No Day But Today

On February 17, Texas Sen. Kirk Watson, appeared on Chris Matthew’s MSNBC show, Hardball, to discuss Sen. Barrack Obama’s presidential primary win in Wisconsin. When Matthews asked Watson what Obama’s legislative accomplishments were, Kirk Watson went blank. The following day, as a form of crisis management, he writes in his blog that “I expected to be asked about the primary that night, or the big one coming up in Texas on March 4, or just about anything else in the news. When the subject changed so emphatically, I reached for information that millions of my fellow Obama supporters could recite by heart, and I couldn’t summon it,”

When I first read the article in PR Week I thought, what an idiot. Hillary Clinton must have been jumping up and down when she heard about that! However, I followed the link to his blog and I ended up feeling pretty sorry for the guy, but still think he wasn’t prepared and should not have appeared on the show. I know I certainly would be very nervous about going on with the infamous Chris Matthews, which is why I would have made sure I could recite everything there is to know about my candidate backward and forward. I would have people question me in pressured situations to ensure that I could do so. 

 However, it happened and he looked like a deer in headlights. With the youtube video of the interview up to almost 100,000 views…how is this crisis being managed? First of all, I think the blog entry was a great idea. He flat out said that he froze and proceeded to list Obama’s accomplishments. He did not try and blame it on Matthews being “too hard” or anything else…he admitted he was at fault.

 This situation is another example of how public relations professionals can use blogs and social media as crisis management communication tools. Did Watson do anything else to help his reputation? I have no idea. But through weblinks, online articles, and a blog…I was able to change my view on the situation.

Who knew clicking to join a Facebook group could gain you legislative attention and make that group a reputable source? Apparently USA Today felt it credible enough to write about it in an article published February 15, 2008.

In wake of the school shootings at Northern Illinois University last week, a Facebook group with 11,000 members from 500 different schools is calling for a protest from April 21-25. What are they protesting? The ability to carry concealed weapons on university campuses. I don’t know what topic is better to discuss for this post: the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus Facebook group gaining national attention, or the fact that these idiots believe that having a campus covered with weapons will keep students from shooting each other.

So I will begin with the first….According to the USA Today, “So far, 1,600 students on 500 campuses have signed up on Facebook to participate in the protest by wearing empty holsters to class.” First of all, these Facebook groups/events are not that significant. Yes, there may be a few people who will wear the holsters to class, but I would imagine that most of those people just clicked attending, along with the other hundreds of event invites they get each week. As a student I have always seen Facebook as just a fun website to network with friends. I am having difficulty embracing the fact that people (aka USA Today) are considering Facebook groups and events as credible sources.  

Second, I can not sit here and mention this article without expressing my disdain for the idea of weapons being carried on campus. Students should not need a gun to feel safe. Sitting in my large biology lecture class this afternoon I could not even begin to contemplate the pain and anguish the students of Northern Illinois and Virginia Tech went through. Watching those news stories on television petrified me as I went to class the next day. However, I would feel far more scared if I had to sit in that same biology lecture class and look at the gun sitting in the holster of the guy sitting next to me. What is keeping him from grabbing it and shooting me dead? Nothing. So yes, some students may feel more protected, but I certainly would not. That’s just one more set of bullets flying around if something like Northern Illinois happened here on the Plains at Auburn University.

This is the third time I have read about Facebook in a news article this week. I guess we as public relations practitioners need to start embracing the fact that our publics are on Facebook, MySpace, etc. The 11,000 people in the group to carry concealed weapons are the public of a legislator, for example, who is trying to push a concealed weapons bill. Yes, most Facebook groups are a joke, but the rest of them are categorizing our publics into special interest groups and doing the work for us.

After reading a blog post by: http://pop-pr.blogspot.com/2008/01/question-of-community.html I had one of those “Ah ha this further proves that the books I study in class are wayyyyy old” moments. Jeremy Pepper points out that social media is a form of community relations.

 This goes back to the idea that anyone can be an “expert” online. Anyone can join an online community and voice their opinions. PR professionals need to start embracing the idea that online communities need to be included under community relations.

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More people other than social media experts and moms are beginning to catch the blogging bug. In the wake of the tornado disaster at Union University, the school has found that blogging and social media is the best way to update it’s students. This is an excellent example of analyzing your public (college students) and finding the best way to reach them (facebook and a blog).

The blog contains a daily update from the president of the university and all of the latest news students want to know. By having an updated blog every day the university is avoiding rumor, panic, and speculation.

Most students spend the majority of their time online, so this is by far the best way to get them pertinent information. Great job Union University! I can only hope that Auburn will follow…we are still struggling with an alert system!

Tyson Hall is a nursing student here at Auburn University and very proud of his girlfriend, Jamie Langley. Jamie is the current Miss Alabama and competed in Miss America last week. In this video we see the another side of the pageant world: the pageant boyfriend!

Scott’s chapter on social networking was dead on. As a college student who checks Facebook a million times a day, I see social networking as an even more relevant marketing tool for today’s young adults.

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Earlier in my blog posts I complained about how Scott talked about pod-casts, but never really said what they were or how to create one. How silly I was to think he would not cover this!

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The “new rules” of news releases definitely hit home with me. This week I have really been working hard on my final project and I took some time to meet with my client, the Alabama Community Healthy Marriage Initiative. ACHMI is an $8.2 million project to educate the residents of Alabama on healthy marriages and healthy families.

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I found Scott’s “new rules for reaching the media” chapter very refreshing. Most of my teachers prior to this class have just been teaching me how to write a general “spam” news release. They have only said that you need to make it newsworthy and something a journalist would want to pay attention to. However, what I find newsworthy about my company more than likely won’t be to the journalist, so I need to make it newsworthy.

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I really liked chapter 12 of Scott’s book because it amazes me how many communications and public relations practitioners do an awful job with writing for their buyers. I am always baffled at all of the jargon and fancy words that I see when reading reviews or descriptions of products online, which is why I laughed so hard when I read that he calls those words gobbledygook.

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