Kelly and I recently sat down to reflect on our experience at the Ragan Social Media Boot Camp and to provide a few tips for businesses and organizations striving to create a social media presence.

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As a recent college grad, I am all too aware of the bleak job market. In the months leading up to my graduation, I spent every spare second I had scouring the Internet for jobs. Despite my determination, I had no luck finding an ideal position directly out of school and opted to intern during the summer. But my search never ceased and my career aspirations came true this October when I joined the Largemouth team as account coordinator. Here’s what I’ve learned though my job-hunting experience!

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As a new intern at Largemouth, I’ve been given the opportunity to re-evaluate myself as a pre-professional by setting some goals for my internship. I’m not going to tell you the usual clichés like how I’d like to “break out of my shell” or “go above and beyond.” I do desire these things, but I also prefer to keep my goals practical.

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By now you've probably heard of Pinterest, or at least seen Pinterest content shared across a range of other popular social media channels. You may even have an account. But if you aren't familiar, Pinterest is essentially an online bulletin board where users can create categorized boards and "pin" – or bookmark – related images and videos from websites or uploads. They can also "repin" and share pins from other users. 

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Reaching the masses on social media seems like an easy thing to do. Facebook has more than 800 million active users, with more than 50 percent of them logging in every day, Twitter claims 300 million.

But, while these vast user populations may represent great opportunity for the consumer-facing side of the business world, their translation into the business-facing community remains a bit unclear.

In judging the value of participation in this forum, BtoB marketers and decision makers often see two sides to the debate:

1. A complete lack of presence could reflect poorly on a company – especially in a BtoB world where staying “ahead of the curve” is everything.

2. With indistinct analytics, lead-generation value and return on investment, how can a budding BtoB company justify the expenses and time commitments associated with maintaining a social presence?

Furthermore, those businesses that go with door #1, often quickly become frustrated with their results, and fall back into door #2, unable to justify the investment.

I personally believe that with social media, you get what you put in. So, I’ll bring this discussion back to the bare bones of PR. Our overarching professional theme – know your audience – doesn’t magically disappear when thrown into the realm of social media...

 

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Be honest, when was the last time you took a step back from your hectic workspace and set aside a few moments to reorganize? Probably around six months ago when you caught the spring cleaning bug, right? For your sanity – and those around you during the holidays – here are five things you probably shouldn't put off until next spring.

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At the close of an infamous week marked by both an earthquake and a hurricane, I'm relieved to have missed the biggest disaster of all; the Twitter fail whale that arises from too many tweets and prevents users from viewing the site. Lately, every major event has further proven of the importance of Twitter as an instantaneous news source and an arena for completely unfiltered commentary and interaction. But as social media's role shifts to further evolve into a news platform and society's reliance on social media for disaster preparedness and awareness continues to grow, can popular platforms' systems keep up with the flow of information?

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So, the Facebook announcement was pretty awesome, as promised. Beyond the group chat capabilities, new chat design – and yes, even beyond the Skype video calling integration – if we look at this announcement with a public relations lens, there are a few awesome tips to take away from the work of the Mark Zuckerberg team to see how a company press conference can overshadow something like the White House’s first-ever presidential “Twitter Town Hall.”

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Conventional PR wisdom will tell you that you can’t force something to “go viral.” Sure, you can make every effort to produce content that is hilarious, meaningful, catchy, valuable, or just so very cool that people want to share it with their friends. But no matter how real it gets in the Whole Foods parking lot, or how many dance parties take place in Apple stores, you truly cannot control what catches on and what doesn’t.

But sometimes a client offers a deal so amazing it takes on a life of its own, as was the case with the deal Kangaroo Express offered its guests: Pay $6.99 for a reusable cup, refill it with fountain or frozen beverages as many times as you like at any of the 1,600+ locations throughout the Southeast – all summer long.

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For most N.C. natives, like me, summer's humid 90-degree days are often an unwelcomed familiarity. This summer, however, has gotten off to a dramatically different start. Instead of relaxing pool side like many college students, I am interning at the corporate office of Raleigh's fast-paced, high-energy PR agency Largemouth Communications. Read More

It's that time of year...March Madness is here! But instead of drafting a blog entry that underscores my passion for college basketball or shares my bracket perspectives to help others claim victory in NCAA pools this year...I'll shift to a different discussion on March Madness - Charlie Sheen.

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At Largemouth, we understand the importance of considering legal ramifications of all types of communication and PR, which is why I decided to take part in a webinar titled, "How To Avoid Legal Pitfalls with Your PR Initiatives."

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While former UNC basketball player Donald Williams may be known for his three-point shooting, the autograph session Largemouth held at a Kangaroo Express in Chapel Hill last week was a slam dunk.

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Some people love flying and others hate it. I am of the latter but do it all the time anyway.

On a recent flight back to Raleigh-Durham International I had the pleasure of sitting next to an instructor of airplane maintenance. As we flew he educated me on many of the mechanical processes of the plane, especially during the take off and landing. This knowledge helped me relax as I learned that the buzzing noise wasn't the plane falling apart. Simply having the instructor on board also gave me a sense of security; if anything bad happened I knew there was someone besides the pilot that would know what to do.

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A client recently expressed curiosity into what social media sites like Digg and del.icio.us are all about. Wanting to be thorough, I did some research into how - and if - companies should use the sites as well as how they could potentially fit into a public relations strategy. I felt my conclusions were worth sharing.

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Facebook is at the forefront of discussion about social media. Clients want pages, fans, wall posts, etc. But how do you distinguish between the noise and real results on your fan page?

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I follow my favorite stores on Twitter for alerts about sales and find out nightly restaurant drink specials through Facebook. Truly, social media is at the forefront of B2C PR. But don’t forget that social media has an increasingly important role in B2B as well. What should you and your B2B client know about social media?

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To learn how to take full advantage of our snazzy Flip Video HD camcorder, Kelly, Alex, Clarisse and I attended a Business Wire "Meet the Media" lunch yesterday that discussed how to add video to maximize reach, exposure and pick up. The three speakers on the panel were (left to right):

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Sitting at my graduation from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I saw hundreds of talented 20-somethings ready to tackle the real world. As a graduate of the public relations sequence, I know I saw things through a different lens, but I was still reminded that despite all the news stories (written by journalists, by the way), about how the news industry is failing, we still need journalists. In fact, with limited resources, we need better journalists now than ever before.

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