In The Year 2000, aka Tomorrowland

As if it really needs to be pointed out yet again, the internet is paving the way for media, AD/PR, market...... So who, what, where, when, why do PR practitioners need to be aware of? Well in this article,

http://www.globalprblogweek.com/archives/tomorrows_pr_today.php

though written back in 2004, advices people following or working in the PR field on the ways the internet will continue to effect this industry. There are seven tips discussed in the article and I can say that every one of them has good advice for PR practitioners that is still true today. For a quick view the the basic 7 tips are:

1. Relationships are key

2. You NEED an active, powerful, online presence

3. You should regularly produce excellent articles of journalistic quality

4. You need to have your name and stories showing up consistently in GoogleNews and Yahoo! News

5. Recognize the power of video and audio in helping media sources to choose to call you rather than your competition

6. Learn to wisely use email to pitch stories

7. Learn to stand out

One thing I noticed while reading these tips, other than a bit of tweaking that would be need in general they are helpful for almost any profession that you choose to follow.

Tax Savings and Healthy Lifestyles

Biking to work, not on your Harley but on a two wheeled, human powered, chain driven bicycle. The government has begun to offer tax cuts to bicycle commuters. Why? It all seems to be to promote or encourage as well as reward and provide benefits for bicyclists. Basically you get can receive a $20 subsidy from the government a month along with this subsidy, the government has also set aside $800 million to expand bicycle and pedestrian lanes. A some what local area taking use of some of this stimulus is San Antonio with its building of a new system in downtown to help encourage this action.

http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/2009/06/Biking_to_Work.html

At the end of the above article, it also notes that along with these government benefits, practitioners of biking to work also save hundreds of dollars a month on car expenses like gas and parking. Plus they get their workouts in while going to work and thus saving that extra trip and time after the work day ends. Over all this is a slightly mentioned motion of the government that was issued back in at June of this year and could seriously use some more promotion to help encourage the movement as it can easily be picked up by the 350.org group. Still as far as meeting a healthy level of PR, this bill failed the physical. Tough I may be repeating myself somewhat, this cause is in serious need of PR help beacuse its such an awesome idea that I will hopefully pick up, when the weather is warmer because its a bit too chilly right now.

Not MJ

While Michael Jordan received an induction to the basketball hall of fame in September and made a few remarks about fellow b-ball player Bryon Russell. Russell challenged MJ to a one-on-one game after the comments in his acceptance speech and that was pretty much the end of it; or was it? Later, the Utah Flash (development league team) owner, Brandt Anderson, claimed that the two would take each other on in the fore mentioned challenge this past Monday night. Long story short, it was a hoax put up to draw in fans to his teams game. Reading the following article and Brandt's own blog, it appears that he tried to recover with an utterly half-hearted attempt to apologies/PR back into the publics good graces. The League itself has issued sanctions to some degree that require (but not limited to) refunds and free admission. While I'm not informed by any means, I would venture to believe that whoever thought this would be a good idea has probably been set up to be fired after the media heat dies down as to not attract more attention from the media.

Heres the article and the owner's blog:

http://dleagueutah.blogspot.com/2009/12/mj-vs-b-russ-challenge-didnt-go-like.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/-Jordan-vs-Russell-charity-game-hoax-angers-fa?urn=nba,207425

Wireless Wars

Well i guess its about time that I mention something about the Verizon Wireless and AT&T issues that have been going on. Obviously this is about customer relations with current customers along with trying to bring more customers to Verizon Wireless. I really find the commercials to be just annoying in general because they seemed to be lacking in anything that grabs my attention. Overall the base platform for the commercial is that Verizon has more reliable coverage of 3G services across the country. Unfortunately, AT&T claims that this commercial is misleading to its customers suggesting that there is no coverage at all in the uncolored areas. It is surprising as they are not calling the map false or inaccurate as most disputer would argue. The real issue that AT&T seems to have with this map commercial of Verizon's is the wording.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-10401094-266.html

This article talks about this argument point and one that is fairly understandable to me but still this argument will probably never end and just take root in other forms between the two mobile phone services until both are replaced by what comes after cell phones.

Recency Effect

Especially with todays economic situation, organizations and companies are looking for ways to save money on their expenses. A common concern amongst employees is remaining employed. One particular field that is often subject to scrutiny is the AD/PR/Marketing employees because it is usually hard to tell what workers in this field have accomplished. In this article,

http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2009/october/203372.html

this issue is directly discussed. Though this brief article directly refers to AD/PR companies that hire out services, I view this as something that any AD/PR employee hired directly by a company can follow to ensure that they demon straight their merit and worth t the company. Basically these tips can help to encourage companies that the use of Ad/PR/ Marketing resources continues to benefit the business.

Celebrity Endorsements

We have al heard of the recent incidents involving Tiger Woods these last few weeks, but he is not the only celebrity endorser to have a blunder. What it all comes down to is that companies use celebrities to help promote their products and self image. This article covers some of the better known celebrity endorsers mistakes.

http://advertising.about.com/od/celebrityendorsements/a/celebendorse.htm

The article covers several celebrities such as Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan. As the article discusses each of the before mentioned celebrities and the scandals that each one faced; it refers to how companies need to be totally aware of the celebrities they incorporate with and know how to handle the way they will also inadvertently effect the way the company is viewed by the public in bad situations. The article cautions organizations to be considerate of the people and there activities.

