Thank to fellow Ad+PR assistant Katie Lassiter, our SJB now has CONTENT! We’re working on that. She created these great videos four our Youtube channel (you can find us on Youtube at WKUSJB). I’ll be posting any videos that come out way. Here are the first three. They’re great Katie!
Everyone who knows me knows I am on Twitter. I tweet. I twote, I twooted. I’ve been asked MANY times by my peers “How does it work?”
Others just seem to consider it stupid, saying “its just a bunch of Facebook status updates.” In a way it is, so let me first say that Twitter is not for everyone.
I would imagine that if all you would be interested in twittering about is when youre showering or watching Cops, then yeah, you’d be boring to follow. Twitter is so much more than little blurbs and blips. Its a place to have conversations. Because your statements and questions are limited to 140 characters, Twitter forces people to take their time and communicate efficiently. There is no talking over one another, no verbose “likes” and “you knows?” and each person you meet has a chance to really create something special– a conversation. Twitter is also so useful for personal branding.
Twitter is raidly changing the social media landscape and therfore, it will inevitably affect our industries. dont hesitate t o give it a try. After all, its free!
Here is an excellent article about Twitter. If youre even remotely interested in Twitter, this article explains its benefits and uses far better than I could. Happy reading!
Two major companies in the last week have faced PR nightmares.
Let’s talk about Amazon.com, first. They instated a policy to ban adult materials from their site. Good old fashioned censorship. However, I guess the word “gay” is offensive because it slowly began removing books about homosexuality, books written by gay people. Even Ellen Degeneres’ book was taken down. You can imagine how fired up the gay community got over this– thinking it was intentional.
Lets also talk about Domino’s pizza and that disgusting video of two employees blowing boogers on their sandwiches. You didn’t see it? Lucky you. You don’t want to.
Twitter added to he virility of these stories. A true “Twitterstorm” of these videos and rumors being thrown around faster than you can say “Where’s our PR folks.”
This is a fascinating article with some tips for weathering such problems in the era of social media.
How to Weather a Twitterstorm
Six Tips for Future Amazons and Domino’s
by Abbey Klaassen
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Motrin Moms. “Dove Onslaught(er).” Thanks to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, all sorts of new critics and activists are finding their voices amplified online. So what’s a marketer to do when an online firestorm erupts?
The two most recent case studies are Amazon — which spent the better part of Sunday and Monday as the target of a “Twitterstorm,” as thousands of titles, many of them gay- and lesbian-themed, disappeared from its all-important sales-ranking system — and Domino’s, whose public-relations problem lies in a YouTube video showing two employees defacing a yet-to-be-delivered sandwich.
“Credibility is the currency of the ‘new normal,’” said Steve Cody, managing partner and co-founder of Peppercom. “Tell me what happened yourself. Don’t allow me to hear it from others. If I do, I’ll lose my faith and trust in you. And, in an era when faith and trust has been tested to the breaking points, brands like Amazon and Domino’s need to be a whole lot smarter and a whole lot swifter.”
Here, six tips for if — or when — it happens to your brand.
1. Listen to the what — and to the who. Sure, the usual advice about having a social-media-monitoring infrastructure is important, but not nearly as important as knowing exactly who’s doing the talking and gauging where that might lead. Who’s angry — and how angry are they? Is the uproar isolated or widespread? Are these people your customers or not?
Recent surveys confirm that few women saw or heard about the Motrin ad that got a group of Twittering moms up in arms for portraying a baby as an accessory. When women did see it at a later date, more came away feeling better about the Motrin brand than feeling worse. Priority No. 1 has to be the people who make up the majority of your brand’s customers. And that will be the question for Domino’s as it plots the best plan of response: The pizza chain needs to know not only how many people saw the video but who those people are and how likely they are to be current customers.
2. It’s OK to say, “We don’t know.” By far the biggest issue most of the angry Twitterers had was that Amazon didn’t respond until late Sunday and, when it did, the vague answer it offered to CNet — the problem was a “glitch in the system” that was being fixed — didn’t satisfy the masses who had already spent the better part of Easter getting fired up. The next response from Amazon came Monday night, when it issued a statement calling the incident an “embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error.”
