Beauty in technology

With all of the impressive technology in existence today, there are rarely times when I stop and truly marvel at how beautiful many electronics' capabilities are. Apple has truly revolutionized how people keep in touch and one can only imagine that it will only get more advanced as time goes on. Innovative applications like Snapchat and GroupMe only further allow those that may not normally be able to stay in touch effortlessly remain updated on each other's lives. It has never before been easier to keep in touch with friends and family and we truly have technology to thank for that. This past week, I found a video that only further emphasized my belief that technology truly has the potential to connect people in magical ways.

Although Skype has been around since 2003, it still has a powerful impact in allowing people to stay in touch. When I was abroad, I would Skype with my parents every Sunday. It became a ritual that I loved and absolutely looked forward to in a world with no cell phone plan. Skype is used by those who are separated by distance and can either not speak on a phone or wish to see their loved one's face.

In this video that I recently found, a beautiful friendship is able to develop and remain in tact due to Skype. I wanted to share it because I had never seen it before and think that it is truly remarkable how far technology has come. I really hope that you enjoy it and see the beauty of the relationships technology makes possible.

Facebook and the Fight Against Bullying

This past Wednesday, Facebook launched the Bully Prevention Hub, a place where Facebook users have "Tools, tips and programs that help people stand up for each other."  Facebook joined forces with Marc Brackett Ph.D., Robin Stern Ph.D. and their team at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence to give Facebook users of all ages with the tools and to help them address issues with bullying behavior.  Facebook and the team at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence have the goal of empowering users of all ages to create a climate where people feel connected and safe.  This new hub gives tips and resources for teens & friends, parents & guardians, educators & mentors to reach out and ask for help when they or someone they know is being bullied.  This is the first time that an internet company is integrating a bully prevention tool into with its existing product.

Photo Credit: Facebook

The Facebook and Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence define bullying as:

Bul·ly·ing (verb) Aggressive behavior that is repeated over time and involves an imbalance of power. This imbalance can be the social status, age, or even physical size of the perpertrator. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

Facebook promoted the new Bully Prevention Hub in a post on their Safety Page :

Today, we are launching the new Bullying Prevention Hub, offering important tools to help people stand up for each other when they see bullying behavior, both online and off.

The new Hub, created by Facebook engineers and our partners at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, is the first time an internet company is integrating bullying prevention tools directly into a product. It’s just the latest step in a longstanding commitment to protecting the safety of our users, especially young people.

Today on Facebook, we encourage anyone who sees harassment or bullying to report it, and we even offer teens the ability to connect with a trusted adult to get help as part of our social reporting tool.

With the new Bullying Prevention Hub, we’ll be arming bullying victims with information on what they can do when they see harassing content, recommendations to adults who want to help, and even guidance to the person accused of bullying on what he or she has done and how he or she can do better.

These scripts and accompanying information are the result of years of groundbreaking research from dozens of community organizations, academics and others on the topic of bullying prevention. Rather than simply focus on awareness of this information, we’re putting it at people’s fingertips at the moment they need it most.

We’re also excited to announce the 4th Compassion Research Day, where we’ll be sharing preliminary data on how people are using the new Hub, and everything else we've learned in the last year about applying the science of how people relate to each other to social technology. Compassion Research Day, scheduled for December 5 at Facebook’s Menlo Park Campus, will feature speakers from Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, Berkeley’s The Greater Good Science Center and more.

Currently, the hub is featuring three promotional videos titled:

• Introducing the Bullying Prevention Hub
• We are All Daniel Cui
• Social Resolution of Conflicts on Facebook

There are may supporters of the Bully Prevention Hub.  Lee Hirsh, the director of The BULLY Project have partnered up with the hub and released a statement through Facebook saying, "Nothing replaces the power of teens to create a culture where bullying is uncool, and that starts with social and emotional learning. These resources will empower the hundreds of thousands of followers of The Bully Project."

November issue of esPResso out today!

Need to take a break from work? Look no further than our latest issue of the Marist PRSSA Chapter newsletter, esPResso. You'll find 20 articles within the issue covering major current events from the past few months including the government shutdown, the new Marist curriculum and news from your fellow PRSSA members.

If any members are interested in writing for esPResso next semester, contact Director of PR, Marguerite Pinheiro for more information.

Enjoy your shot of PR industry insight with esPResso! Good luck on the rest of finals week!

The major issues of the PR field today via the PRSSANC

This past weekend, I was given the amazing opportunity to attend the PRSSA National Conference. The entire event was extraordinarily beneficial and a huge learning experience for a young, future professional. The lessons learned and the speakers who discussed them will forever remain imbedded in my mind and I wish that I was able to share all of their insights with you. However, that is not possible, and I have instead decided to share two speaker's intuitive perspectives regarding the major issues young PR pros need to be concerned with today.

The session was entitled "Meet the Living Legends of PR" and the speakers were Mary Beth West of Mary Beth West Communications and Keith Burton of Brunswick Group. Here is what they concluded regarding the matter:

• "Change will always be a part of your life, prepare for it"
• Have a mindset of lifelong learning
• Invest in yourself

• "PR pros need to be business leaders"
• Understand how the world works

• "Measurement is at the heart of what we do"
• Be sure to always provide return and validity

• "Be aware of the role we play as mentors for older generations"
• Teach them the best ways to utilize social media

• "Remember that PR is more of a science than an art"
• Our work is quantitative, reinforce that

• "Be wary of the PR PR problem"
• Advocate for the profession and reflect the highest values of what we do

• "Do the basics incredibly well"
• Write well, speak well, and manage projects well
• Sweat the small stuff

• "Go back to the things that have not changed and master them"
• These include communication, relationships, and reputation

All of these points are incredibly important and essential for all of our future careers. Ultimately, this session, along with numerous other ones, was powerful and truly epitomized the extraordinariness that is public relations. I can confidently say that I left the conference with a sense of belonging and a true belief that "if you find something you love, you'll never work a day in your life.

