GenY PR

Did you know that your blog entries and tweets are considered published material, and you can be held liable for them? BYU’s presentation Saturday on social media ethics addressed these and other concerns regarding legal liabilities in the social media world.

Professor and PR professional Susan Balcom emphasized a recurring theme among communications ethics: It doesn’t matter if what we said or did was intentional or not; We are still accountable!

“Someone who does something and doesn’t mean to should be fired. Someone who meant to should be prosecuted,” Balcom said.

Social media lawsuits are a rising trend and can involve any of the following (and more):

* Tweets
* Blogs
* Message boards
* Music downloading

According to Balcom, there are only three protections for online publishers: truth (your best defense), opinion or fair comment (identify as such, but it won’t protect you if it’s a false statement), and qualified privilege.

With such great risk, what is a PR professional to do? Here are several tips to help you avoid social media lawsuits:

1.) Control your emotions! Counsel your client/managers to the same. Use the “I before E rule”: intelligence before emotion!
2.) Choose your words carefully. Make sure there is as little opportunity as possible for them to be misinterpreted.
3.) Be accurate and truthful.
4.) Stick to the facts!

If you are in a situation when you are worried about your emotions getting the best of you, Balcom suggested the following strategies to avoid saying something you’ll regret:

* Physically leave the computer area.
* Before sending the email, call someone you trust and talk it through with them.
* Save the draft or send it to yourself, then reread it the next day.
* Ask yourself: Would you say this face-to-face? Would you be comfortable seeing it in print or in court?
* Obey the 24-hour rule! If possible, just set the matter or issue aside and don’t respond for 24 hours. This will give you time to calm down and approach the situation calmly and with a clear head.

If you are a blogger, it is important to have a blog moderation policy in place. The best disclaimers are clean, noticed, read and reflect what’s actually occurring on the blog.

“Use others’ comments or not, but don’t change or edit them,” Balcom said.

The key message of this session wasn’t to be scared away from using social media altogether. Social media is a great and powerful tool. However, PR professionals need to stay constantly educated on how to use it correctly to avoid negative legal complications.

Keynote speaker Mona Pasquil, vice president of MSHC Partners, Inc. and business development consultant/sales strategist for IBM, opened up PRSSA’s National Conference for 2009. Pasquil, who has worked on four presidential campaigns, three gubernatorial campaigns and many local elections, gave members key advice and insight into the political sector of the PR industry.

Paquil outlined four steps necessary to succeed as a PR professional working in politics.

“Be true to yourself. Remember who got you here, remember your journey, and remember the lessons you’ve learned,” Pasquil said.

Also stressed were the two “Mona Rules”: always be prepared and think about your plans.

Here are other pieces of advice directly from Pasquil:

* “Timing is everything. It’s the difference between winning and losing.”
* “Weigh the situation and think about it. You’ve got a millisecond.”
* “You have to know who you are and know your story. Your name is all you’ve got, so don’t screw it up.”
* “Don’t let others define you. Be true to yourself.”
* “Get your information out. Don’t wait.”
* “Think about all of the other potential situations out there.”
* “Don’t try to spin things. People don’t like it and you’re going to lose.”
* “There are just a couple of those tough stories [that journalists want from politicians], but there are so many good stories.”
* “Never make a joke out of a tough situation.”
* “Working for the public is tough, but when you see your work out there, there isn’t anything like it.”
* “There’s that moment when you’ve got your moment to make your mark on history. You get the opportunity to tell the story the right way. TAKE IT!”

As a person interested in political PR myself, I thoroughly enjoyed Pasquil’s address and believe it was a great jump-start for the conference. I am looking forward to the sessions that lie ahead!

Like I discussed in my last blog, having an online presence as a PR professional is essential. However, with the PR industry constantly growing, that’s a lot of online PR brands and identities!

Obviously no one has enough time to constantly sift through every PR blog out there to find the latest tips and tricks of the industry. If only there was a list that just told us which blogs were the best, so that we could go straight to them and not waste our time with the others, right? Guess what–there is!

Inspiredm.com just released a list of the “10 Essential Social Media Blogs You Should Definitely Bookmark.” Drum roll, please!

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Here are the winners!

