Kent State Bateman team posting measurable results as campaign wraps up today

The College: RockIt! website and blog

Kent State PR majors returned to the PRSSA Bateman Competition for the first time in 15 years this semester. And boy did they rock it!  Their week-long campaign titled “College: Rock It!” concludes a jammed-packed week of activities designed to make college a priority with — You ready for this? –  12 and 13-year-old kids.

To clarify: Research provided by the client underscores the need to target younger kids vs. high school students, who are simply too far along in the decision-making process.

For you non-PRSSA folks, Bateman is a nationwide competition in which 5-person student teams research, plan and implement PR campaigns on behalf of a real-world client looking for real world results. In Kent, Ohio, that’s exactly what the Consumer Bankers Association got — a real return on their investment. And yes, I do see the irony in that!

LinkedIn and Lame begin with “L” — Coincidence?

Is LinkedIn for losers?

Nah. It’s just lame.

Granted, LI is a decent place to park your resume info. And it’s not a bad place to manage contact info. LI is also easy to use, and it’s free. But that’s about it.

Let’s face it — the typical LI profile tells you little about the person — only about the credentials. It’s an online resume that poorly structured. It’s your “image” dressed in Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes, and I can’t believe anyone is impressed by it.

Sledzik-Curran Social Media Project, Chapter II: Featuring Kevin ‘Bad Pitch’ Dugan

Most of us know Kevin Dugan as one half of the Bad Pitch Blog, where he exposes the foibles of incompetent publicists. He’s also writes the popular Strategic Public Relations blog and has significant Twitter presence @prblog. Kevin is among the first bloggers who reached out to me when I jumped into the game, and he’s always been willing to share ideas.

Kevin sat with Andy and me late last summer to talk about the impact of social media PR and marketing communications. Because of his work on BadPitch, the interview skewed heavily to media relations. But not surprisingly, nearly every segment makes reference to staying on strategy or addressing audience needs. Social media are fine, he says, so long as they help you reach your objective.

Veteran social medialites may not find a lot of “news” in this discussion. Keep in mind that we filmed the series as a teaching tool for college students, not for veterans of the blog wars.

I’ve embedded 1 of the 9 clips into this post. You’ll find the others at the Sledzik-Curran Social Media Project on YouTube.

Thanks to Kevin for his time and energy — and for that great Donato’s Pizza lunch in Cincinnati!

Video segments featuring Kevin:

• What Reporters are Saying About PR People
• Relationships with Bloggers vs Mainstream Media
• Role of Social Networks in PR and Marketing Campaigns, Part 1
• Role of Social Networks in PR and Marketing Campaigns, Part 2
• How Bloggers Influence Mainstream Media Part 1
• How Blogs Influence Mainstream Media, Part 2
  
• The Value of Twitter
• The Importance of Content

Here’s a sample from the Series:

Are social media changing the DNA of public relations? Not one bit!

In a note to my colleagues this morning, I recapped a few things I learned from last week’s presentation by social-media evangelist Peter Shankman (at Cleveland PRSA). Let me sum up in 72 tweetable characters:

How have social media changed the DNA of public relations? Not one bit.

Peter Shankman

For the past 5 years we’ve been hearing that social media are “changing everything” about the practice of PR. For 2.5 of those 5 years, I’ve been arguing they are not (most notably in this post). Have social media tools like blogs, social networks, bookmarking, etc., altered how we practice PR? Yes, and radically so. But have they changed PR’s DNA — the basic building blocks of the function? Nope.

No matter how much the tools and the environment change, what we do in PR remains the same: We build and maintain relationships through 2-way communication. Peter Shankman’s presentation reinforced my beliefs.

Social media leader reminds us that PR is a face-to-face business

An old friend once told me about his company’s best salesperson who, year after year, earned the award as “Top Producer.” When asked the secret of his success the man simply replied: I see the people, and I tell the story.

Few in business understand F2F communication like sales people. The firm handshake, the eye contact, the smile. There’s simply no better way to build trust and to nurture relationships. You see the people and you tell the story. In the process, you also listen and maybe have a few beers.

Denny’s Grand Slam Freebie has me hungry for some real news

Breakfast @ Denny's

If you’re a PR pro, tip your hat to the folks who staged yesterday’s publicity coup (sample) on behalf of Denny’s Restaurants. You’ll be hard pressed to find a newspaper or TV station that didn’t cover it.

Why anyone would stand in line — sometimes for hours — to get a free $6 breakfast is beyond me. But they did, and Denny’s gained millions of dollars in news coverage as a result.