Atlantis Space Shuttle Launch will be Twittered Live

I just read Peter Cashmore’s Atlantis Space Shuttle Launch will be Twittered Live. NASA gave 100 of its Twitter followers the chance to go to Cape Canaveral to survey the launch of the Atlantis on November 16, 2009. The first 100 of their followers to register on their site were granted tickets to this event. This strategy was aimed at increasing curiosity in space discovery. In addition to that, another objective is to advance their social media image.

I just soaked up a lot of fresh information by reading Chris Brogan’s 50 ideas on Using Twitter for Business. This semester in my strategic communications research class, we have been learning how important social networking tools are in the PR field. They are readily accessible and within the social media world can be a vital instrument in your business.

Twitter is a social networking device that is brand new to me. I literally made a twitter account about a month ago. I still find myself very confused by it. Reading this article answered a lot if the questions that were on my mind. I am beginning to understand the ways of Twitter and the importance it can have in my field. I am thankful that I am being enlightened on this tool so that I am able to use it to my advantage.

Throughout Brogan’s article, he provides helpful tips. These include getting started, what an individual should tweet about, how to stay stable in the twitter world, negative twitter stereotypes, and the positive aspects of twitter. The section that struck me as most informative concerning my uncertainty towards twitter was the one that addressed what to tweet about. I often found myself wondering this. Here are some of the suggestions that I found to be helpful:

• Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
• Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
• Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
• When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
• Don’t toot your own horn too much. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

One of the overarching thoughts under this section is that when you tweet, it shouldn’t come across that it is all about you. This seems to apply to the social media world in general. This is one of the first details I learned about blogging. This can be a huge turnoff and may compel other people to not bother paying attention to you anymore. When you tweet, you want to incorporate information and advice that is going to appeal to others. When addressing aspects of your business, it is fitting to talk about yourself but make sure that it is beneficial to the public. No one wants to constantly view pieces of information that directly concern you. When it comes down to tweeting in your business, remember that they are the number one focus and not yourself.

Women and Spirituality Conference Rewrite

For my strategic research communications class we were asked to rewrite Rob Murray’s article ‘“Politics of Food,’ other hot topics at Women and Spirituality Conference” from the Mankato Free Press. The intention of this exercise is to help us practice writing for the web. Writing for the web differs from writing in print in various ways. Here are some tips for writing for the web.
• Use short sentences
• Use half as many words as you would for a print news release
• Utilize active verbs
• Keep paragraphs to one or two sentences
• Use bullet points and lists

Women and Spirituality Conference delivers the deliberation of ‘Politics of Food’ to Minnesota State Mankato

MANKATO, Minn.- Minnesota State University, Mankato is hosting the Women and Spirituality Conference on Oct. 31. This event features a nationally known keynote speaker.

Physicist, author and international sustainability leader Vandana Shiva will be discussing “The Gendered Politics of Food.” Shiva is scheduled to present her address at 11 a.m. in the Centennial Student Union Ballroom.

Shiva founded Navdanya, a national Indian-based movement. Navdanya supports protecting resources and promoting organic farming. She is also credited for starting an international college for sustaining living in Doon Valley, India.

Some of the books she has written include “The Violence of Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology, and Politics” and “Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology.”

The conference will consist of more than 100 discussions that analyze various topics.

For more information concerning this event you can visit the Gender and Women’s Studies Web site.

