I don't mean to brag... but since this is my first inclusion in something like this, I think I'm entitled Click here for the full article: 25 PR Pros to Follow Right Now

I have found that some of the most successful people have a knowledge and background in multiple areas of discipline, not just their own. So, in an effort to sharpen my communications skills, and become a better public relations professional, I have decided to earn a Certificate in Marketing from UC Berkeley. The program is comprised of six courses, four required core classes, and two elective courses. Tonight, was the first required class - Introduction to Marketing.

I am the only PR person in the class. The background of the students is primarily in engineering and science. It will be an extremely interesting Summer session!
The textbook: Perreault, Cannon, and McCarthy, Essentials of Marketing Irwin, 11th Edition, 2008. The Professor: Bill Hess

What I learned today...(to be updated after each class)
June 29, 2010

• There are two major components to any new business: Sales and Manufacturing
• There are four marketing components: Product, Price, Promotion and Distribution
• Definition of Marketing: Direct the salesforce in the obtainment of the current year forecast while developing plans and programs for long term growth, consistent with company growth
• The two responsibilities of any marketer: Drive sales this year, while developing plans to do it again next year
• The Five Stages in Marketing Evolution:
  
  • Simple Trade Era: Families trade or sell surplus to middlemen, who resell
  • Production Era: "We make this, you sell it." Founded by Henry Ford. A company focuses on production of a few productions.
  • Sales Era: An emphasis on selling to increase and beat competition.
  • Marketing Department Era: Sell what the consumer wants. All marketing activities are brought under the control of one department. Tie together the company's efforts in research, purchasing, production, shipping and sales.
  • Marketing Company Era: Sell what the consumer wants, and is socially acceptable. Develop plans to guide the direction of the company long-term.

• Marketing Ideas vs. Production Oriented Ideas
  
  • Marketing
    
    • Make what you can sell
    • Think about the needs and satisfaction of your target consumer
    • Watch for new opportunities
    • Think of ways to bring existing customers back
    • Work to build relationships with customers
  • Production Oriented Ideas
    
    • Sell what you can make
    • Think of ways to cut costs
    • Focus on product features
    • Focus on selling vs. coordination with other departments, such as PR
• I am just as nerdy as I was in college.

Next Class: July 6, 2010

Today was my last day at K/F Communications. Working at a boutique public relations agency enabled me to do far more than what was outlined in my job description. For the last three years I've had the opportunity to work on major (and minor) campaigns for some incredibly innovative companies, including: Flock, TwitVid, RowNine, Covia Labs and of course, Digg. For two years I was lucky enough to be half (yes, two people) of the Digg PR account team. Promoting (and protecting) a pioneer in social media was not as easy as everyone assumes it was, but it was just as fun. Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose are not only brilliant entrepreneurs, but also some of the nicest people I've had the pleasure to work for. It's easy to produce great work when you care about your clients.

K/F has been the ideal place to start my career. I actually liken it to dog years. Working three years at K/F is equivalent to five years at a larger agency. How many PR professionals, early in their careers, can say that in one year, they secured three magazine covers, and appeared in a magazine photo spread with one of their clients? (Yupp, that's me, in the teal shirt.)

It's difficult to leave to an agency (and the people!) that have been so good to me, but I know it's the best decision for me right now. I am very excited to start the next chapter of my professional life on June 1st with Bite Communications in San Francisco. What I know so far, is that I will be joining the Hewlett Packard PR account team, working on HP corporate and promoting HP Labs' innovative projects.

So, I say thank you, and goodbye, to the great people I've had the pleasure of working with over the last three years. I know we'll stay in touch, and I look forward to seeing where we all end up.

I consider myself fairly social media savvy. I'm a member of multiple social networks, I'm active on collaborative and location-apps on my iPhone, and I love Farmville. As a PR person in the tech world, my life is online. Recently, however, I've noticed it's become more of a chore than a treat to keep up with it all. But how much is too much? And where can I draw the line to make it fun again?
I've compiled an inventory of my social media activities to help get to the bottom of this:


TWITTER

* A member since May, 2008
* 2,462 tweets
* Average of 10 tweets per day
* Total saved search terms/hashtags: 10
* Sites/Tools used to tweet: twitter.com, HootSuite, TweetDeck and Flock
* Recently removed the Twitter app for Facebook due to the sheer volume of tweets overloading my friends' pages
* I have never gone longer then 48 hours without tweeting
* A tweet has gotten me in trouble


FACEBOOK

* A member since January, 2004
* Separate Facebook updates from Twitter
* Average of two status updates a week
* Push about half of my Farmville alerts to my friends
* Upload photos via phone and desktop
* Pick and choose which photos go up on Facebook vs. uploading everything
* Update my profile image every month or so
* Other than my honeymoon, I have never gone longer than 24 hours without checking it


MEDIA


* I document everything
* Sites/Tools Used: TwitPic, TwitVid, and YouTube
* I have a Shutterfly account that contains every photo I have ever taken with my husband (from our first dates to today). Shutterfly sucks. Unfortunately, I've been using it so long, I don't know when I'd have the time to switch to a better showcase website
* I have a WebShots account (don't laugh) that contains college photos pre Mr. Haines that I will neither delete, nor share with anyone
* I have a harddrive full of photos and videos
* I maintain colorful 24-page photo books/scrapbooks of the major activities to keep on a shelf
* Total places one photograph may be cataloged: 5
* I dream of having a video blog, but I'm too shy to go on camera


iPHONE

* 56 apps
* Apps I use multiple times a day: TweetDeck, Foursquare, Facebook, Yelp, Sudoku, The New York Times
* Favorite app: Cor.kz - scan the UPC label of any wine and get immediate ratings, background, and comparative pricing
* Separate status updates/check-ins I send via my phone for one activity: 5
* I have been reprimanded by a waiter for being on my iPhone at the dinner table... little did he know I was about to promote his restaurant on Foursquare and Twitter...