Tweeting the 2013 World Series

I am currently sitting in my living room watching Game One of the 2013 World Series and scrolling through my Twitter feed.  I am realizing the people I follow, whether they are at Fenway Park or not, are all tweeting to show support for their team and connect with other fans.

For example, one of the people that I follow tweeted using hashtags as a reaction to the game: 

As I continued to scroll through my feed, I stumbled upon this tweet (below) that was posted during the third inning of the game by MLB Public Relations:

After reading the tweet posted by @MLB_PR, I did some research.  According to IMG's 2013 Catalyst Fan Engagement Study, almost 70% of sports fans who follow teams and brands on social media are willing to take additional action, including purchasing, commenting or sharing brand and team content.

Two important takeaways form the REPUCOM survey where 2,100 avid sports fan ages 16-64 surveyed were:

• On gameday, Twitter has the most frequent use and Instagram has shown the most growth in post-game use.
• The most exciting and engaging content for sports team to publish is pre-game excitement, followed by historic photos/videos and then bloopers.

Sysomos has assembled a helpful infographic that I found on Mediabistro.  This infographic located below, shows all the Twitter information fans can use to enhance their World Series experience.  The main highlights are players personal accounts, important reporters and trending hashtags that are related to the game.  Just by following some of these accounts, you can get all the up-to-date live sports action on the World Series! 

PLAY BALL! 

Infographic Credit

Pumpkin: A symbol of Halloween or everyone's favorite flavor?

Fall is a time for leaves to change color, the temperature to dip lower, and most importantly in American culture, pumpkin flavored products to take over. Businesses and brands could hardly wait until the first official day of Fall to offer their highly anticipated flavor that has won a spot in so many Americans' heart. I remember being at Starbucks and hearing an angry customer exclaim that Dunkin Donuts had already launched their pumpkin flavored coffee and that Starbucks should be offering it as well. It is a rather new phenomenon, but it is taking the marketing world by storm.

According to USA Today, last year alone the number of pumpkin offerings rose 19% and products' sales brought in over 290 million dollars. It is impossible to avoid these pumpkin offerings, as they come in absolutely every form imaginable. From vodka to candy, if you want pumpkin, you can probably find pumpkin. Many establishments are not even waiting for the first day of Fall to offer their pumpkin products due to sheer demand from their customer base.

What does all of this mean and is it something that can be capitalized on during different times of the year? From a public relations standpoint, I would suggest milking it for all that it is worth and continuing to cleverly promote products via social media. Additionally, I think that PR campaigns should be utilized to find the next big flavor obsession out there and publicize it during times when pumpkin is out of season. Ultimately, this pumpkin craze is a monumental American obsession and can be used as a basis for research for the next big flavor phenomenon.

Here are the weirdest pumpkin flavored things I was able to find. Let me know if you end up trying any!

Pumpkin Pop-Tart

 

Pumpkin Burger 

 

Pumpkin Pringles 

Twitter and Facebook: Tips for New Blogs

Blogs and social media create online web traffic for your business and its reputation.  But, if no one is reading your organization's blog posts, what good are they?  This weeks PRSSA blog post will focus on how to promote an organization through social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Here are some statistics I found about the importance of blogging in "10 Smart Reasons To Blog" by Susan Nixon:

• Reason 1: Organizations that blog 15 or more times per month get 5x more traffic than companies that don't blog.

• Reason 9: Blogging gives your organization a dynamic personality and voice, which attracts more traffic than a static website.

• Reason 10: Blogs attract repeat visitors who continue to come back to the website for fresh content.

Figure out what direction you want your organization's blog to go in.  Create the profiles on Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms that fit your organization's niche.  Use content on the organization's blog to build a relevant, engaged audience; user experience is extremely important.

Twitter:

• You may not have a larger follower base the first time you tweet out your blog post but Tweet it again!  On Twitter, it is more than acceptable to tweet your blog posts several times just as long as you space out the tweets and change up the headlines.

• #Hashtag. Do a little searching and find the hashtags that are right for your topic. Hashtags help get your posts right in front of people

• Be active on Twitter and use the retweet and respond feature to communicate with other organizations and followers.

Facebook:

• After setting up a page with all of the important information, (link to your blog and contact information) be sure to use creative pictures, posts and statuses to make people want to click the blog's link.

• Use phrases like "Click Here" and "Read more about"

• Facebook is a great place to generate contests and give away prizes for people who like, comment, or share your posts.  Make it easy for your followers to download free content.

More Useful Tips:

• Shorten the post's URL with websites like Goo.gl to shorten long URLs so they can fit into your 140 character limit 

• Ask for feedback!  Continue to try out new blog promotion ideas and over time, you will figure out a strategy that works for you. Don’t be afraid to try new blog promotion techniques; keep track of what works and what doesn’t, and then do more of what’s working for your business.

For more Marketing Tips for New Blogs, check out this awesome Infographic I found on Media Bistro !