Blogger Relations

There are infinite ways to both hinder and promote relations within the blogosphere. Bloggers need to take into consideration the different tactics and strategies that are going to further or discontinue their blog. David Ogilvy presents 7 ideas in the Blog Herald that will move an individual towards a positive direction in blogging relations.
Tips to help blogger relations:
1. Concentrate on your headline-This is what pulls the reader in and shows them what is in store for them inside. The headline will display the main idea of the article and is going to make them more incline to reading what is inside.
2. Subheads are vital also- Subheads allow the viewer to not be too overwhelmed with text. It allows them to skim parts and still get the overall message. It also makes a long article less threatening.
3. Incorporate captions along with photos- Photo captions are more likely to be read than body copy. It is vital to be graphic in the photo but to also have it tie into the theme of the larger creation.
4. Write to reach your target audience- First establish your target audience and from there make sure to use the vocabulary and writing patterns that are distinct to that audience. This will promote a relationship with them.
5. If you don’t have too much to say, then why say that much- It isn’t necessary to write more than you need to to get your point across.
6. Finish with a call to action- Conclude your blog with informing the viewer why it is important and how you think they should respond. An easy example of a call to action that he mentions is suggesting they leave a comment.
7. Be educational- Stating knowledgeable information is the best way to attain your readers trust and it also makes them more incline to reading your work. Bestowing beneficial information is a great way to make you more reliable in the field.
Understanding and applying these concepts is what is going to help seal the deal on your blogger relations. This is the direction that bloggers should move in to make them more authoritative in the blogosphere.
Now I am going to explain the various ways that an individual can hinder their blogger relations. Ian Lurie describes the ingredients that can create bad blog relations in his blog How To: Write A Really Crappy Business Blog.
Ways to hinder blogger relations:
1. Talking too much about yourself
2. Trash talking your fellow bloggers
3. Plagiarizing
4. Presenting your text in small, unreadable type
5. Utilizing illegible colors
6. Not exhibiting good grammar
7. Writing too much text
Incorporating these components into your blog writing is a recipe for disaster. Brian Solis states that, “First and foremost, successful blogger relations are built on respect.” If one is blogging with these elements in mind that is not going to reflect that you have respect for your fellow bloggers. Your relationships will be built on discourtesy. It is only going to give you a bad reputation in the blogosphere.

14 Key Skills & Attributes For New Public Relation Professionals

I just got done reading Dave Fleet’s blog post 14 Key Skills and Attributes For New Public Relations Professionals. I especially liked how he incorporated both the traditional and new skills that are needed to advance in this field. Even though new skills are emerging with the advancing technology, it is vital to not forget the origins of public relations. They will always be importance to this profession. Both old and new can be used together to mold an individual into the best possible public relations practitioner. These attributes are key in an ever changing technological world.
Fleet stresses the importance of knowing how to code basic HTML, PHP and VBScripts. This is something I am not familiar with. I would consider this a weakness I have. Reading that made me realize that this is an aspect that I am going to have to come to understand and apply to be successful in this field. He comments that this is something he uses on a daily basis and I think it would be an excellent idea to familiarize myself with this attribute now rather than later.
After reading this blog, my first thought was that this reflects a lot of the material we have covered in our research class. It is very appropriate for us. The key terms and advice included in this blog is something that we should not just glance over but have ingrained in our brains. In the long run it will help us because we are at a very crucial stage in our major. Knowing, understanding and applying these concepts when we are out in the job field will make us stand out against competition. It could make or break our opportunities to get the jobs we want to acquire. I found this to be a very valuable resource for anyone in the public relations field.

Traditional vs. New Journalism

I just finished reading the first five chapters of Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge's book Putting the Public Back in Public Relations. The subject matter pertaining to the fourth chapter really struck me as interesting. This chapter discussed how the traditional method of news-reporting in newspapers and magazines has been overshadowed by online social media.
One element that is becoming popular in the online social media scene is blogging. As this starts to rise, traditional media is decreasing. Blogs do have the upper hand on the traditional media because it typically transports faster. They do present accurate information that individuals can depend on. Information found on the web is more accelerated than any other outlet. This news is brought to people before they can even try and find it themselves. It is finding them instantly and hitting them from all directions.
The major difference between traditional journalism and blogging is that journalist adhere to a code of ethics while bloggers don’t. Bloggers aren’t held responsible for the information they post on their blog. Unless this changes, currently the guidelines for ethics are individually based and no one is in control of the blogosphere. Bloggers are now known as “citizen journalist” and I believe that it is crucial for them to comply with the same beliefs and values that journalist do in their writing. If they don’t, it is only going to hinder their credibility in the long run. Viewers won’t continue to read and rely on blogs full of inaccurate information. They will turn to other sources for their information.
One question to ponder is if the blogosphere will adhere to a code of ethics in the future, as journalists do. Only time will tell if online social media is going to replace traditional media and become the new journalism.

Twitter

I just read an article by Adam Ostrow on Mashable.com called 18 Million Twitter Users by End of 2009. At the present time, Twitter is just a fragment of the size of Facebook. However, it is estimated that Twitter will become more and more popular in the upcoming years. It declared that Twitter is believed to have around 18 million users by the end of 2009 and the latest calculation for 2010 is 26 million. This number is up 50% from the original number that eMarketer estimated for the end of 2009.

I know a lot of people who juggle both a Facebook and Twitter account. It doesn’t surprise me that they are calculating Twitter to reach high numbers. Facebook arrived on the scene first, but Twitter is catching up. The activity that is occurring on the website has heightened enormously during the past year. I think it will be interesting to see how Twitter’s popularity will compare to Facebook's in the future.