How do you learn social media social norms?

[cross-posted from PR Connections]
Most of our social interactions are governed by scripts and rules that we internalize and apply when appropriate. For example, we all have the scripts of “first date,” “job interview,” and, possibly, “the talk.”
How do we pick up the social norms for these scripts? How do we learn what type of communicative [...]

What does blogging teach?

I’ll be honest with you, I used to think that making students blog for a grade is a bad idea. I mean, making them put themselves out there?!
But then I realized that blogging is a necessity – and there’s no other way to learn it. Just like I teach news releases, I have to teach [...]

Students live twitter class

It’s long overdue, but here is my post about the PRinciples class session that was live-twittered.
I started class with these instructions for students:

Unprotect updates (settings)
Use Web interface & reload page often
Use #principles hashtag – twemes
Tweet: Important ideas, Links, Comments

Then I set them free and started lecturing about social media: What it is, and how it [...]

Opinion Leaders – Super Influencers

We talked about opinion leaders this week in class. Check out a related post from Read/Write Web about Super Influencers.
I anticipate the question: Will this be on the midterm? So the answer is, yes, it may very well be.

What PR history teaches me

The most important and scary thing I take away from PR history is the PR can create history & culture.
Think about it: brands like Betty Crocker and Wheaties – the Breakfast of Champions, which are now part of American culture, where once someone’s PR project (OK, marketing, too!). Ivy L. Lee created these brands.
So, if [...]

Meet the PRo: Karen Russell on PR History

Karen Russell – UGAConnect – Athens, GA
Originally uploaded by hyku

Dr. Karen Russell (blog, twitter) is a professor at UGA who specializes in PR history.
I asked Dr. Russell to answer a couple of questions on her area of expertise:
Dr. V: Why study PR history? Why should we bother? What do we get out of it?
Dr. Russell: [...]

More thoughts on Marketing/PR/Advertising

Kristy has a great way of explaining the big picture differences between marketing & PR. Excellent response!
Marketing/PR
In many organizations, PR reports to marketing and has a smaller budget than marketing. There are many reasons for that, but an important one is that marketing reports ROI (return on investment) in $$$ figures (sales), whereas PR is [...]