Archive for the Getting Started Category
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Young professionals often struggle with how to adjust their approach to social media from personal/socializing network to something that’s more in line with helping them reach their career and education goals. My advice is to apply the same planning principles to a personal social media presence as you would for an organization. Start with the end in mind. What do you want to accomplish? And then think about what you’re going to do to get there. Listen & Learn: Any social media strategy should begin with listening and learning. It’s very difficult to jump into blogging or tweeting if you don’t know how they work, how other professionals use these tools and what best practices you can take away for our own participation. Possible strategy/tool: Subscribe to 10 or 15 blogs in your field of interest through a feedreader (ex: Netvibes or Google Reader) and review them daily. Build Relationships:... Continue Reading
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I’m often asked about how to best handle social media maintenance and management tasks. Over four years or so I’ve developed a few shortcuts that work well for me. I’ll explain each in a separate post, but we’ll start with feedreaders! Yay feedreaders! Using a feedreader to track blogs I’m interested in along with keyword searches is my number one shortcut. It was thanks to Bloglines, my first feedreader that I really started to understand social media. I subscribed to PR, social media, marketing and advertising blogs left and right. By doing so, I learned best practices and social media etiquette through observation. My use has changed a little bit, which I’ll explain. First, though, take a peek at this video from Common Craft, it’ll give you the basics (click on the image). Common Craft recommends Google Reader, which is very popular. The aesthetics of Google Reader just don’t work for... Continue Reading
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Connecting with people in your industry is as easy as creating a LinkedIn profile and using it as a live resume. Treat LinkedIn as the “suit & tie” social network and put forward your most professional self. Your profile should be kept up-to-date and polished regularly. A LinkedIn profile, as you’ll see, is a great way to build your network & a place to send prospective employers to get info about you and your experience. So how do you get started? First step is to sign up & complete your profile: Use your complete name Fill in your title (Public Relations student at the University of Oregon is ok… but what about Intern at XYZ Company or Account Executive at Student PR Firm?). You can have more than one title & then choose the one you want as your headline. My profile includes significant volunteer experience in my title alongside... Continue Reading
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I recently switched from Bloglines to Netvibes for my feed reader. Netvibes is just more visual and also makes it easy to access recent posts. One of the other cool features is that I can share my subscriptions with you pretty easily. I’ve set up a public page with three tabs from my personal feed reader. There are two for public relations (one tab for professionals and one tab for educators) and one social media. You can check it out here. Please feel free to use it to start your own reading habit.... Permalink
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This is a guest post from UofO alum, Sarah Essary. You can follow her at @ConsumingPR. I like to think of job descriptions as simple suggestions. Coloring outside the lines is perfectly acceptable in the workplace, but only if your art becomes a masterpiece. Not too long ago, I was hired as a Reservationist at The Citizen Hotel. My job duties included answering the phones, filling reservations, assigning room numbers and routing payments. After a few weeks, I offered to develop the hotel blog and Twitter account. Soon, I proved to be knowledgeable in public relations and took on more responsibilities. Before I knew it, I was launching a social media campaign and taking a dual position as Public Relations Coordinator. Currently, I am the Reservationist and Public Relations Coordinator for both The Citizen Hotel and Grange Restaurant & Bar. My duties include updating and writing all social media content,... Continue Reading
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InstructorSchool of Journalism and Communication, University of OregonGeorge S. Turnbull Portland Center The Position The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication seeks an instructor for its George S. Turnbull Portland Center for the 2009/2010 Image via Wikipedia academic year. This is a full-time, nine-month, renewable appointment, based in Portland, beginning on September 16, 2009. A part-time summer appointment is attached to the position, beginning on August 1, 2009. The instructor will arrange internships and supervise students in the Portland Senior Experience program, and teach undergraduate courses in public relations and graduate courses in our strategic communication professional master’s program. The successful candidate will have a graduate degree, a professional background in communication, and university teaching experience. Familiarity and connections with the Portland media market are preferred. The School of Journalism and Communication The School offers doctoral and master’s programs in communication and society as well as professional master’s... Continue Reading
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My mentor has been an important part of my professional life and, over the years, a trusted friend, confidante and adviser in many aspects of my life. She’s given me opportunities to earn experience in areas of public relations that I might not otherwise have had and is always ready with advice if I ask. If I don’t need advice, she’ll just listen. We met when I volunteered for a nonprofit organization as an undergrad where she was serving as the communications director. We had a chance to work together on maybe a project or two before she left. I continued to volunteer for the organization and frequently asked my mentor for her advice on projects. It wasn’t long before she asked me to help her with a client project – doing some basic media relations work. That was 8 years ago. I am not exaggerating when I say that... Continue Reading
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Erika Penner, one of my PR Campaigns students, also happens to be an HR professional about mid-way through her MBA program at the University of Oregon. Lucky us! She spent some time last week giving her best advice for resumes, portfolios and interviews and she is allowing me to share her PointPoint with you here.... Permalink
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Amybeth Hale (aka Research Goddess) announced this week the launch of the Waggener Edstrom Staffing Facebook page. From Amybeth: I am happy to announce that the Waggener Edstrom Staffing Facebook page, Careers with Waggener Edstrom, is live! If you are a Facebook member, I would encourage you to add this page to your Favorites, become a Fan, and/or share the link with your Facebook PR contacts – check it out! Some of the items featured on the page include: A photo album introducing the members of the Staffing Team A listing of upcoming events at which various staffing team members will be in attendance (viewable once you log in) Our WE Connect blog RSS feed, showcasing several of our Waggener Edstrom bloggers Notes listing some of our current agency openings A list of our agency awards Several quotes from our candidates complimenting our Staffing team …and more to come. We... Continue Reading
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I have had more than one request from young professionals or soon-to-be graduates who do not have or will not get a PR degree and are interested in working in PR in some capacity. So do you have to have a degree in PR to do this work? Nope. In fact, I’d venture a guess that the clear majority of folks working in PR don’t have PR degrees. A career in PR is often the result of a circuitous path. Disclaimer: I have a PR degree. My students in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon will all have PR degrees. Having a PR degree gives you the language of the industry and a unique approach to the work and our program at the UofO is very focused on real world activities and training strategic, creative thinkers. With that said… What can you do to move... Continue Reading
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