Meghan's Blog

Awesome Adivce

meghanlane — Fri, 13 May 2011 20:17:53 +0000

Recently I have become obsessed with Twitter and have started following a lot of public relations professionals. Today, one of the PR guru’s that I follow tweeted this article which contains tips about improving/creating a company’s social media policy.

Take a look it provides some great advice!

Improving Your Social Media Policy

Viral Video

meghanlane — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:06:10 +0000

For my social media class, one of my assignments was to create a viral video for a chosen client and then post it to YouTube.com. Two of my class mates, Micaela Carter & Kati Ann Wright, and I completed the video for the Communication Arts Department at Georgia Southern University.

While I was sitting in the lobby of the Communication Arts building today, I actually overheard a few people talking about my groups viral video and how funny it was.

Guest Writer 2

meghanlane — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:38:19 +0000

Below is a post that my friend and fellow classmate Emily Roche posted and allowed me to share on my blog. Emily makes some really good points throughout her blog and I found her thoughts really interesting. I encourage you to check out more of her posts at eroche1.wordpress.com. Thank you Emily for being my guest writer!

In the discussion the panelist discussed as the title clearly demonstrates is the social media something that people should adopt or something that should be put up for adoption. Though the conversation was not always about this matter and would drift to a political side there were good points made by the panel.

Social media in fact can be a person’s friend. People as well as companies can use the social media as advertising. Companies can have a fan page and post different ads or even special offers for free. It is the best publicity that one can have and with no cost. They can also monitor what their customers are saying and wanting. By using social media monitoring companies can see complaints or praises and reward or fix problems that are happening in the company. All these items seem like a pretty good reason why businesses should be friends with social media. Students can even use social media to their benefit. Whenever something as homecoming comes around people are advertising for free on social media sites. This puts hanging up signs everywhere on campus to shame. I would be willing to bet that not that many people walk all around campus all the time. By the time a person is older they have a certain building that they pretty much live in. A student may not see a sign somewhere on campus, but they will whenever they log onto a social media site.

Social media can also not be a person’s friend. With jobs already being extremely competitive one picture on the internet that rubs a person’s potential job offer the wrong way could make them lose the job. Social media is a friend unless there people do not monitor it like they should. It is up to a person if they lose their good ole friend social media.

The Father of Public Relations: Edward Bernays

meghanlane — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:35:47 +0000

Edward Bernays is known as the “father of public relations.” In my opinion, one of his greatest accomplishments were his advances in the development of propaganda. Years ago, many americans didn’t go and grab a cup of coffee in the morning or think that a typical American breakfast consisted on eggs and bacon, Bernays changed that. Bernays used his Uncle Sigmund Freud’s ideas to help convince the public of these ideas. Freud’s ideas dealt with people’s unconscious, psychological motivations and Bernays applied them to the new field of public relations. He is also credited with opening the first public relations firm in New York City, teaching the first university course on the subject, and producing the first public relations book.

While I was looking through YouTube.com the other day, I came across this video on the “father of public relations.” This video is a clip from a BBC program that was produced about Bernays. It takes a look at the development of the public relations industry and gets Bernays thoughts on propaganda and public relations.

A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization: Chapter 13

meghanlane — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:40:41 +0000

My social media class has been assigned to read the book A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization by Deltina Hay. This week, the reading assignment was over chapter 13. This chapter is about looking into the future. Listed below are a few of the things that I thought were the most important points in this chapter.

A lifestream is similar a blog in that it is a chronologically ordered collection of information, but its content consists mostly of feeds or “streams” of information from other social sites.
A lifestream is the ultimate way of pulling all your Social Wed accounts together in one place.
An example of a lifestream service is FriendFeed
While Web 2.0 is about interaction between users of the Internet, Web 3.0 will be about interaction between the user and the information itself.

Media Uses and Gratifications Theory

meghanlane — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:46:35 +0000

The public relations field requires a need for understanding the thoughts and behaviors of your audience. The media uses and gratifications theory, developed by Blumler and Katz, looks at understanding what people do with media outlets. Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch (1974) describe the concept as one that is concerned with “the social and psychological origins of needs, which generate expectations of the mass media or other sources, which lead to differential patterns of media exposure (or engagement in other activities), resulting in need gratifications and other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones.”

This theory “attempts to explain the uses and functions of the media for individuals, groups, and society in general” (University of Twente, 2004, Uses and Gratifications Approach). This theory suggests that audiences are responsible for selecting media outlets that best fulfills their needs and that media outlets are used by the audience to fulfill specific gratifications.