1.) Mashable, www.mashable.com

2.) Read Write Web, www.readwriteweb.com

3.) PR 2.0, http://www.briansolis.com/

4.) Chris Brogan, http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

5.) Social Media Examiner, http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/

6.) 180360720, http://www.180360720.no/

7.) Social Media Explorer, http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/

8.) Digital Buzz Blog, http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/

9.) Neville Hobson, http://www.nevillehobson.com/

10.) The Future Buzz, http://thefuturebuzz.com/

These are the top sites out there when it comes to PR tricks and techniques. You can add all of these sites to your news aggregator, and always be the first to know the latest in the field of PR!

Did you know that social media can help you as a PR professional? It’s not all about just raising awareness for your company or client. YOU need to have a presence on social media. You need to establish your own individual brand that lets people know who YOU are.

How do you do that? As always, social media comes to the rescue!

Twitter is one of the most popular social media tools out there, and there’s no question why! There is a huge PR community that is incredibly active, as well as both new and established brands. You can check out chats like #journchat and #pr20chat to share and compare industry tips and tricks.

Building a network of followers is easy, you just have to put yourself out there! Reply to other’s Tweets and don’t be afraid to retweet things that you think others might find interesting–just don’t forget to give credit where credit is due!

All in all, Twitter is a great and painless way to start creating your own brand online. Be true to your personality and find your own personal niche. The rest will fall into place!

Do you believe in the power of viral marketing?

Viral marketing is essentially “word of mouth” advertising, a grass roots PR strategy where you rely on others to spread your message.

Ever been to a conference of any type? What’s the one thing that everyone looks for at conferences? FREE STUFF, that’s right! Now, why do you think companies would invest so much in just giving away free stuff–what’s in it for them?

Have you ever noticed what is on that free stuff? Typically company names, logos…little things to help you remember the company who gave you that product. They are hoping that you pass along that pen, or that cup, to someone else…who will then pass it on to someone else. Every person who comes into contact with that item will see that company name and logo, and will be left with an impression (however small.)

That is your smallest, most basic example of viral marketing. Many companies do it on a much larger scale.

It’s all about getting your products to the correct thought leaders–if they like it, they will do your promotions for you! The best thing about it is that the reviews will be coming from them and not you. Trust me, it means SO much more when a customer puts THEIR stamp of approval on YOUR product–people trust peer recommendations way more than they trust advertisements.

Don’t believe me? Check out this video by Dave Carroll. Long story short, he and his band were sitting on an United Airlines airplane when they saw employees throwing their Taylor guitars back and forth. Naturally when they got to their destination and collected their luggage, the instruments were ruined. After approaching the airline and its PR department, it was made certain that United Airlines wasn’t going to do anything to right the situation.

Dave decided to take things into his own hands, and wrote a song about the experience. He posted it on Youtube, and with no effort on his part the video became a sensation. Over six million people have viewed the video, and believe me–United Airlines has gotten the message!

Was it Dave who caused all of this reputation damage for United Airlines? Yes, he started the chain of action…but it was common people like you and me who kept linking their friends to the video, who then shared it with their friends, and so on.

That, my friends, is the power of viral marketing. Better hope that your company or product stays on the side of the people!

Ever feel like your social media accounts are running your life, instead of the other way around? Ever get frustrated with the constant attention these sites need to not only survive, but flourish? Ever think “to heck with it all,” and just want to delete every account you’ve ever had?

…Ever realize how much you depend on them?

In August, social media critics LinkedIn and Harris Interactive called Twitter an “ineffective marketing tool” based on lack of U.S. consumer interest in the site. To express their absolute disagreement, Russian hackers shut down the site, as a “denial of service” attack. Twitter users across the globe saw the same “denial of service” message for six hours, and the Twitter world remained silent. For those six hours, no one tweeted, retweeted or hashtagged. Users had to figure out how to figure out what was going on with Twitter, without using Twitter!

According to Kathleen Mongero’s blog on the topic, “evidence of the impact that the 5-hour tweetless eternity had on the public [was] made clear through news reports, the popular topics hashtag #whentwitterwasdown and the blogosphere with post titles like “The Day The Social Media Stood Still.”

This event taught just how much social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have come to mean to the average Internet user. It has changed the way we receive news. Gone are the days when we would read the newspaper or go to news websites to find out what is going on in the world. We instead log in to Twitter and check out trending topics, or scroll through our news feed on Facebook, to get a more personal account of what is happening.

It is all about interactivity and the personal touch. I want my news to be catered to me, and what I think is interesting. What’s the best way to get that? Social media, of course!

What do you think this means for the future of news corporations and other businesses?

