Last post for social media class..

Don't worry.. I will still continue to blog when things come up related to the world of PR and Mass Communication. Just wanted to write a quick post to tell you about my journey these last couple of months. First of all, I have to say that I have learned a lot in this process. I took the social media mini-session the second week of January and we were assigned to create and maintain a blog until now. We could also choose three more social media platforms to maintain over these past couple of months. I chose Twitter, Pinterest and Linked In. It has been fun to learn how to maintain these social media sites and to get social media savvy. I have thoroughly enjoyed this process and I plan to take a small break the next couple of weeks as school is becoming pretty hectic. I am really enjoying my classes this semester and I will be graduating in December! Hooray! Thank you so much for following along with my blog and I hope you will continue to do so.

Talk to you soon!

Clemmie

How non-profits relied on social media in 2012

In December Mashable published this blog post. I am currently working on a campaign plan for the Historic Hattiesburg Downtown Association and just finished a social media plan for it. I was looking at sources that discussed social media in regards to non-profits and came across this post. 

I was amazed at the statistics on this graph. Friends are more likely to donate or find out about an organization if one of their friends shared a post about that organization. Donations were the highest they have ever been last year in regards to fundraising using social media. Do any of these statistics surprise you? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Walmart's 'Buy American' Campaign

I was surfing the web tonight and found this article by The Huffington Post. About a month ago, Walmart announced that they are going to pour $50 billion into buying more American made goods throughout the next 10 years. In May, they also are set to start hiring 100,000 newly discharged veterans over the next five years. Walmart says that both of these plans are to help boost the U.S. economy.
I had not heard this before I found this article tonight. I find it interesting and assume these two campaigns are set in place as mostly a reputation booster for Walmart. Traditionally, they have had a bad reputation to many people in regards to how much employees are paid and that they are not part of any union. I read in another article not too long ago that Walmart makes about $400 billion annually and if you break down the numbers $50 billion over 10 years is really not that generous of them. I think if Walmart was really wanting to give a boost to the economy they could/would spend a lot more more than that and still make an unbelievable profit. I have also noticed a trend lately among different brands shifting to promoting more patriotism. I think Walmart is following the lead.
What are your thoughts on this new campaign from Walmart?

Burger King got hacked.

This morning the Burger King Twitter account was hacked by someone claiming to be McDonald's. The hacker said that Burger King had been sold to McDonald's and many obscene tweets were posted throughout the course of the morning. A lot of re-tweeting and around 20,000 more followers were added to the Burger King account. Twitter suspended the account a few hours after Burger King reached out to them. Later this evening Burger King finally responded and opened their account back up. They tweeted "Interesting day here at BURGER KING, but we're back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!"

Bryson Thorton, the spokesperson for Burger King issued an apology tonight saying, "Earlier today, our official BK Twitter Account was compromised by unauthorized users, Upon learning of this incident, our social media teams immediately began working with Twitter security administrators to suspend the compromised account until we could reestablish our brand's official Twitter page. We apologize to our loyal fans and followers, whom might have received unauthorized tweets from our account. We are pleased to announce that the account is now active again."

A lot of people were wondering why it took Burger King so long to respond and why they weren't monitoring their Twitter account. I watched the page most of the day, seeing how long it would take Burger King to respond. I personally thought it took way too long.  Do you think this will effect Burger King's reputation. Has it already?

Happy Valentine's Day as told by kids.

I thought this was cute and wanted to share!

Hope your day has been great!

Coca-Cola Addict Dies

Remember my earlier posts about Coca-Cola's new campaign targeted at being more aware of calorie intake? See it here and here. According to The Atlantic Wire, a women from New Zealand died from drinking too much Coke. The coroner said the this women drank 2.5 gallons of Coke a day and that it was a "substantial factor" in her death.The article states that her family was not too concerned about the amount of Coke she drank each day because there were no warning labels on the cans. The coroner reccommends that Coca-Cola put warning labels on the cans. A representative from Coca-Cola said that the company was disappointed to hear the coroners report. The women's death was quite unusual and the coroner recognized that the company was not responsible for her death.

So, what do you think? Should Coca-Cola put labels on their products warning that drinking too much can be harmful to a person's health? OR is it just common sense.. like eating too much McDonald's can make you fat?

I thought this was interesting considering that Coke just launched their new health conscious campaign.

Tornado Tragedy strikes USM, and what the university did right.

Yesterday, around 5:45 pm an EF-4 tornado with winds peaking at 170 mph struck Hattiesburg and the University of Southern Mississippi. It left 82 people injured but amazingly there are no reported deaths at this time.
Some photos:

Here is a video of the tornado crossing Hardy Street striking the campus from Storm Spotter John Sibley:

Now, I have to brag on the university for a moment. They handled this situation in the best way possible. They were consistent in keeping the students, faculty, staff and parents informed. They sent out text messages and phone calls regarding the multiple tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings in a timely manner all afternoon and night and continued to keep us all informed even throughout today. I think their action preparedness plan paid off and I am so glad they know exactly what to do when and if a tragedy should strike. I think it saved a lot of lives on campus. The City of Hattiesburg was also very prepared. They put their plan into action and were on the scene as soon as the tornado passed through. Residents heeded the warnings and the loss of human life was none. Please keep Hattiesburg, USM and the surrounding areas in your thoughts and prayers. I know we will need it in the coming days as the recovery process is happening.