TPRA “PR Boot Camp 2.0″ Notes

Hello everyone, this is Tasa Watts and I’m the one that volunteered to put my notes up from the Social Media Conference in Round Rock.  For those that were at the conference, you will probably be able to follow my notes.  For everyone else, I hope you can at least get the key points.  It was very beneficial to me, so I hope you all enjoy.  I did not edit my notes, so please excuse any errors!

TPRA “PR Boot Camp 2.0”
November 7, 2008
Texas State University-Round Rock Campus

Notes

SESSION ONE: Connie Reece-Founder and Principal of Every Dot Connects

Bottom line…the world has changed. Technology has changed, but people skills do not.

Twitter-know what someone is doing. It hasn’t reached the younger people because it is geared towards what the older generation wants. IM & text messaging service online. If sign up put #tpra in your message and will find by searching questions that are connected with the same event. Can send messages by text message to 40404. Austin American Statesmen is on Twitter. It facilitates face to face meetings. Can put a “widget” on your website to link them to your Twitter. Example twitter.zappos.com.

92% people use e-mail.

16% of college students use e-mail, why to talk to old people.

1% are content creators online, about 9% are active, everyone else is just reading

Facebook and Myspace-very young audience, under 30

Wiki, is a website that anyone has permission can edit. (tprabootcamp.pbwiki.com) Free to use, way to get out information to a group and ability for people to add information to it as well. Created group on Wiki called Questions (good place to look for notes)

SEO=Search Engine Optimization Does social media improve SEO? Yes, it helps. It is a natural SEO. It helps how google scans the internet to look for content. 26% of people will go beyond the first page of a google search.

How are companies using LinkedIn? They are putting more social aspects into it now. It is good for HR for recruiting to check out employees. If marketing, might want to look at LinkedIn questions and answers. It is a way of letting your knowledge be seen. At this point, it is mostly related to jobs.

RSS=Really Simple Syndication. If you have personalized MSN, Google, etc…it is a way to get all content sent to you anytime it is updated.

Most social media tools are free.

How can you control your message? Dangerous? What is the ROI on this…if all competitors are doing it what is the ROI if you are not doing it. What is the ROI of a phone system or e-mail. You cannot put a dollar sign on it, you cannot measure it yet. It doesn’t matter what eyeballs find you it is that the right eye balls find you. HITS=how idiots track success. You don’t have control of the message on the internet, but if you aren’t online then you have no idea what people are saying on your company. Best thing you can do is try to get the conversation to you, get them to come to your site. What people want is for someone to listen to them.

Yammer.com: way to pull in employees, if they have same domain name on email it will pull them in

SESSION TWO: Best Practices, putting it all together

Judy Oskam: Moderator

Brooks Bennett, Technology Specialist

Will Hampton, Communications Director

Charley Ayres, Senior VP of Business Retention & Expansion, RR Chamber of Commerce EDP

City of Round Rock:

The city has been in social media for about a year to year and a half. Website reference www.roundrocktexas.org.

The AP released statement they don’t own the news anymore.

When you are trying to convince senior levels? It is just a conversation. Very powerful way to be able to connect in a personally way with people and not being in the same place at the same time. You can govern about as well as you are trusted. Have a strategy!!

Everyone understands that all of this is new. You have to have an open mind to listen to everyone or you might miss out on something big.

Have a flickr group and feed the latest pictures onto the blog. Create a sense of community was the goal here…people love pictures. On TV show they display the top pictures that were submitted. On Flickr, they have an approval basis that can then send the picture to multiple spots. On flickr when you submit picture you are submitting with a creative commons license, so gives you a right to use in marketing materials. Creative Commons is an alternative to a copyright law.

They have branded it as Community Conversations. Everything is about a conversation. You have to decide what YOU want to talk about.

TERMS OF USE=rules of engagement on your blog. Do not start a blog without terms of use. If they want to engage in your blog they agree to your terms of use. If you read a comment that abides to the terms of use then you are obligated to post it.