Video Game Advertisments

PR in TV and Movies has been in existence as long as i can remember, but now it is steadily transitioning into video games. In a common video series known as The Sims, the EA based game is continuing to add more and more "brand" name items to the series for player of the game to use and buy in the game. This is also being seen in another commonly known life simulator game known as Second Life. Though slightly different in the fact that players are online with people from all around the world, it is subsequently also affected more by the advertising of major brand names with players. All of this while mentioned in class was recently brought to my attention as the 12 year old boy i occasionally babysit, joined the Second Life game and tried to get me to join as well. I took a pass on that as I really don't have time or patience for dealing with many people of an online game system. Still to continue on this the 12 year old also internet streamed the movie Gamer and we watched yesterday. If you can get away from the violence and nudity displayed and focus on the ultimate plot line of the movie is that the villain has been building his PR with and around the world so that he has become the ultimate celebrity of the world as it follows the manic gamer community as the dominant culture of the world.

http://www.everyjoe.com/articles/advertising-in-video-games/

This article brings up the idea and the community that is into following the video game industry and the ways in which these organizations are/can be successful in doing so.

Toyota Recall Hits Home

While Toyota's massive recalls have been going on for almost two months now, it recently hit home with me as my Mom email my brother and I about his truck being on the recall list. Of course my mother was over panicked as most mothers are when they here news like this, it still got me to look into the story a bit. Basically the major problem that was occurring with the Toyotas was that the stock floor mats were causing the accelerator to get stuck and force the car to go faster and out of control resulting in serious injuries or even death. Luckily my brother's truck doesn't have the standard floor mats and he tested them to appease her. Still with Toyota issuing a recall on so many vehicles is quite amazing since its basically over floor mats. It is a good thing that the issue was brought to the attention of the nation because most people don't give their cars much attention especially to something like floor mats.

The email link my mom sent me:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-recall26-2009nov26,0,3295310.story

350.org Coming up

Awhile back in my class we discussed the 350.org website/group/community. To recall they are a group that is trying to gather world wide community support to find solutions to the climate crisis. Basically, in this post I'm just letting everyone from my class that is following my blog that this coming weekend over the TCU dead days that 350.org is going for a candle light vigil. For those willing/wanting to participate, the nearest vigil will be at the Dallas Aquarium without trying to organize one in Fort Worth. Along with this on sunday this weekend participating religious organizations will also toll their bells 350 times in support of the 350.org mission.

Strat Comm Jobs

As implied by the title for my TCU PR class i was involved in a small group that researched information on PR jobs in the job market today. So just to relate these job seeking tips to other in the PR world i decided that I would give a brief summary on my blog. In this project I looked up key words for people to include in search words as well as into the resumes people seeking PR jobs. Some of the basic key words I found were these:

1. Project management skills
2. Passionate
3. Networking skills
4. Learn by doing, not by watching
5. Confident
6. Skills in written, phone and computer communication
7. Well-organized
8. Effectively manage workload
9. Goal-oriented
10. Motivated
11. Responsible
12. Maintain work relationships
13. Professionalism
14. Integrity
15. Interest in new technology
16. Work with others
17. Illustrate passion
18. Manage social networking sites (i.e. twitter)
19. Reliable
20. Outgoing, enthusiastic

These words were the most common in the employers job ad for PR entry-level positions. Along with these search terms, I reviewed job ads through several search business engines that are commonly used when people look for jobs. I used several search engines and ultimately came to the conclusion that to be a casual job seeker or student seeking an internship it is no problem to use just about any search engine but when it really comes to seriously seeking a job in the PR industry, it is much safer and overall better to use secure jobs search sites like yahoohotjobs.com and monster.com. Still your best bet is probably to ultimately check with the companies that you are interested in.

Viral Videos

After watching several online holiday comedy videos, that were sent to me via email, I went back and looked up our class discussion on viral videos. While during lecture I really understood viral videos to be more of a direct implication of an organization to promote either itself or one of its products, I began to realize that it does not have to apply to organizations only. In fact, after reading Recipe for a Successful Viral Video Campaign, an article about viral videos posted to the Wall Street Journal website (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123481783053894227.html), I realized that many vial videos are just self promotions of people and their wacky antics.

Some of the more popular viral videos that we know are posted all over video sites like YouTube, and include videos like The Evolution of Dance, The Numa Numa guy, and The Dramatic Chipmunk. Still that doesn't mean every viral video posted to sites like YouTube will make the cut and be well known and joked about on different television shows. This article discusses what makes these viral videos successful and as the title indicates, gives great advice for promoting the viral video makers and "the next big hit" which can be easily take over and used by organizations and companies to help promote their products and services.

Krillix

So reviewing PR material since my last post, I found an online social network called Krillix. http://www.krilix.com/ This social network is similar to Facebook or Myspace but for commercial use. This social network was a project for college students that went ahead and put it into effect and it took off as a customer relations outlet for businesses. By subscribing and creating a profile on the social networking site, businesses can keep in touch with customers through txt messaging and creating ways for customers to know what businesses are doing from simple promotional sales (one day only sales) or advance screenings of events that local businesses will be hosting (guest speakers or limited quantity products).

Facebook and Big Brand PR

OK, so to figure this blogging thing out; I have to do a public relations blog for my class at TCU and I really don't get it. Still, I guess the best way to try this is to just try.

So the most obvious use of public relations tactics that comes to my mind is the information called "pages" on facebook. These pages whether made by companies or patrons of the topic at hand clearly attracts many people to join and support these organizations through these group pages.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_big_brands.php

A big theme according to the article was that big brands using facebook as a marketing location is that the organizations need to use communication skills not advertising skills to attract fans and customers through face book. The article continues focuses on the ideas taken from the presentation they witnessed and attempts to expand on them and drive home how marketing on facebook needs head towards engaging the community through communication