An example of the media uses and gratifications theory can be found within the use of social networking sites. These sites have many different users and offer people various things. These outlets are utilized by thousands of people every day with the intention of achieving the unique gratification that individuals seek and experience from the use of such sites.

References

Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch (1974) as cited by Rubin, Haridakis, & Eyal (2003). Viewer Aggression and Attraction to Television Talk Shows. Media Psychology, 5, 331-362.

University of Twente. (2004). Uses and Gratifications Approach. Retrieved from http://www.cw.utwente.nl/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Communication%20and%20Information%20Technology/Uses_and_Gratifications_Approach-1.doc/

Dominos Video a Prank

meghanlane — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:14:40 +0000

Many people don’t understand the reach that social media has. As I have been saying a lot in the past months, social media has the power to reach millions of people all over the world. But, many people don’t understand the reach that social media has. I was recently sent a NYtimes article about Domino’s recent public relations crisis about how two employees at Dominos and this article just brought it all home. The article was about the recent YouTube video that was posted that had millions of people not only disgusted, but never going to Dominos again. The article discussed how while at work two of their employees decided to film a prank video in the kitchen. They then posted the disgusting video on YouTube.com. Little did the two know the power of social media because a few days later the video had reached more than a million views and the two were also facing felony chargers.

Social Networks Keep Popping Up in My Classes

meghanlane — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:45:11 +0000

Throughout this semester, there has been one thing that keeps popping up in all of my public relations classes. What is it? It’s actually social networking. I guess it would only be fair to tell you that I am in a class that is all about social networking and public relations. However, it still keeps following me into my other pr classes.

Recently for my senior seminar class we were assigned the task of shadowing someone who works within the PR field and then present our experience to the class. During a lot of my fellow classmates’ presentations, I noticed the magnitude that these social networking sites have on the working world. Many of the professional that they chose to shadow were frequent users of these social networking sites like facebook, twitter, and blogs. Most of them used these sites on a daily basis.

So, I want to offer some advice to anyone looking to study the field of public relations… get acquainted with these sites!! I believe that social networking is going to be something that just becomes more and more common and important within the public relations curriculum.

Shadow Project

meghanlane — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:38:40 +0000

Recently, in my senior seminar class, we were assigned to shadow someone within the public relations field. Once we had completed this we then had to do a presentation about our day to the class.

For this assignment, I had the pleasure of shadowing Kara Hooper. She works at Abshire Public Relations & Marketing which is located in Savannah,Georgia (this is where I am going to be doing my public relations internship in a few weeks). I had an amazing day! My day started off running a few errands and getting to know Kara . Some of the highlights of the day included when I was given the opportunity to help with some of their work for two current clients. The two clients that I got to do some work for was the town of Garden City and The Coastal Bank which is located in Pooler, Georgia. I got to help create an invitation for The Coastal Bank and write a press release for Garden City.

While I was shadowing, I found out a few interesting things about the public relations field. The thing that I found the most important was that your days are never the same in the public relations field. I also got to witness first hand the importance of the internet and email communication within the field.

After getting a chance to spend a day at Abshire and get a peek at what a day is like in the public relations field, I am extremely excited about graduating and getting a chance to work in the field. I am also looking forward to completing my internship at Abshire Public Relations & Marketing.

Attached below is the Powerpoint presentation that I presented to my class:

Shadow Presentation

meghanlane — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:17:57 +0000

Today, I went to a Career Services Workshop here at Georgia Southern University. Ms. Dorsey Baldwin led the workshop that was all about the social networking site LinkedIn. Wikipedia defines LinkedIn as a business-orientated social networking site. When you join LinkedIn, set up your profile, which is pretty much a digital resume. I started my LinkedIn account a few months ago. I have almost finished completing my profile and have 39 connections so far. With the economy the way it is, making connections within the business world is extremely important. LinkedIn allows you to connect with people who work at different business through your friends. These connections are a really big aspect of LinkedIn because they allow you to network with other people. These connections also allow you to find and connect with different businesses. Ms. Dorsey showed us this You Tube video in order to help better explain how to use these connections and better explain what Linked In is.

There are many other things that LinkedIn allows you to do. You can write recommendations about people and businesses and these places or people can also write recommendations about you. So far, I have two recommendations on my profile. I have one from one of my professors and the other is from a past employer. LinkedIn also allows you to find jobs that business have posted and possibly find someone who works at the company. This happens through your connections. One thing that I learned at the workshop that I wasn’t aware of was that if you have a LinkedIn account and google your name, your LinkedIn profile is the first thing that will pull up because it is so important and widely used. LinkedIn is so important that many business are looking at it during the hiring process and because of this many people who are hunting for jobs are adding their LinkedIn account to the top of their resumes.