Never Stop Learning, Part 2

Friday afternoon I had the opportunity to attend Internfest, an event for public relations interns in New York City hosted by the Council of PR Firms and Fleishman-Hillard. There were about 100 interns there from 14 different firms, all eager for advice about entering the job market. The event consisted of two panels and a session with a recruiter from APCO Worldwide, Jessica Lee. The panel speakers discussed what they like about public relations, how they got into the field, and their recommendations for those of us looking to land that coveted entry-level position (check out my post on Pepperdigital about our discussion on social media).

It was especially interesting to hear from a recruiter and learn a little bit more about what they're truly looking for. One of the first things Jessica said, and this shouldn't surprise any of you, is that when she gets an application one of the first things she does is Google the candidate. This reinforces how important it is to always be aware of what is said about you on the Internet, whether it's on one of your own personal sites or otherwise. She also recommended five sites that anyone trying to build a personal brand should be active on: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, VisualCV, and Google profile. I was proud to realize I'm on four of the five sites (task for today: set up my VisualCV).

Jessica equated establishing a personal brand to the way companies establish their brand. After asking for successful brands that resonate with us, she recommended we figure out how to turn ourselves into a Target or a Starbucks. I also liked her point about building our brand even when we're straight out of school and don't have much experience to reference. "Think of Paris Hilton," she said. She is the perfect example of someone who has built her brand based on basically nothing. Does anyone really know what she's famous for? Probably not. Is she a household name? Absolutely.

I definitely enjoyed hearing from the speakers and was so inspired by meeting successful people in the industry as well as my fellow interns. Now to go work on that Visual CV of mine...

Twitter Does it Again

I've been contemplating all week if I should write something about the whole Twitter/CNN situation but haven't yet because I (a) just haven't had the time and (b) don't feel the need to "re-invent the blog post" so to speak, since there are so many great articles out there already (check out The Power of Twitter, written by a PepperDigital co-worker, or scan through the latest New York Times articles - there are new ones every day!).

The bottom line is that Twitter has once again made a huge impact on current affairs, and continues to beat out traditional news as a means of communication. We saw this a few months ago with the first pictures of the U.S. Airways crash being posted to Twitter before they made it to a broadcast news station. Today, Twitter once again "beat out" traditional news with the quickest updates on a story that hit close to home for me. Or should I say, close to my old home.

Having gone to the University of Georgia, I fell in love with the sweet little town of Athens over the last four years. Athens, affectionately known as "the Classic City," has an amazing downtown scene with tons of old buildings and hundreds of years of history. There are so many landmarks around the town that are well-known and loved by students and locals alike, but today there is one less.

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was check my e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook like I do every morning (okay, after I hit the snooze about 4 times - Fridays are rough). One of the first tweets I saw was about the Georgia Theater catching fire. WHAT?? I was immediately wide awake and began frantically searching the news for more information. (For those of you who don't know, the Georgia Theater is an old movie theater in downtown Athens that was converted into the most popular music venue in Athens, with headliners like R.E.M., Widespread Panic and other Athens legends over the years.)

I first did a Google News search to see what was going on... which gave me frustratingly few details (the theater caught fire this morning, more information to come..).  So, I posted a question to Twitter...

... and within minutes had responses from complete strangers filling me in on what had happened.  All morning, people have been posting live updates, pictures and videos.  Even now, there are few details to be found on traditional news outlets but Athenians continue to post the latest snippets of news on their Twitter feeds.  

When the U.S. Airways crash happened, people started saying that "it would only be a matter of time" before citizen journalism truly overtakes traditional media.  Where do we officially draw that line? Did it start to happen with the Twitter picture of the U.S. Airways plane down in the Hudson River? Can I say today, since I have relied solely on Twitter and have stopped bothering checking the local news sites, that Twitter has actually taken over? Or what about the situation in Iran, where citizens there can only rely on this one means of communication and all others are blocked? When will people stop saying it is "going to happen" and realize it is actually happening before our eyes?

Takeover of Twitter

When I first joined Twitter back in September, I had no idea what I was getting into.  I was participating in UGA's Connect Conference which featured a "social media boot camp" and many influential speakers from the world of public relations and social media.  One of the first things everyone did was set up a Twitter account, and although I had never heard of it I quickly got the hang of it and was live tweeting the conference in no time.  And so the obsession began...