Now, it’s likely Amazon didn’t really know what was going on — at one point a hacker even tried to take credit for the issue — but most social-media experts say that wasn’t the problem. “A lot of people have this idea that you can only respond when you have every I dotted and T crossed and have figured out what’s going on,” said Jeff Rutherford, founder of Jeff Rutherford Media Relations. “It’s perfectly fine if you say, ‘We’re aware there’s an issue; we’re not ignoring it, and we’re working hard to get to the bottom of it.’” Amazon has always been tight-lipped from a public-relations standpoint and, in this case, it cost them.
3. Address the crowd where it’s gathered. Understandably, companies don’t necessarily want to call attention to a crisis by making a big, flashy statement. After all, in many cases (and some would argue most) these firestorms don’t leave the insular communities in which they start. While a small number of consumers had heard about the Motrin debacle, the brand called further attention to the issue when it issued a public apology on its website and confused consumers who ended up there for completely unrelated reasons.
Amazon would have gone a long way toward quelling the uproar by addressing it on Twitter, where it was largely taking place. And had it swallowed its pride and tagged the posts #amazonfail, it would have been rewarded with hundreds of retweets — valuable earned media from the crowd it had previously angered.
“You don’t have to bow to the Twitter torches and do everything they tell you to do,” said Jackie Huba, co-author of the Church of the Customer blog. “But you can’t stick your head in the sand and ignore this building, growing outrage about what you’re doing.” A little secret about human nature: Knowing someone is listening to you is often more important than getting exactly what you want.
4. Tone matters. In the case of Amazon, what grabbed several observers was the incongruity of its cold-sounding responses (”The problem is a glitch and it’s being fixed”) and the friendly, easy brand persona it has cultivated over the years.
“People don’t expect companies — even Amazon — to be infallible,” said Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace. “They do expect those companies to want to learn, to want to engage with their customers, to want to listen hard, and to show genuine commitment to fixing the problems — with the human voice that they’ve become known for.”
5. Explain how you’ll address the future. So Amazon’s issue was a mistake, a cataloging error. Most people seem to be buying that. But what if it happens again? And how should Domino’s assure customers its sandwiches are safe? Marketers must communicate how they will prevent future pitfalls.
“I’d rather be open and transparent about a problem such as the ones you describe, own up to it, explain why it happened, talk about what steps have been put in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again and, critically, apologize for the mistake,” said Peppercom’s Mr. Cody.
6. Invest now to prepare for accidents later. Strong, emotional brands that have built up years of consumer goodwill seem to be more insulated from long-term hurt. Few consumers judged much-loved Whole Foods when its CEO was caught posting comments on financial sites under a fake name. Another consumer darling, JetBlue, has recovered valiantly from its Valentine’s Day massacre, which left passengers stranded on board on a runway for eight hours.
Similarly, Amazon has built up a reputation for excellent inventory selection and customer service. While it’s not clear whether the episode will have a lasting effect on Amazon’s brand and, more important, sales, consider that at midnight last night the Twittersphere was abuzz with the Amazon news (the company had just released the mea culpa) but by morning it was no longer a trending topic on Twitter. Simply put, if people love your brand, you can sustain yourself through debacles.
Great lil’ video about how social media is a shaping force in our industries.
Advice from some of the worlds best pundits.
The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging, a new manifesto put together by editors and writers of the most-linked-to blog on the Web, is more than a little self-righteous. Bloggers, here, are the civic superheroes of our age, standing against the tyrannies of the Bush administration and its lumbering, deaf-mute enablers in the Old Media. If you’ve forgotten about how blogs brought down Trent Lott and how they delivered us from scammy journos like Judy Miller—well, turn here to relive the glory. “Blogging has been the greatest breakthrough in popular journalism since Tom Paine,” Arianna Huffington, HuffPo’s founder, writes in her introduction. The blogosphere, she adds, is the “most vital news source in the country.”
