Blog and Connect with Public Relations Conference Attendees

I hope this post is a good resource for students and professionals attending Otterbein College’s public relations conference on Saturday. It should also be helpful for those searching for blogs of Columbus locals and professionals in public relations, media and similar industries. Please let me know if I accidentally left you out and I would be happy to add you. Here is a list of presenters and attendees who blog and are attending #ocpartners:

• Gina Bericchia
• Hannah DeMilta
• Rachel Esterline
• Walker Evans
• John Henderson
• Katelin Mantey
• Leah Moon
• Jeff Niesel
• Rebecca Odell
• Crystal Olig
• Nate Riggs
• Evan Roberts
• Kelsey Sommers
• Ryan Squire
• Mikinzie Stuart
• Rocky VanBrimmer
• Heather Whaling

Attending PRSSA Chapters’ Blogs:

• Kent State
• Ohio University
• Otterbein College

Collaborating Across Generations for Better Social Networking

I want to give a huge thank you to Tyler Durbin for allowing me to be part of his Gen-Y guest post series yesterday. Each week, an exceptional Gen-Yer will share their thoughts, insights and lessons learned from their “journey” at www.genyjourney.com. My video guest post is about what I’ve been calling the “Gen Y Disconnect” – Gen Y knows how to use social media tools, but are they using social networking and meeting new people online?

Click here to see my (first ever!) guest video post on Gen Y Journey, “Collaborating Across Generations for Better Social Networking.”

Creator of Gen Y Journey: Tyler Durbin

If you haven’t connected with Tyler yet, you definitely should. He’s an enthusiastic Gen-Yer who has successfully developed a blog that is a model for young people to use for guidance when they are making decisions and embarking on their professional career. Tyler’s passion, knowledge and willingness to help others learn makes him a leader I look up to.

Social Media Conference: Tips, Tools and Takeaways

I could write a book on all the things that I learned at YouToo, a social media conference I attended on Friday hosted by Akron PRSA and Kent State PRSSA. However, I wanted to share just a few tips I learned, tools I heard about and a few personal takeaways from the conference. I apologize in advance for my paraphrasing, which does not do the excellent speakers justice.

Tips:

You want to your fans to interrupt their friends on social media to tell them about you. Social media can get people to sell your product for you. (via Kyle Lacy)

A creative idea for a small business or nonprofit running a social media contest is to offer a guest post spot for their business as a prize on your blog. (via Heather Whaling)

Proactive crisis communications means already having your own brand established and addressing potential concerns to counteract what special interest groups or critics are saying. (via Barbara Paynter)

If your job is social media monitoring – don’t drown in the data. Signal out what is important and relevant. (via Phil Gomes)

You have to have trust and let go in social media. You can’t control your brand. If you try to take the language of the board room (the way your company talks about the brand) into the “living room” (the way people actually talk about your brand in the social media space), you’ll sound like a robot. You have to adjust to how people are talking about you in the social media space to be relevant and searchable. (via Phil Gomes)

There is no one-size fits all when it comes to using social media for media relations. Each journalist will have personal usage and preferences. (via Misty Fry)

89% of journalists are using blogs or story research. Be a resource and make their job easier. (via Misty Fry)

If a blogger is writing a product review or about your company, don’t give them suggested key words or content. Let them write in their own voice. Established bloggers want deeper relationships than product reviews and giveaways. (via Allison Peltz)

Bloggers are consumers first – make your pitch relevant and think about how your company relates to their audience. Customize each and every pitch. (via Allison Peltz)

Tools:

Advanced twitter search. Great for finding tweets within a certain location.

Heather Whaling’s presentation. Great resources for small businesses.

“Socialize” news. Use pitchengine or presskit’n.

Use TurnSocial to maximize the opportunity to engage your website traffic.

Use HowSociable? for brand visibility metrics.

Takeaways:

One thing that was interesting to me throughout the conference was how different presenters had varying takes on similar topics. This reinforced for me the idea is that there is no one right way to do things on social media – much depends on personal philosophy and your brand. It is important to attend conferences like YouToo with an open mind and ask how your brand could be better by listening to the advice of those who have achieved some level of success using social tools. It’s also great to be updated – “change or die.”

One of the best things about attending YouToo was getting to connect with Rebecca Odell, who I had heard wonderful things about and connected with on social media, but had not yet met in person. It’s refreshing when someone’s online persona is as genuine as their one offline. Rebecca did a fabulous job promoting this conference via social media (which is how I found out about it) and she was sweet for introducing me to people she knew at the conference. I’m looking forward to seeing her again at a conference for communication students and pros this weekend in Columbus, #ocpartners.

If you attended YouToo, I’d love to hear what your takeaways were. Also, please correct me if any of my paraphrasing misrepresents the speakers – I was taking notes as fast as I could, but I know there might be some discrepancies.

Best Of: A Rock Star Grad

My “Best Of” series will be interviews with some of my favorite people. Since you are reading my blog, you are probably one of my favorite people, so just e-mail me if you are interested in being interviewed.

Kaitlin M. Smith

Today I interviewed one of my best friends, Kaitlin M. Smith, a public relations student who is working and living in Columbus, Ohio and will graduate from Otterbein College with a degree in organizational communications with minors in public relations and art in June.

Kaitlin is incredibly modest and would never tell you quite how great she is, so I will. She is smart, funny and even a little sassy once you get to know her! She is one of the most observant people I know and very thorough in all she does. She likes to work behind the scenes and is currently working hard to help plan OC Partners Conference.  She has a big heart, enjoys doing things for others and loves people for who they are without judgment. Here are some of her thoughts about her world…

What is an experience or situation that taught you something about you as a person? What did you discover or learn?

My first internship experience at Big Brothers Big Sisters. I was given the chance to work independently and that gave me the opportunity to learn who I was as an individual because I was used to always playing the role of a big sister, girlfriend, friend, student or daughter and this was the first time I thought about what I wanted as a person. It was just all me, working with good people I had never met before and enjoying using the skills I learned while working for a good cause. They provided me with the opportunity to achieve a lot and accomplish a lot. I was going through a break-up at the time and it was hard, but my experience gave me the confidence to stand up for myself and do what was best for me.

What is one challenge you are facing as a Gen Y student about to graduate? How do you plan to overcome it?

I guess I’m still trying to figure out my purpose in life. I have an idea of what I want to do with my degree, but I am still unsure where life will take me outside the comfort of college. I’m pretty independent, but losing the comfort of Otterbein will be a bit of a challenge.

Gen Y has a lot of choices and it is hard to figure out whether I should stay versatile or focus on one specialization. I overcome challenges with the support of my friends, family and mentors, but I try to take things day by day.

What are you passionate about? What sparked that passion and how do you live to help grow your passion?

Nonprofit work is my passion, as far as my career goes, but I also love sports! I have felt fulfilled by the nonprofit work I have done with the Mid-Ohio Foodbank, kids and community leadership. I try to stay aware of nonprofit causes and would like to do more volunteer work. I’m also passionate about and appreciate creativity.

“Appreciative Inquiry,” is something I’m becoming passionate about that I’m learning in class. It’s focusing on the positive in what you do and focusing on your strengths rather than on the problem.  I have been trying to focus on the positive more in all situations of my life.

If you could be anyone else for a day, who would you be and why?

I would love to be a sports community relations professional. It doesn’t matter who or for what team, but that would encourage both my passion for sports and nonprofits and working with the community. I played lots of sports in high school and that would probably be my dream job. I like how sports can bond a community.