Social Media Day

It’s official, June 30 is the worldwide “Social Media Day”!

Mashable, the well known social media focused blog, is hosting the first ever worldwide Social Media day today, June 30. There are already around 610 registered meetups in 93 countries around the globe including Sydney, Brussel, Paris, Oslo, Bilbao, London, Sao Paolo and many others. And there will be more! Mashable encourages you to attend or organise an event near you.

The event is aimed at celebrations of media becoming a social dialogue. You can see what is happening wherever you are by following the hashtag #smday on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

The London meetup is due to take place in The Royal George in Soho at 8pm

How to Work With Bloggers and Influencers

This video produced by GasPedal caught my eye today.

Presented by Virginia Miracle, this class offer seriously relevant tips on how to build relationships with different types of bloggers and online influencers.

Virginia, Ogilvy PR, covered how to identify relevant influencers, what to use to get them excited and engaged, and how to make your program last.

For a recent PR grad, this is a valuable video. But even an experienced PR pro will find some interest in this.

Client requests: “I NEED THESE BLOGGERS TO WRITE ABOUT ME!!”

How can you get your client what he wants? Take the Inside-Out Approach –> do not start with targeting, look at these steps:

1. What it is you are trying to accomplish? Name what it is, before you start your outreach. Reason such as this one: “everybody else is doing it” is not good enough though.
2. Create engagement value. Look at what can these bloggers do for us and what we can do for them => focus on value exchange. Virginia’s big objective: “What is the value we can provide people so they will actually give a crap and want to spend time and energy with us?” Audit your assets = what do you have to offer? A sneak peek, fame, meet their hero, recognition, etc. Virginia uses the example of LifetimeMoms.com where contributors are paid for their content, transparently.
3. Identify who we want to talk to: bloggers and other influencers (conversations happen within forums too).
4. Design your outreach program in ethical and honest way, build it out of bricks. Virginia emphasizes WOMMA’s Ethics Code, FTC Guidelines, and others.
5. Keep up the relationships. Virginia says: “It’s critical you’re regularly talking to them, responding to their needs, and reacting along the way."

How to Work With Bloggers and Influencers -- presented by Virginia Miracle from GasPedal on Vimeo.

Top UK PR & Social Media People

I have recently updated my two (yes two – one is simply not enough) Twitter lists of the top UK based people who work in PR or Social Media or both and who are worth to follow.

UK – Top PR & Social Media People

UK – Top PR & Social Media People 2

Both of these lists contain people who love Twitter and PR & Social Media as much as I do. If you want to follow one, feel free to do so. I'd recommend you to follow them both though...so you won't miss anyone.

I intend to update them both regularly and if needed I will start another Twitter list (this is actually quite likely to happen soon).

Please let me know if I’ve missed someone special or if you think you should be on the lists too :)

University? Done! :D

I’m happy & proud to announce that my last exam took place on Tuesday, 1st June. I am free now! I am not a graduate yet (don’t have my title) but I am done with University – it feels so good...

PR class of 2010

Just one quick look at my ikea bookcase reveals about 12 books that still need to be returned to the library (plus fines to be paid - ups) and 8 books that I actually own but will never ever need in my life. I can bet all my imaginary millions on it!

On the other hand there are about 15 books that I love (Deirdre Breakenridge: PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences, and other PR books). HA, I’ve joust found a list of ‘TO READ’ books:

• Deirdre Breakenridge: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR
• Brian Solis: Engage
• Charlen Li & Josh Bernoff: Groundswell
• Jim Macnamara: The 21st Century Media (R)EVOLUTION
• David Phillips & Philip Young: Online Public Relations

Hmm, maybe one day. Will have to check them on ebay soon :) If anyone has a spare copy of any of these, please let me know.

Other part of the bookcase is full of sheets of paper filled with my notes in every possible colour and mind maps on everything and anything (some nicely stapled together, some lying freely on top of each other), notebooks and colourful file folders that contain 3 years of my life (well, some more filling is still needed to be done – I’ve just looked at my desk (*sight*).

This is actually quite upsetting: University is done! What now? What people do with all this stuff?? 

The last semester flew by so fast! I didn’t really get ready for the end of it, I admit. Everything was very hectic and intense in many ways. I was forced to multitask more than ever before: attending lectures and seminars, meeting deadlines for University assignments, getting group work going, applying for PR Grad jobs, looking for part time jobs, educating myself about the new digital tools and social media, blogging, tweeting, and many more. I don’t know how to ‘unitask’ anymore.

No surprise then that it feels weird to have time for the ‘things’ that I like to do like cooking, reading books, drawing, city browsing, etc. These activities have been banned from my life for a very long time. Well, let’s see how I get on with them. 

My top priority is to find a job now. I just need to catch my breath first.

Angry bride changes name to 'I Hate Thomas Cook' | Metro.co.uk

Angry bride changes name to 'I Hate Thomas Cook' | Metro.co.uk

An example of a very bad PR for Thomas Cook. The lady must really hate them.