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.

What can't PR pros live without?

PR News did a Facebook and Twitter survey asking PR pros what they can't live without. There were some great answers. Some of my favorites include: patience, a sense of humor and tough skin. Many others replied with clients, social media, smart phone, email, coffee, etc.

So, basically this:

What is the most important thing you think a PR pro can't live without?

So God made a PR Pro.

Did you see the Super Bowl Dodge Ram commercial "So God made a Farmer"? Well, I was surfing on Twitter a couple days later and found this. A play off of the poem "So God made a Farmer", I thought this was creative and downright accurate.  Written by Arik Hanson on his site Communications Conversations, the poem goes like this:

On the eighth day, God looked down on this world and said, “I need someone to help these retail companies, schools, manufacturers, hospitals, start-ups, tech companies, restaurants, hotels, sports franchises and news organizations communicate better.”

So, God made a PR pro.

God said, “I need someone to wake up at 4 a.m., manage a live shot down at the Mall of America outside when it’s 5 degrees outside, then get back to the office by 7, take a two-hour client call at 8, get to a new business meeting at 10:30, take the new AE out to lunch, crank out a strategic plan and proof a news release in the afternoon, pick up the kids at 5:45, get them to ice skating lessons, eat dinner, go back online and complete billing reports, send a few emails to clients, finish the news release and do it all again the next day.”

So, God made a PR pro.

God said, “I need someone who can sit in a meeting with a room full of senior-level executives and stand toe-to-teo with the CEO and tell him he needs to take a risk in the first quarter with a new campaign based on her recommendations, then turn around and sympathize with her team and figure out how they’re going to get the whole plan done in just 12 days.”

So, God made a PR pro.

God said, “I need someone who can break down analytics and glean useful insights for clients. Someone who can crank out a news release, a blog post, and an annual report in a single afternoon. Someone who can manage and lead a team. Someone who can mentor younger team members. Someone who can massage and manage a client’s concerns, then sit in a room with an assistant account executive and listen to their challenges.”

So, God made a PR pro.

God said, “I need someone strong enough to handle a crisis–where the client has absolutely no clue what to do next. Someone who can handle the heat when it gets so hot you can actually feel the sweat through the phone. But someone kind enough that other employees love coming to work with her each day.”

So, God made a PR pro.

It had to be someone who could write and edit. Interpret and influence. Direct and debate. Consult and collaborate. Organize and categorize. Evaluate and motivate. Lecture and listen. Someone who was willing to take risks. To push the envelope for her clients. To go above and beyond. Day after day after day after day. Someone who has an insatiable curiousity and someone who simply loved to learn.

So, God made a PR pro.

But above all, it had to be someone with a strong moral compass–someone with ethics. Because without that, she is nothing. Someone who’s hyper-organized. Loves lists. And love to complete them. Loves coffee. And loves to read. Someone, who loves grammar so much she spell checks text messages. Someone who has CNN on in the background along with Tweetdeck and 18 columns. And someone who wakes up each morning, takes a shower, eats breakfast and looks in the mirror and says, “I am a PR pro.”

I love the last paragraph the most. What a wonderful reminder about what being a PR pro is all about. We need to remember that as PR professionals out first and foremost responsibility is to be ethical, because in the end if you are not, what is it all for? What do you think about this poem? Comment below and let me know!

My favorite Super Bowl Ads

Here are some of my favorite ads from this year's Super Bowl:

I certainly have a lot to discuss in my paper. Some of them sure did not disappoint!  What were your favorite ads this year? Were there some ads you didn't like?

10 Worst Super Bowl Ads

First off, Happy Groundhog Day! Supposedly spring will come early this year. In honor of the Super Bowl tomorrow, I went in search of some of the worst Super Bowl ads. Luckily, Mashable did all of the hard work for me. You can see the gallery here.

Some were just plain bad, some I didn't understand and the Apple one below was really dark.

I thought this was an interesting topic to look into. Tomorrow, I will do a post on my favorite ad/ads from tomorrow's Super Bowl. Are there any ads you deem some of the Super Bowl's "worst"?