Summer of Public Relations

Being my first Public Relations (hands on) class since Writing for Mass Media and Mass Communications and Society, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Principles of Public Relations (pur3000). I have only taken Summer C courses at USF, so I wasn’t sure how 6 weeks of class was going to be, but to my surprise it was great!

I enjoyed most how “hands on” this class was, I had never been a part of wordpress.com or twitter and this was a great plunge into the social media world. Twitter is a new addiction to me and I blame Dr. Burns for that! I recently got into a twitter chat with a fashion guru in New York and may possibly have an opportunity for either an internship or a photo shoot with her and her company! Great things come from Twitter, I must say.

I enjoyed dipping into all forms of social media including: Twitter, WordPress and Linked In. I have been a part of Tumblr blogging, but it was never very professional. It mostly consisted of me reposting pictures of tattoos that I wanted to get or videographer clips from weddings that I thought were cool, but now that I have a WordPress, I see it being a more professional blog. My WordPress is something that I’d share with a future employer, for sure.

Overall, this class definitely was a great experience! Dr. Burns is a great instructor and I loved how young she was! She really got me interested in Twitter and it was fun seeing her get excited about it and pushing us to get out into the social media world!

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies, Friendship Walk-Best Buddies

The Organization

Best Buddies is a nonprofit organization that helps people with intellectual disabilities do a variety of everyday things. I participated in the Best Buddies Friendship Walk that took place June 4^th, 2011 in Tampa Florida.

Missed Communication

The Friendship Walk for Best Buddies was a great idea for fundraising, but the communication was lacking in some areas. Before the event, getting a hold of anyone in higher command was far from easy. Cyndie Salas had a Twitter account set up for the event and a Facebook page. She used both forms of social media but didn’t go into much detail with them. Upon arriving, there was little communication amongst the volunteers and director or others in charge, so it was difficult getting started. Once we got on track with another volunteer, the event went smooth!

Success doesn’t come in numbers

The event was in action to promote Best Buddies and raise money for the organization. If the director had advertised this event a little more on the social media sites, I have a feeling they could have reaped more benefits. I met a few great people at the Friendship Walk, people I wouldn’t have come in contact with unless I attended this event. There were many vendors attending to promote running gear, food and even Audi cars. Everyone seemed to be having a great time and that’s the whole point. Bringing people from different cultures and walks or life together for a Friendship Walk was the goal and it was obtained!

Tweet! Tweet! #u30pro

[caption id="attachment_50" align="aligncenter" width="604" caption="Follow #u30pro on Twitter!!"][/caption]

 

Twitter wasn’t something I was familiar with until Principles of Public Relations got me tweeting. On June 16^th, I participated in the twitter chat under hash tag #u30pro. The “u30pro”group is a great “first time” twitter chat experience.

This chat incorporated at least 30 people from all over the country, all discussing the same topic: Evolving Relationships and Making Time for Friends. This chat is a community of ambitious young professionals under the age of 30. The twitter chat started in 2009 with seven active tweeters and now is up to 1200 tweets per chat with an abundance of twitter followers!

U30pro hit some hard topics for most college students and young professionals. Balancing a life, school, a job, relationships with boyfriends or girlfriends and on top of that making and keeping friends. Valerie Simon was the guest tweeter for the chat and she shared her story about her best friend growing up who had been diagnosed with cancer. The basis for her story was, “What would you do if this was your friend?” How would you handle a situation where you have the one person you can talk to every day and now, there’s a possibility that they can be gone tomorrow.

My experience with Twitter on this chat was great! Everyone was very insightful and welcoming. People started chatting and it seemed like we were all friends from another time. The chat flowed smoothly; sometimes I found it hard to get a tweet in edgewise! Everyone was tweeting away like there was no tomorrow. This chat gears towards people in our generation. This chat was easy to follow and understand, there were no crazy in-depth speeches about something we didn’t care about. The dialogue was very conversational and enjoyable.

I took out of this twitter chat some great insight: value every friendship because you never know what will happen tomorrow. 

Follow me @Breeanna_Hope on Twitter