting & Finance Professionals, Boston Creative Group and Boston Technology Hub.
On Twitter, Hollister posts job openings with links to longer descriptions on the Hollister web site and provides links to articles with tips for job seekers. Hollister has several identities on Twitter, including @JobsBoston, @BostonHiring, @BostonTechHub, @AccountingMA, @CreativeBoston and @BostonMarketing.
Hollister also provides content via two different blogs — one for hiring managers (http://bostonhiringblog.com Shadowheart movie ) and one for job seekers (http://bostonjobsblog.com). Hollister uses its social media communities to position clients′ job opportunities and identify more qualified candidates for job openings, including passive seekers who are more likely to engage with a professional community than visit a job board. Hollister also instructs its recruiters on best practices for creating and using personal accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, enabling them to get a more complete picture of job candidates and build relationships. According to Hollister′s Director of Marketing, Meg Toland, the communities, which have more than 1,000 members, are a strategic way to break through the clutter of job boards and home in on qualified candidates by using technology to interact more effectively.
Adecco Group NA, part of one of the largest staffing conglomerates in the world, has also built a presence on Twitter. Its @adeccoGroup, with more than 2,000 followers, tweets insights on the job market and economy, shares links to relevant news and promotes company news or executive opinions. In addition, Adecco has created separate Twitter identities for promoting job openings in specific fields, e.g. @jobs_accounting, @clerical_job, @jobs_callcenter, @jobs_CS, @jobs_engineers, @jobs_finance, @jobs_healthcare, @jobs_industrial, @job_marketing, @job_scientific, @jobs_operations, @jobs_payroll, @jobs_warehouse, @jobs_technology and @searchandapply (the last is a listing of all Adecco jobs). Regional Adecco offices also tweet under their own identities and post local job openings.
Staffing firms with the heft of a big brand, like Adecco, or those who are first to act, like Hollister, are staking their claims in social media. They′ve identified that the way to recruit candidates and promote job openings is by enabling interaction and sharing content via online communities.
Alison Kenney is an independent PR practitioner with more than 15 years of PR consulting experience. She is based on Boston′s North Shore and has worked with organizations in the technology, professional services and consumer industries. She can be reached at alisonkenney@comcast.net.
Attention Public Relations Job Seekers: The Bridge of San Luis Rey the movie Social media knowledge and experience is almost as important as traditional media relations skills. Check out these statistics from IPressroom's Digital Readiness Report.
Some of the key findings I found interesting in this study about the current communications job market:
- 82% of hiring managers said media relations expertise was either important or very important.
- 80% said knowledge of social networks is either important or very important.
- 72% said an understanding of micro-blogging services like Twitter are either important or very important.
- Hiring managers also ranked SEO (62%), email outreach (56%), web content management (52%) and social bookmarking (51%) as important skills and knowledge for PR professionals in today's job market.
- 18% of hiring managers have no interest in traditional PR skills.
More often our client companies are asking for candidates with social media knowledge and experience (outside of personal use), however, these employers are still expecting to hire a well-rounded communications professional - one who can demonstrate he or she has both the traditional and the digital skills.
The survey further notes that a majority of organizations employing communications professionals are considering hiring dedicated staff that specialize on the social media front.
I hear frequently from entry-level and junior level candidates who only want to focus on social media. What do you think? Good idea, bad idea, indifferent?
Links:
IPressroom
Hubspot just released their State of the Twittersphere report
. Over the past several months, they analyzed the use of over 4.5 million accounts through Twitter Grader .
Here are the findings:
- 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL
- 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
- 68.68% have not specified a location
- 55.50% are not following anyone
- 54.88% have never tweeted
- 52.71% have no followers
You can find the entire report here: http://bit.ly/sotwitter
I'm surprised that 75% of users haven't entered a bio and almost 70% haven't entered their location.
If you plan to use Twitter for a job search, completing a bio and putting a location helps those using Twitter for recruiting find you. An easy, one stop resource to find everyone on Twitter doesn't seem to exist. We're relying on Twitter profile sites that index profiles based on the words found in user's bios, Twitter keyword searches, or Google search strings to find and connect with people with similar interests and backgrounds.
Simple suggestion : Let people know who you are, what you do, and where you are located. Once you do that, you've significantly increased your chances of hearing about opportunities from Twitter-savvy companies and recruiters.
Stephanie Lloyd, career blogger at Radiant Veracity and owner of Calibre Search Group, is writing a series for her blog on how recruiters are using Twitter in the recruiting efforts. Today was my turn for an interview. Here's an excerpt, but definitely check out Stephanie's blog for the entire interview and for her career advice "served with a healthy dose of candor and a smile."
Interview with Lindsay Olson: How do you use Twitter in your recruiting efforts?