It took me a few months to really get into it, but once I started following all of my PR friends (they seemed to be the only people who knew about it) from classes I got hooked.  It was an easy way to communicate with everyone and as addicting as Facebook.  I also started following PR professionals and news services, thus turning Twitter into an educational tool as much as anything.  But while Twitter became immensely popular with the PR people I knew, my "normal" friends still had no idea what it was.  I can't begin to tell you how many times I had to explain Twitter, and even once I did I usually got blank stares or questions along the line of... "so what's the point?".  

Fast-forward to now, almost a year later.  My "normal" friends from other majors have started popping up on Twitter.  It's all over the news.  I'm even doing Twitter searches at work as part of a daily monitor.  When did Twitter become cool? My friends that didn't understand it three months ago and thought it was weird/"stalkerish" are now jumping on the bandwagon! It's funny to see these social media trends evolve, and it's even funnier to tell my previously skeptical friends, "I told you so!"

A year ago, Facebook was the hottest thing in social media with people my age, and started the "stalker" element that Twitter has continued.  Everyone has had the experience of starting to tell their friend something they did over the weekend, only to be cut off by "I know, I saw your pictures on Facebook."  Now it's not so much this as, "Yea, I saw your Tweet about that." Is Twitter becoming more popular than Facebook?

According to this article on TechCrunch, Facebook is still "worth" much more than Twitter, and therefore has a bigger following and more popularity.  However, I can't help but wonder if in a year from now Facebook will be long gone (like Livejournal... anyone remember that craze?) and Twitter will still be around.

At Least They're Getting Social Media Right

As someone who is planning to move to NYC in the near future, I've been trying to follow the MTA fare hike votes as closely as those already living in the city.  Yesterday, the plan was approved to raise single rides from $2 to $2.50, and monthly MetroCard passes from $81 to $103.  These changes will go into effect on May 31st, and the Metro-North Railroad and L.I.R.R. will also see rate increases starting June 1st.  There will also be service cuts, which 

will likely cause even more crowding on busses and subways (is that possible?).  

According to the New York Times, these will be the most sweeping service cuts since the city’s fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s. Only once before in the 105-year history of the subway have fares risen two years in a row (fares last increased in March 2008).  These higher fees and service cutbacks are intended to help MTA with the $1.2 billion deficit it is currently facing. 

After reading a few articles on the topic, I posted this comment to Twitter:

Within 30 seconds, I had an email in my inbox notifying me that "NYC MTA Alerts" is now following me on Twitter.  Wow.  Upon further investigation, I realized the Twitter feed provides up-to-the-minute service updates, and never actually mentioned anything about the fare hikes.  However, I was still impressed with how quickly my tweet was detected (maybe it's automated? is there even a way to do that?).  

Well, slightly impressed.  Not enough to make up for the extra $22 I'll be spending every month to get around town.

Tweet Tweet

I feel like every few weeks, I post randomly about something cool I've found on Twitter... so in keeping with the that trend, here is one of my newest discoveries.

I've seen a few blog posts and tweets in the last few days about Twitter Mosaic (Dr. Karen Russell & Bert DuMars just as a few examples).  This tool is pretty self-explanatory, here is my Twitter Mosaic:

Get your twitter mosaic here.

Whenever I see things like this, I can't help but wonder (sorry, techie Carrie Bradshaw moment) what people will think of next.  Sure, it's cool to see a big mosaic of all the people who follow me on Twitter, but who sat down and developed this application?  I can't even begin to count how many times, when I mention Twitter, people ask "but... what's the point?".  There are so many useful things you can use Twitter for, but things like Twitter Mosaic prove that for each useful tool there is a pointless one (Tweet Like a Pirate... seriously?).  

I actually googled applications and toys for Twitter, and was shocked at how many hits came up.  There are hundreds of thousands of blog posts, wikis, and articles about different applications but the best resource I came up with is the Twitter Fan Wiki, which has a comprehensive list of desktop applications, web applications, and mobile applications.  You can also click here to see Twitter downloads available.

Oh Twitter, you never cease to amaze me.