Created a Facebook page. People hang out on facebook. You know someone cares or has an interest because they have taken the time to visit your page and want the access to see what is the latest with you or your business. Information on facebook page: Pictures, news, events, video, notes, discussion board, online services. Even if you are not a facebook user you can set up your page to where everyone can view your page to get the information on it.

They use RSS technology for what they have already created.

Twitter presence: Round Rock News official name. They use RSS for every time someone makes a blog post, it will automatically feed to your twitter page. This is a great media relations tool.

Chamber of Commerce:

They are three to four years behind the business community. Has to do with budgets, non-profits… How many staff members do you have and who can put their hands on what to do what is the big concern.

Social Media, a way to connect people with people.

Created facebook group and put a link to facebook on website. When they did that, the board was concerned with what the Chamber was representing with being on facebook and/or myspace. Because of this they took the facebook image off the website but kept the facebook group active and it eventually took life of its own. Simple purpose is connecting people in the community with business people. One thing is most useful for business people, you really find out what you have in common with people and puts you more on a personal level with a potential client or customer.

Education is a journey not a destination. Doesn’t matter your age, you need to learn this! Younger people are more open to learn. Older perspective is there is nothing more out there for me to learn. EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS CHANGING!

It takes one person in an organization to be the advocate and you can make it happen.

SESSION THREE: Robert Quigley, Internet Director for Statesman.com

Best and Worst Practices of the Candidates

Both candidates did incredible compared to where we were four years ago. Candidates were trying to reach into areas they haven’t reached before to pull in more votes.

www.mybarackobama.com : goal was to get everyone involved in the campaign that wanted to be involved. Hosted a blog on the site, that gives you a way to connect to other people in your area that have the same political views and sends you information on voters in your area that are undecided and you go back and report who you have gone out and reached. Trying to keep up the site through www.change.gov .

Downfall for Barack Obama was on Twitter, he didn’t use it to have conversations with people.

Twitter encouraged direct hits to the web site. In coverage of Hurricane Ike.

John McCain: Page on Youtube.com done very well. Had a facebook page, myspace page, twitter account but it started pretty late.

Both candidates accepting that it is a new age and that it is very important.

www.oldmedianewtricks.com Blog that just started on Monday. Way to reach out to old media that is trying to figure this out. Q & A’s and tips and links available.

Allison Knaupe, Creative Director for PSI’s new media division

Obama had a wide array of items to market and took that to where people wanted to be reached.

American’s online: 46% have used the internet to share or find out info on the election

39% turned to the web for unfiltered campaign info

Did more people actually vote? Social media didn’t really get out the vote more. It could have brought a different kind of group though. #’s were down about 3 million voters on election night. The name of the game is MONEY and a lot of money was raised online which is where social media came into play.

Bloggers are Influential “news” sources. They are not under the ethical standards a reporter is in. Blogs are starting look like news sources, all getting blurred.

Wikipedia, good source.

Obama’s facebook application was very successful. He has 3 times as many friends as anyone else, over 1 million.

Neilson numbers: Democrats are more likely to use technology then Republicans. I.E. text messaging, data service, picture messaging, mobile video, mobile internet.

SESSION FOUR: Best Practices, putting it all together part two

David Neff, CIW, Director of Web and Interactive Strategy for American Cancer Society

Social Media for Social Good

Social Media needs to be defined as a group think mentality around your message. People are going to talk about your message. Deal with it. Encourage It.

Experiment with social media.

Starting into the blogging world, with a internal blog between employees and volunteers.

User generated media-video…as a strategy. How many people watch shows live anymore? No longer does it look like a political ad, someone telling their story is where we are at now. People love being able to relate.

48% watch video online

75% of people receive video links

57% watch video with others

SharingHope.tv: They decided not to use YouTube…there is not a community on YouTube. Everything is all about “you suck.” They got a grant and built their own community with SharingHope.tv.

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