With all of the publicity Twitter is getting these days it′s no wonder I′m getting so many questions from job seekers asking how they can use it effectively in their job search as well as how recruiters use it to find candidates.
I decided to interview several recruiters who are avid users of Twitter and ask them what advice they have for job seekers. This week I talked to Lindsay Olson Scrooge movie download .
How do you use Twitter in your recruiting efforts?
I started using Twitter two years ago. I use it to keep in contact with candidates and companies with whom I already have a relationship as well as forge many new relationships. I mainly follow professionals in my industry specialty — public relations and marketing.
I share information about our searches, but my goal is to use it for more than just posting information about my company and searches. I post relevant industry links and information about the industry as well as career advice from my blogs and blogs of others that I think my audience may find insightful.
By sharing useful information and engaging with my followers daily, I′ve built relationships it would have taken years to build, if ever, any other way.
For the rest of the article, see Stephanie's full post.
Thanks, Stephanie!
This is a guest post from Jonathan Rick.
Would you hire this self-described Internet strategist? He rarely blogs, doesn′t much tweet, and uses YouTube for quick and dirty videos filmed with a Flip camera.
Would your mind change if you knew he were a veteran of Microsoft and Yahoo, whom the Washington Post described as "one of the elder statesmen in the "¦ class of online political operatives"? What if NationalJournal.com credited him with expanding the Republican National Committee′s e-mail list from 1.8 million to 12 million, and "dramatically improving the party's social media outreach"? His name: Cyrus Krohn.
What about this guru? He, too, rarely tweets, much less blogs, and enjoys only 285 Facebook friends. Yet he′s spent the past two and a half years building, from scratch, what the Politico ranks as the fourth best e-mail list in politics. Last year, PoliticsOnline and the World E-Democracy Forum named him one of the "Top 10 Changing the World of Internet and Politics." His name: David Kralik.
Finally, unlike Cyrus and David, our third executive is active on Twitter, yet has only 271 followers. He suspended his personal blog more than a year ago, and only rarely comments on the blog he helped found, RedState. His day job? Executive Vice President at Edelman, the largest independent pr firm, where he runs the digital public affairs practice and his clients include Wal-Mart and American Petroleum Institute. His name: Michael Krempasky.
Clearly, these guys are major players in the digital media field. They speak at conferences, command sizable salaries, and boast enviable records of accomplishment.
Yet their efforts at personal branding"”their own PR"”are relatively lackluster. In short, they′re behind-the-scenes operators, who keep their heads down. They′ll give a quote to a reporter, but client work is their priority.
And yet, if these folks were job searching, a recruiter no doubt would advise them to raise their own profile"”to beef up their LinkedIn page, optimize the search engine results for their names, and start publishing thought-leadership pieces.
This advice is well taken, but perhaps overdispensed. Even if you work in digital media, you need not have 500 Facebook friends, as David All asks of his potential employees. In fact, you′d do just as well to help a client gain 10,000 Twitter followers than to attain this feat for yourself. As Sean Hackbarth can attest, even being a well-connected blogger since 1999 does not guarantee gainful employment.
Put another way, Show me what you′ve done for others, and I′ll discern who are.
Jonathan Rick supports clients across the federal government on the strategy and execution of various digital initiatives. He blogs at No Straw Men and tweets at @jrick.
порно ÐµÐ±Ð»Ñ Ð³Ñ€ÑƒÐ¿Ð¿Ð¾Ð²ÑƒÑ…Ð° руÑÑкаÑ
My most recent guest column on PRNewser is up. Here is a quick except. You can read all the tips on PRNewser's blog.
If you are not already on it, you have probably heard of Twitter by now. Twitter can be a powerful tool to aid in your job search. There are numerous success stories in the blogosphere about how people have received and accepted job offers through Twitter. See examples from David Murray or Michael Litman.
Here are some of my observations and tips on how to use Twitter as a tool for your job search and to make sure you are getting noticed.
Use your real name.
Make your profile searchable and easy to be found. Tell the world what you do in the bio line. Be specific. If you do tech PR, say it in your one line bio. You will find more like-minded people will connect with you. If you make people work too hard to figure out who you are and what you do, you will never see the benefit of Twitter because people won't find you. Make it easy for someone to decide if they should start following your updates or follow you back and for Twitter directories to index you properly.
Add a website. Your company's website, your LinkedIn profile, or your blog.
Don't make your updates private. It's my personal pet peeve, but one I know many others share. Many people won't follow you back if your updates are private. It also defeats the purpose of having a searchable profile. Twitter is about sharing and if you want others to find you, particularly for a job search, your tweets need to be searchable and seen by those outside of your followers.
Go to the PRNewser blog to see the last six tips....
This blog is to share my recruiting experiences and discuss thoughts on the job market, PR industry and technology.
Alison Kenney is an independent PR practitioner with more than 15 years of PR consulting experience.
