What’s the ROI of blogging? Exactly $1.55

At least that’s what this blog is worth. A buck fifty-five per post.

Here’s how I know.

ToughSledding finally earned me some money last week — a $546 annual raise. Not much, but it’s cold, hard cash. Real ROI.

Three years, 300 posts. I’m not impressed!

Darth Blogger

I almost let this milestone pass. Three years, 300 posts, and still flogging the blog. If that isn’t addiction, I don’t know what is.

I spent half the summer plotting the death of ToughSledding — as I’ve done several times before. This time I came oh-so close to ending it after those 2 blissful weeks offline. But you know what they say: Sh#@ happens. And it did.

Here’s why ToughSledding blogs on:

Parting Words from Brian Connolly

In the end, says Brian, “none of this stuff really matters.” Here’s one final minute with Strumpette’s co-creator. Run time (:54)

That concludes our series with Brian Connolly. Watch this space next week for details of other interviews from the Sledzik-Curran Social Media Project.

Brian Connolly on the ROI of social media

Strumpette’s co-creator pokes fun at those who try to measure a relationship. Run time (1:29)

Referenced in this video: Katie Paine

Friday: Do social media celebrate the amateur?

Social media as the ‘Wild West’

Strumpette’s Brian Connolly sees social media living up to its “Wild West” reputation. “We need to re-inject control back into the Web.” (run time: 1:26)

Thanks to heavy traffic on YouTube following yesterday’s Presidential Inauguration, availability of this video has been delayed. Hang in there.

Referenced in this video: Lawrence Lessig

Thursday: ROI of Social Media

Social media’s impact on public relations

Strumpette co-creator Brian Connolly discusses on how social media conflict with the mission of public relations. PR is not a conversation, he says, it’s a presentation. (Run time: 1:46)

Referenced in this video: Jay Rosen

Wednesday – Social media as the Wild West

Amanda Chapel’s first post was pure fiction

Strumpette co-creator Brian Connolly talks about Amanda’s first post, March 2006. The post was pure fiction and focused on the PR blogosphere’s biggest celebrity at the time, Steve Rubel. Run time (2:11)

Tuesday: Brian comments on the impact of social media on PR

Strumpette: In the Beginning

Who’s idea was this, anyway?

Turns out, it came from a group of PR practitioners sitting around in Chicago watching March Madness basketball. A few days later they unleashed their own form of madness, calling it “the naked journal of the public relations business,” Strumpette.

Hope you enjoy the first of 17 segments of our exclusive interview with Strumpette co-creator Brian Connolly — one each business day until we’re done. Not one of the clips runs more than 3 minutes, as we’re well aware of attention spans in social media!

We call it the Sledzik-Curran Social Media Project. You may call it anything you’d like.

Tomorrow – Creating the Beast: Background on Strumpette

Bringing the real world to the classroom: A last look at the Hunter College dust-up

In the PR classrooms at Kent State, we like to “make it real.” We use real-world examples in class discussions and real-world clients for class projects. Students create real-world portfolio materials and they operate under real-world deadline pressures. Our faculty are senior professionals who once labored in the real world of public relations.

Part of Kent’s “real” experience is a capstone course called PR Campaigns. For the past 7 years, real-world clients — some of them Fortune 500 companies — have put up real-world money to sponsor the class. In exchange for a $5,000 donation, clients work with student teams who complete to develop a winning PR plan to meet their needs. The students benefit; the client benefits; the profession benefits.

So you can see why the dust-up at Hunter College earlier this month surprised me a bit. How could a class so similar to our own go so wrong? In a nutshell, a class of PR students at Hunter, using $10,000 donated by the Coach handbag company and the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC), launched a clever, albeit deceptive, campaign to fight product knockoffs. It was a challenging project, and I’m certain my own students would have enjoyed working on it.