Ordinarily all this bloggy good cheer would be a bit too much to take. But buried in the middle of the Complete Guide is, surprise, a complete guide—and a pretty good one, too. Tens of thousands of people start new blogs every day. I’d guess that most don’t go into blogging to gain a huge audience, but those who do aim to be the next Kos quickly find disappointment. That’s likely because blogging is difficult (I know this from personal experience; my last job was as a blogger), and there are few places that offer tips on how to do it well.
The only trouble with HuffPo’s guide is that it’s printed on dead trees. So I set out to rectify that problem. I called and e-mailed a half-dozen of my favorite bloggers to ask how they blog so well, and I combined their ideas with the best advice from HuffPo. Behold—my own complete guide to blogging.
placeAd2(commercialNode,’midarticleflex’,false,”)Set a schedule. Blog often. Jeff Atwood, who runs the fantastic programming blog Coding Horror, told me that the key to his early success was sticking to a realistic target of six posts a week. HuffPo’s editors echo this advice: “If you’re serious about blogging, commit to posting at least two to three times a week for thirty days,” they say. Posting with such regularity will be tough; you’ve got other things to do, and writing is a daunting task for most people. But blogging, like exercise, gets easier with practice. The more often you do it, the less onerous it’ll feel, and at some point you may even grow to like it.
Don’t worry if your posts suck a little. Unless you’re Jeffrey Goldberg, your first blog post is unlikely to be perfect. Indeed, a lot of your posts aren’t going to be as great as they could be if you spent many hours on them—and that’s OK. Felix Salmon, who writes Portfolio’s excellent finance blog Market Movers, puts it this way: “Quantity is more important than quality. Don’t be scared of being wrong, or inelegant; you have much less of an idea what your readers are going to like than you possibly imagine. So jump right in, put yourself out there.” Nearly every blogger I spoke to agreed with this sentiment. If you’re trying to gain an audience, you can’t afford to worry over every sentence as if it were … see, I was going to spend 15 minutes thinking of a hilarious and deeply insightful simile there, but, damn it, I’m in blogging mode and need to move on.
Write casually but clearly. This one flows from the last two—the best way to stick to a blogging schedule is to write quickly, and a good way to write quickly is to write as if you’re talking to a friend. Marc Ambinder, the political-news maven at the Atlantic, told me, “I’ve found that I tend to write the way I speak. Short, staccato sentences, lots of parentheticals. That annoys purists, but it’s uniquely my own voice, and I think it helps to build a connection with the reader.” Also remember that your readers want you to get to the point. “Be clear, not cryptic,” Salmon says. “Blog readers have neither the time nor the inclination to read between the lines; blogs aren’t literature.”
Ryan Singel, who writes about security and privacy at Wired.com’s Threat Level, offers a great tip on how to accomplish this:
Start every post with a good first sentence that describes the story you are going to tell. Assume your reader won’t get past the first paragraph. Never start with anything like “Sometimes when I hear about stupid things in the news, I just want to hit the wall,” or “I haven’t written about this in a long time, but today there was a story …”
And one more thing on the writing: Don’t be too wordy. HuffPo says that 800 words is the outer-length limit for a blog post; anything longer will turn people off.
This is a GIGANTIC article with everything you need to know to blog.
I mean it is HUGE.
If you don’t know how to blog after readig it, we’ll have a problem.
Hey guys and gals, I wanted to let you all know that WKU FUSION is on Twitter!
Add us for Ad+PR calendar updates, PRSSA and AdFed meeting updates, and all things WKU FUSION.
We TWITTERCAST live Monday, Wed from 9 AM-10AM and in the afternoons on M,Tues,W from 2:30-4:30
Feel free to ask questions about our program. Lets start some dialogues! Where do you see our industries going? Get on Twitter and let us know!
www.twitter.com/WKUFUSION
Linked in is one of the growing social media communities for working professionals. The emphasis of L.I is to expand your network and allow colleagues past and present to connect and “recommend” others. For someone trying to find a job, it could be invaluable.
My father lost his job last November. He worked as VP of Quality Management and Compliance for 12 years at a hospital in metro ATL and he got laid off (which is truly terrifying). Anyways, he found a job only two months after he was laid off. Now, my dad is pretty awesome at what he does– but so are a lot of folks that are struggling to find a job. So what did he do?
