I probably stopped using twitter about six months ago because it can be kind of exhausting. The thing with Twitter is to be relevant you can’t just tweet once a day. Your tweet would go virtually unnoticed if you do. You have to continually tweet because if someone is following you plus 300 other people your one tweet would just keep getting pushed further back on their screen and they would have to search you if they wanted to see you lousy one tweet a day.

I think that for businesses Twitter can be a handy tool to announce sales/discounts/product launches/events. However, if a business is going to Twitter it must commit to it for Twitter to be a successful media for them. A person needs to be tweeting throughout the day as well as searching out other people to follow thereby increasing their online presence. They need to posting status updates by the hour!

So tweet to your hearts content because the more you tweet the more twitter relevant you will become!

I got my first smart phone about four months ago. I decided that I needed one just so I could stay up to date with my emails though out the day because I am rarely home. However, I am second guessing that decision bc it means that people can get ahold of me ALL THE TIME… it is almost like you can never leave work at work because work is on your phone and therefore always with you. In fact, I had a student this semester inform me of their disappointment in the fact that it took me 12 hours to respond to  an email bc they knew I had an Iphone and therefore saw the email right away…. SERIOUSLY???

Don’t get me wrong what this thing can do is incredible.. but it is also kind of scary.. from apps that can control things in your house, to buy your groceries it is almost like people can be less responsible for their lives bc their smart phone will handle it. It becomes a miniature personal assistant. I am interested to see what they will make this thing do next!

However, all of this free labor has not been without reward. I have spent hours upon hours crafting brilliantly clever press releases only to have them returned to me covered in red ink and demanding to be re-written. I now feel pretty confident in my ability to write a solid press release that at the very least gets the job done- but wait now you are telling me I have to learn a whole new way of doing press releases….

Well, the good news is online press releases or social media releases online (whatever you prefer to call them) aren’t that difficult to do and can be super efficient and super effective (two things crucial to a gal trying to make it in the big bad world of PR). These online press releases do more than the average press release. They also have the ability to provide tags or links within the copy. The benefit of this is you can actually drive your audience to your website when they are reading your release. Press releases become much more dynamic this way.

These online gold-mines of information also can provide a conversational like quality in them. You can answer the questions of your audience and they can also interact with one another REMEMBER when your customers become your brand ambassadors it is one of the greatest forms of advertising!

So for those of you who are like me and are used to writing press releases the old-fashioned way -GET OVER IT! Online press releases are here to stay and can take your business, your event, your product to a much wider audience!

I have mixed feelings about Youtube. I think it is an amazing technology with awesome capabilities. I do love the feeling of virtual community it can provide. The fact that people who might not ever see one another can share tidbits of their life or a funny video they saw with one another is, lets face it, pretty awesome. I also like the fact that Youtube takes on the same type of community building aspects like a forum does. People from all over can unite about certain issue or simply unite in an effort to feel less alone. However, this virtual community can form a problem. I think its great that people want to share love with the world and generate a sense of oneness and equality. However, would we perhaps be better served if this people took their love campaigns off the net and out onto the streets. Don’t get me wrong the power of the internet to change peoples lives is wonderful, but I don’t think people should just stop there. Personally, I don’t believe that making righteous statements on the net and claiming you want to change the world does a whole heck of a lot of good unless you also take that attitude OUT into the world.

Now, I’m not knocking the power of Youtube to make people feel less lonely, BUT wouldn’t these people feel a whole lot less lonely if they embraces their physical, tangible community as well? Don’t hate me it was just a thought.

Like I said, Youtube is awesome and quite often hilarious but lets not replace community with virtual community at least not permanently!

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For those super serious about podcasts, particularly listening to them, you may download a podcatcher will will automatically download new podcasts from where you tell it to. MP3 files are some of the most commonly used type of audio files for podcasts. However, be warned not all MP3 files are allowed to be turned into podcasts. What I mean is that just because you are an Itunes user and purchase songs does not mean that you own these songs or are allowed to upload them into a podcast -this is illegal!

Podcasts are great for sound clips, NPR or even some webshows. There are a variety of things you can do with podcasts once you master their use- a process I am still working on.

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Well I attempted it and will let you know. First, various definitions of forums appear, but as we all know from Sherri and Terri’s lovely presentation a forum is essentially a type of online bulletin boards. They offer user-generated content, and it is an online discussion site.

What else appears you might ask? Another website appears called Big Boards  http://www.big-boards.com/. This site claims to be connect you to the largest forums and message boards on the web. Do I believe them? Actually, I do. If you are interested in forums this might be a great place to go to. It allows you to search using key words or categories and find forums related to your interests! It also provides you with lists to some of the most popular forums around: from gaming forums to forums about speaking Dutch. This site has just about every type of forum you could imagine (Rating PG 13, children beware it also includes some raunchy forums as well).

I think that forums are a great way for communities to communicate about key issues. If people have concerns about the school system or education then a forum is an excellent way start a call to action. Forums can also be beneficial for people that don’t live near one another. People can learn from one another regardless of geographic boundaries.

What about an organization? This might be risky, but for the brave at heart an organization could create a forum to communicate with their clients and more accurately serve the client.

All in all, I am a fan of forums. Whatever you might use them for, I think they are an excellent means of communicating. It is perhaps one of my favorite social medias!

Some people also refer to social media as viral marketing. Regardless of what you call it, it is here and important to know how to use. I am not saying that social media will replace all forms of marketing/pr, but it is a nice supplement to them. Social media is not the wave of the future, it is the wave of the present. So log on and start learning because knowing the ins and outs of different forms of social media can be the difference in a successful and unsuccessful organization.

People need to reconsider what they think of as social. Social does not have to mean in a room full of people it can be in a chatroom full of people.  I personally utilize facebook and twitter. I also plan on signing on to linked in one of these days. Between those three and blogging keeping up with my online life can get pretty time consuming. I suggest for an organization planning on utilizing social media to set aside a certain amount of time in the morning and then perhaps again at the end of the day to manage their accounts. This is a good day to get buzz out or send out new information at the start of the day and then respond to feedback or send out updated info at the end of the day without spending your entire day checking for updates. Setting aside specific times for social networking can also make sure that it gets done everyday without consuming your day!

Now, I would just like to share a little tid bit about my self. I am obsessed with the winter olympics. All of it-every sport. I am snowboarding around my house, lugeing in the bathtub and skating everywhere. Here is a little video of my favorite snowboarder and fellow red-head Shaun White on my other favorite’s , Ellen D. show. I am currently searching for clips of hum from his outrageous snowboarding last night and will promptly share them!