Jan. 27, 2010
Preston Parker
President of the Social Media Club of Cache Valley
851 N. Main St., Logan UT 84321
661-772-7537
A Social Media Club in Cache Valley
The newly organized Social Media Club of Cache Valley will be holding a meeting for all who are interested the second Tuesday in February at Borders in Logan.
The purpose of the SMCCV is to get people together that have the same interests in social media to learn from each other, socialize and get new ideas.
The club is growing fast and has meetings every second Tuesday in the month.
“I see our future very promising, we hope to become a non-profit organization with sponsors that will help our club afford dinner events and eventually a conference”
If you have any interest in learning how the social media is influencing local and national businesses, public relations, or even just everyday socializing become a member of the SMCCV online and come to the monthly meetings.
Hillary Searle
PR Director of the SMCCV
1651 North 400 East #231, Logan UT, 84341
801-400-8078
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
The Influence of Social Media in Public Relations
Dave Carroll vs. United Airlines
Millions of people have heard songs written by the musician Dave Carroll. For those of you who haven’t heard of him don’t bother listening for his songs on the radio or looking for his CD at Wal-Mart because you won’t find him there. Dave Carroll is famous because of his YouTube music videos. Thanks to social media Dave has been able to use his talents to publically vent, so to speak. Let me explain, in the spring of 2008 Dave and his Taylor guitar made a trip on a United Airlines airplane to Nebraska. While waiting for takeoff Dave witnessed his guitar being thrown around by baggage handlers and later discovered that his $3,500 guitar had been damaged. After 9 months of failed attempts to get United to at least pay for his guitar repair he told them that he would release a series of 3 songs about what happened and post them on YouTube. Carroll invited United to “sit back and enjoy the show” as he posted the first video and watched as his video went viral.
Dave Carroll used his creativity to boost his own public relations and shatter United’s. After the company has lost an estimated $180 million they finally tried to contact Carroll to see if they could pay him to take his videos down. He came out with a response on YouTube that politely said it was too late and that if they wanted to give money to a charity that would be appreciated. United reportedly did donate $3,000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz for music education for children, eventually. I fear that for the PR department of United Airlines, this was a little too late. In the words of One Republic, “it’s too late to apologize,” United. The damage has been done. Over 7 million people have heard Dave Carroll’s story and had the chance to listen to his talents and laugh at his movie. My personal opinion is that Dave made a very wise PR move in making this video because not only did he get his point across, he also got his name and music out there. Dave is now on tour and has been on many talk shows; this gave him the opportunity to live his dream.
Social Media such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have become outlets for people to say what they want in creative ways and get their point across. It is so powerful because it can reach countless numbers of people across the world in such short amounts of time. Companies can use these outlets for their benefit but need to make sure that they are also publically addressing the negative social media.
PR has reached a whole new level with social networking and social media. It is very important as a PR professional to realize that social media can make or break an individual or a company and that it is their responsibility to make sure that they know how to use this power for the benefit of their companies.
Millions of people have heard songs written by the musician Dave Carroll. For those of you who haven’t heard of him don’t bother listening for his songs on the radio or looking for his CD at Wal-Mart because you won’t find him there. Dave Carroll is famous because of his YouTube music videos. Thanks to social media Dave has been able to use his talents to publically vent, so to speak. Let me explain, in the spring of 2008 Dave and his Taylor guitar made a trip on a United Airlines airplane to Nebraska. While waiting for takeoff Dave witnessed his guitar being thrown around by baggage handlers and later discovered that his $3,500 guitar had been damaged. After 9 months of failed attempts to get United to at least pay for his guitar repair he told them that he would release a series of 3 songs about what happened and post them on YouTube. Carroll invited United to “sit back and enjoy the show” as he posted the first video and watched as his video went viral.
Dave Carroll used his creativity to boost his own public relations and shatter United’s. After the company has lost an estimated $180 million they finally tried to contact Carroll to see if they could pay him to take his videos down. He came out with a response on YouTube that politely said it was too late and that if they wanted to give money to a charity that would be appreciated. United reportedly did donate $3,000 to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz for music education for children, eventually. I fear that for the PR department of United Airlines, this was a little too late. In the words of One Republic, “it’s too late to apologize,” United. The damage has been done. Over 7 million people have heard Dave Carroll’s story and had the chance to listen to his talents and laugh at his movie. My personal opinion is that Dave made a very wise PR move in making this video because not only did he get his point across, he also got his name and music out there. Dave is now on tour and has been on many talk shows; this gave him the opportunity to live his dream.
Social Media such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have become outlets for people to say what they want in creative ways and get their point across. It is so powerful because it can reach countless numbers of people across the world in such short amounts of time. Companies can use these outlets for their benefit but need to make sure that they are also publically addressing the negative social media.
PR has reached a whole new level with social networking and social media. It is very important as a PR professional to realize that social media can make or break an individual or a company and that it is their responsibility to make sure that they know how to use this power for the benefit of their companies.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Letter to Cousin
Dear Andy,
In your last letter you asked what Public Relations is and why I want to work in PR. The definition of Public Relations varies depending on who you ask, it even varies when you ask people who practice PR. In my opinion Public Relations is the part of the company that works with both the company owners and the customers to find out what the customers needs are and what the company can do to increase their positive reputation among them. Public Relations helps the company get their name out in the market using techniques such as press releases, social networking, and news stories. I hope that I will be able to work for the Utah Jazz someday and be able to run their Public Relations. I had the opportunity to go to a Jazz scrimmage last October that was free and open to the public. During this scrimmage the Jazz took footage of fans and players for commercials and advertising. This event was put on by the PR department of the Utah Jazz and the whole time I just thought of how awesome it would be to have a job that you can make fans happy and still provide good marketing for the team. According to Public Relations Writing: Form & Style, written by Doug Newsom and Jim Haynes good public relations requires communication skills, expertise in dealing with news media and a knowledge of mass communication, the dynamics of public opinion and the principles of persuasion. I feel like I have the potential to really do well in this growing field and am excited to learn more about it everyday. If you have any other questions let me know! Thanks so much. Hope to hear from you again soon.
-Hillary
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