He didnt rest a single day. He got online and called up recruiters, he went to all the big-name job search engines like Monster.com, and he got LinkedIn.
I wouldn’t say that LinkedIn saved our lives, but it allowed him to reconnect with people he has not worked with in years. They, in turn, were able to recommend him as the reliable, hardworking and committed guy that he is– thus his value increased. Get it? Good. So get it. Start expanding your network and get some recommendations for yourself. It will be interesting to see where it can benefit you.
Here is a great Blog about LinkedIn with a full list of just some of its applicability.
Happy reading!
BY Guy Kawaski
When Guy Kawasaki blogged about the Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn, LinkedIn had 8.5 million users in 130 industries. Since then we’ve grown to over 12 million users covering 147 industries, but many of Guy’s suggestions on using LinkedIn (see below), still remain a great way for professionals to strengthen their online brand reputation and leverage their professional network. Happy Reading!
1. Increase your visibility.
By adding connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with. In addition to appearing at the top of search results (which is a major plus if you’re one of the 52,000 product managers on LinkedIn), people would much rather work with people who their friends know and trust.
2. Improve your connectability.
Most new users put only their current company in their profile. By doing so, they severely limit their ability to connect with people. You should fill out your profile like it’s an executive bio, so include
past companies, education, affiliations, and activities.You can also include a link to your profile as part of an email signature. The added benefit is that the link enables people to see all your credentials, which would be awkward if not downright strange, as
an attachment.3. Improve your Google PageRank.
LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for you.
To do this, create a public profile and select “Full View.” Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name. To strengthen the visibility of this page in
search engines, use this link in various places on the web> For example, when you comment in a blog, include a link to your profile in your signature.4. Enhance your search engine results.
In addition to your name, you can also promote your blog or website to search engines like Google and Yahoo! Your LinkedIn profile allows you to publicize websites. There are a few pre-selected categories like “My Website,” “My Company,” etc.
If you select “Other” you can modify the name of the link. If you’re linking to your personal blog, include your name or descriptive terms in the link, and voila! instant search-engine optimization for your site. To make this work, be sure your public profile setting is set to “Full View.”
5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.
LinkedIn’s reference check tool to input a company name and the years the person worked at the company to search for references. Your search will find the people who worked at the company during the same time period. Since references provided by a candidate will generally be glowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.
Companies will typically check your references before hiring you, but have you ever thought of checking your prospective manager’s references? Most interviewees don’t have the audacity to ask a
potential boss for references, but with LinkedIn you have a way to scope her out.You can also check up on the company itself by finding the person who used to have the job that you’re interviewing for. Do this by searching for job title and company, but be sure to uncheck “Current titles only.” By contacting people who used to hold the position, you can get the inside scoop on the job, manager and growth potential.
By the way, if using LinkedIn in these ways becomes a common practice, we’re apt to see more truthful resumes. There’s nothing more amusing than to find out that the candidate who claims to have caused some huge success was a total bozo who was just along for the ride.
6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.
Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to find people with educational and work experience like yours to see where they work. For example, a programmer would use search keywords such as “Ruby on Rails,” “C++,” “Python,” “Java,” and “evangelist” to find out where other programmers with these skills work.
7. Make your interview go smoother.
You can use LinkedIn to find the people that you’re meeting. Knowing that you went to the same school, plays hockey, or shares acquaintances is a lot better than an awkward silence after, “I’m doing fine, thank you.”
8. Gauge the health of a company.
Perform an advanced search for company name and uncheck the “Current Companies Only” box. This will enable you to scrutinize the rate of turnover and whether key people are abandoning ship. Former employees usually give more candid opinions about a company’s prospects than someone who’s still on board.
9. Gauge the health of an industry.
If you’re thinking of investing or working in a sector, use LinkedIn to find people who worked for competitors—or even better, companies who failed. For example, suppose you wanted to build a next generation online pet store, you’d probably learn a lot from speaking with former Pets.com or WebVan employees.