Writing this has made me exhausted, but has given me a lot to think about. Have you taken an inventory of your social media activities lately?

Also seen in...



By Lacey Haines (@laceyhaines), and Adam Vincenzini (@adamvincenzini)

Social media has created incredible opportunities and challenges for public relations professionals. While the challenges have been well documented, the opportunities that have arisen are just as important. Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, if used effectively, can help build relationships, identify new trends and help facilitate networking with like-minds throughout the industry. One of the most profound and positive developments has been the breaking down of the walls between PR and the media. In one click you can find the most relevant reporters to the story you’re pitching, obtain a better understanding of what they like and what they’re interested in by reading their feed, get a direct link to their blog or website, and network with them via @reply or DM.

But what does the media think about this transparency? Using social media, we asked our press network in the USA and UK how they felt about being pitching on social media sites. While responses were mixed, we noticed some trends.

1) KEEP YOUR PITCHES SHORT: E-mail pitches are still too long, and several people we heard from preferred a 140-character pitch on Twitter, to a traditional one via e-mail.

2) DIRECT MESSAGES ARE BETTER THAN @REPLY: Reporters can’t “opt-in” to pitches, but they can with Twitter. If there is a mutual following between PR people and a reporter, it usually means they know each other, and may welcome a direct message more than a longer e-mail pitch. A reporter for a major US business daily (who asked not to be quoted) said that he only follows PR people he knows or has worked with in the past, and prefers DM to @reply because he wouldn’t want competitors to know who he’s speaking with.

3) TWITTER PITCHES ARE UNIQUE: A journalist for News of the World (UK) said that reporters get hundreds of e-mails a day, but only one or two direct messages, so pitches made through Twitter stand out more. And even if there isn’t a direct relationship in the beginning, pitching on Twitter has helped reporters and PR people build relationships that continue on e-mail.


USA Examples



UK Examples



One of the more detailed responses was courtesy of Martin Stabe, Editor of Retail Week, one of the UK’s leading trade publications:

“For me, Twitter is a place to share ideas and links with like-minded friends and colleagues in online journalism and increasingly, to monitor sources of news and information.

By all means, join our conversation, but don't "pitch" me anything out of the blue unless we already know each other and you know that it's relevant.

I probably follow you if you've joined the conversations I'm part of before, so DM me with your idea, or look up my email and ping something over.

Some of the best relationships - on email and on the phone - I have with PRs are people who I also know on Twitter.”

But not everyone was for social media pitching. A features writer for Style Magazine and a Businessweek editor both said they preferred e-mail to Twitter pitching. And one Brandweek editor said that a big problem with Twitter DMs is that not everyone checks their direct messages often enough. Another trend was that several preferred all Twitter pitches be followed up with an e-mail.

Start building relationships with reporters online, learn what THEY want to write about (vs. what you want them to write about), and your pitches (social media and traditional) will be much more effective.

What has worked for us? [Lacey] After a reporter covers a client of mine, I’ll tweet it out, with their Twitter handle attached. For time sensitive pitches, I’ll @reply the reporter I need to reach and ask for them to follow me so I can DM. I would never do this if I wasn’t positive that my story was relevant to the reporter. This has been very helpful as not only gaining coverage for clients, but building long-term relationships. [Adam] I like the push-pull element of Twitter and the media. If I spot a journalist I follow tweeting about a subject that has links to my client, I can approach that journalist to provide help / assistance. It makes being collaborative a much easier and beneficial process.


**Thank you to Matt Honan (Freelance writer, and WIRED magazine contributing editor), Maggie Shiels (Silicon Valley Correspondent, BBC), Scott McGrew (tech reporter for NBC Bay Area; host of Press:Here, and producer of TechNow), Christina Warren (tech blogger for Mashable), Harry Wallop (Consumer Editor of The Daily Telegraph), Vikki Chowney (Editor of Reputation Online), Leila Makki (Telecom.TV), Chris Milton (veteran independent journalist), Martin Stabe (Editor, Retail Week), Dan Martin (Editor of BusinessZone.co.uk) for agreeing to be quoted for this article.


_____________________________________________________________________________________

Lacey Haines is a PR professional in San Francisco, CA. At K/F Communications, manages the day-to-day activities of her account teams, as well as the long-term PR and social media plans for her clients, which have included Digg, TwitVid, Flock, and RowNine. She met Adam on Twitter. Follow Lacey on Twitter here: @laceyhaines
Adam Vincenzini is the lead social media consultant at Paratus Communications in London where he advises the agency's clients on how to shape communications activity around the end-user / participant. Adam was previously responsible for digital communications at Cricket Australia which included managing the 150,000-strong official fan community of the Australia Cricket Team. Adam blogs regularly at the COMMS corner and can be found on Twitter here: @AdamVincenzini