by Shannon Paul on December 20, 2008
Tweet Different social networks appeal to different people for different reasons. The two obvious giants when it comes to social media are MySpace and Facebook. A user’s preference for either network may speak to the differences in many other interests and online behaviors, but determining exactly where the similarities and differences lie could mean the [...]
by Shannon Paul on November 29, 2008
Tweet Lately, I’ve tried to stop thinking like a marketer, or a PR professional, and I’ve started thinking more like an anthropologist when it comes to reaching out to people in social networks. I haven’t completely done away with my marketer/PR hat and I’m not recommending you do away with yours either, since you’ll likely [...]
by Shannon Paul on November 19, 2008
Tweet It’s true, integrating social media into communication strategies puts the focus back on the public. It’s no longer just about the media. Last week I gave a presentation on social media to the Central Michigan chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (CMPRSA). I was the first speaker of the day, and I [...]
by Shannon Paul on October 24, 2008
Tweet Influencers are usually pretty easy to spot, so why do so many companies still insist on building their own social networks? This month started off with a bit of a downer for social media evangelists everywhere when Gartner released the results of a study that indicated a 50 percent failure rate of all social [...]
by Shannon Paul on October 3, 2008
Tweet Politics and marketing don’t mix, or do they? Like a lot of people, I took piano lessons throughout most of my childhood and adolescence. One great music lesson that also became a great life lesson was the notion of breaking rules well. In music theory, arbitrary and reckless violation of the rules just makes [...]
by Shannon Paul on September 30, 2008
Tweet PR and social media types aren’t the only ones that get excited about numbers, dollars, profits and statistics. Everyone does. Let’s face it, money is always an attention getter. Money turns interesting anecdotes about business into something worthy of being called news. A lot of companies interested in garnering attention from the business press [...]
by Shannon Paul on September 7, 2008
Tweet If listening is the first step involved in engaging in social media. Sharing should be step two. If you own your own business or are involved in marketing or PR, you’re already creating content for your company or client. The next step is to make the content you already create easy to share in [...]
by Shannon Paul on September 1, 2008
Tweet If you’re struggling to understand how social media changes the role of PR, rest assured you’re not alone. The best way I’ve found to explain social media to those who feel challenged and even threatened by new media is to break it down in terms of the long view: First, stop thinking about the [...]
by Shannon Paul on August 31, 2008
Tweet For anyone in PR, this should come as no surprise. Listening has always been the first step. Right? The first piece of career advice I received as a student interested in PR was that I should read the news every day in order to understand the news cycle in addition to learning who writes [...]
by Shannon Paul on August 25, 2008
Tweet Departments of local governments aren’t usually thought of as early adopters when it comes to technology and social media, but one Washington, D.C. public department is hoping to use its new blog, Facebook and Twitter to build relationships with area university students to educate them about their rights to safe living conditions in off-campus [...]