10. Track startups.
You can see people in your network who are initiating new startups by doing an advanced search for a range of keywords such as “stealth” or “new startup.” Apply the “Sort By” filter to “Degrees away from you” in order to see the people closest to you first. [Republished from: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn via "How to Change the World" -- Guy Kawasaki's blog]
All this talk about googleing yourself got me all worked up– so I tried it.
GREAT NEWS! Two things I have worked on showed up in my Google cache.
Have you tried googleing yourself?
AN EXCELLENT article from a recruitment company. Searching for jobs can be overwhelming. Should we sues job search engines like monster.com? Look in newspapers? And do we hold out for a perfect job or just apply to whomever will take out resumes? Entry level jobs can be tricky to find, and mot students get so over zealous with applying that the chances of finding a job in which you are both happy and are able to excel is slim. This article can help you figure out those questions if you’re like me and totally clueless about getting your foot in the door.
BY Kevin Donlin
“5 Steps to Job Search Magic”
The successful job search all boils down to one word — synergy.
Synergy is defined as “the interaction of two or more agents so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.”
Synergy explains the difference between John, Paul, George and Ringo (individual musicians) and The Beatles (a magical combination).
Most job seekers apply for positions haphazardly — sending out an email resume for this opening, a printed resume for that one, sometimes following up and most often not. (Admit it — you’ve done this!)
But you’ll get far better results — and create synergy — if you first write out a job search calendar, to schedule your efforts over the next 60-90 days. Then, follow your plan and systematically use as many tactics as possible for each job you apply for. Organizing your efforts this way will focus your job search, like sunlight through a magnifying glass.
Here’s how to create synergy and job search magic, in 5 easy steps.
Step 1 — Choose your target job
You can do so by picking a job title (example: Sales Manager) or skill set to shoot for (example: sales, marketing, management). No target job = no results in your job search. Because you can’t score if you don’t have a goal.Step 2 — Choose your tactics
There are many. Among the most effective is networking with your personal and professional contacts. Let people know you’re in the job market and tell them what you’re looking for. Then ask this question: “Who do you know that I should be talking to?” This one question can double or triple the size of your network.Other job hunting tactics include submitting your resume to online job postings, the newspaper classifieds, recruiters and temp agencies. But try to spend 80% of your time networking.
Step 3 — Plan your work
Create a job search calendar. This time of year, you can get free wall calendars from many stores and businesses. Any calendar will do, so long as there’s room to write brief notes for each date.Map out the next 30-90 days with specific goals for every day, such as visiting 5 Web sites, calling 10 networking contacts and mailing 7 resumes.
Post your job search calendar prominently. Then …
Step 4 — Work your plan
Devote at least 3-5 hours a day to your job search if you’re currently employed, and 5-8 hours a day if you’re unemployed.If you like this article, click here to sign up for our newsletter and we’ll keep you informed when new articles appear on the site.
Recognize that your job search is a job in itself, the most important one you have right now. And that means you look for work EVERY day, Monday through Friday. Because just one day skipped per week equals a 20% loss in output. You can’t afford that.Step 5 — Fail your way to a new job
As you follow your job search plan and contact all those people every day, you’re going to hear one word more than any other: “No.”Learn to embrace failure like Thomas Edison, who “failed” 10,000 times before inventing the light bulb. He said: “Every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”
Every “no” you hear in your job search is another step closer to the one “yes” you need to get that position you really want. It’s simply a numbers game — take heart!
-=-=-=- By following this five-step formula, you can create synergy, magic and the job offer you’re dreaming about this holiday season.
++++
Copyright © 2002 by Kevin Donlin
Kevin Donlin is Managing Editor of 1 Day Resumes. The 1DR writers provide same-day, one-on-one resume writing assistance. He is also author of “Resume and Cover Letter Secrets Revealed,” a do-it-yourself manual that will help you find a job in 30 days … or your money back. For more information, please visit Guaranteed Resumes
For no-cost, no obligation information on how we can help save you time and frustration in the recruiting process, e-mail_Terri@recruit2hire.com with your contact information.