I blogged a few weeks ago about the importance of getting involved with PRSSA while you are a college student. One of the best ways to do that is to build a relationship with your local PRSA chapter. Here in Indy, our chapter is called Hoosier PRSA.

Every month they host a luncheon at the Hilton downtown, and it includes time for networking, a meal and a program about a relevant PR topic. Students receive a discounted price of $18, and our PRSSA chapter almost always covers it.

Every Fall is “Half Day with a Pro,” when PRSSA students are paired with PR professionals from across the city, who they shadow for a few hours in the morning and then join up with the rest of the chapter for lunch and (yet another!) networking opportunity.

Finally and most importantly, your local PRSA chapter is always there for help and guidance.

As I mentioned before, four PRSSA members from our IUPUI chapter are attending conference in San Diego this Fall, and we have been searching everywhere for financial support. After submitting a request, Hoosier PRSA agreed wholeheartedly to donate $100 towards our travels.

Isn’t having a strong relationship with your local PRSA chapter great?!

October is PRSSA/PRSA Relationship Month. For more thoughts on this topic, please visit PRSSA’s recent blog entry.

So if you’re like me and every other college student in the country, you are more than just acquainted with social media: you LIVE it! Before I even took this PR Tactics class, I had a Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and about a dozen other random blogs (half of which I’ve forgotten the passwords for) all floating out there in cyberspace.

The question is, as you get older and your priorities turn to establishing a brand for yourself instead of just letting your friends know what your new favorite color is, how do you cross that line? Do you abruptly stop doing everything you’ve always done, and stick with safe, “professional” posts? Do you create double accounts on each site, one for personal purposes and the other for professional? Doesn’t that seem like a bit of a hassle?

According to guest PRSSA blogger Courtney Vaught, who is also a PR professional from Boston, the demographics for social media are constantly changing. Although sites like Facebook and Myspace started out targeted towards high school and college students, more and more of the “35 and older” demographic is flocking towards the sites.

Vaught mentions a former college student who had an interview with a public relations agency scheduled, but was e-mailed a cancellation note a few days before the interview because of something to do with “social media content.”

What does that say to me, as a college junior who is going to graduate in a year and is about to start the biggest “job hunt” of her life? Privacy is a NECESSITY!

Yes, I am allowed to keep my personal profiles and keep commenting on friends’ pictures, wall posts and blogs. However, I need to make everything I do PRIVATE, if I don’t want it falling into an employer’s lap.

If everything is private and buckled down like Fort Knox, though, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of social networking? Who are these sites for, anyway?

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has joined the social media realm. She posted her resume last week to LinkedIn, which is basically a Facebook for the professional world.

According to her page, she is interested in “job inquiries, expertise requests, business deals, reference requests, and getting back in touch.”

What do you think the reasons were behind this? Is she trying to appeal to a younger audience? Is she attempting to branch out from her current position as Governor of Alaska? Was this done at the advice of a public affairs specialist?

Personally, I think any of the above could be valid reasons for Governor Palin to suddenly join the social media world. However, she needs to realize the possible repercussions of her actions. Having a profile online makes public figures even more public.

The only positive thing I can see coming out of this is that she now has an outlet in which she can correct false rumors in the tabloids. What do you think?

The beginning weeks of October always mark the frenzied search for the perfect Halloween costume. As it most often goes, people want the “wow factor”: the most shocking, the most creative, and lately…the most offensive.

Public debate has heated up all over the nation after several popular retailers, including Target, Walgreens and Amazon, have recently started offering two controversial “illegal alien” costumes.

According to an article by CNN, the “Illegal Alien Adult Costume,” manufactured by Forum novelties, includes an orange jumpsuit, similar to prison garb, with “Illegal Alien” stamped in black across the chest; a space alien mask; and a fake Green Card. The “Illegal Alien Mask with Hat” also includes a space alien mask, this time with a dark handlebar mustache and a baseball cap.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), an activist group, wrote a letter asking retailers to stop offering the costume. Only Target agreed to pull the product from its shelves.

I have to admit, when I first saw this news story I was appalled. I believe in freedom of expression as much as the next proud American, but only to the extent that it doesn’t harm others. Those costumes are obviously a direct attack against illegal immigrants and pro-amnesty supporters, and are far too offensive to be considered protected by the Constitution.

I am a journalism major, and I understand the importance of freedom of expression and what it means for us as citizens of the world. However, I am reminded of another integral component to our Constitution: respect for all persons.

What do you think? Should retailers be allowed to sell these costumes? Is freedom of expression more important than respect for all persons?