All About the Politics!!!

Today I am going to take a break from informing you about things we will learn in class and test your knowledge of politics. As you know (at least I hope you know) this is an election year. Whoop! Whoop! Yes we get to elect a new president. As I was perusing the web today I came across a quiz. Yes I said quiz. Its fun and informative ( I learned that I really need to read more about the candidates). So enjoy yourself and test your knowledge.

http://www.odwyerpr.com/pop_quiz/index.html

Also I am a huge fan of the Declare Yourself Campaign. They are informing and encouraging young voters to vote. I love love love there slogan "Only You Can Silence Yourself" ( I own one of the t-shirts haha... the proceeds go to a good cause) you can go check out there website here:

http://www.declareyourself.com/index.php

You cant get mad at who made it into the white house if you don’t get out there and vote. Make yourself aware of the issues the candidates are discussing. Voting isn’t something you should take for granted. Ok I am getting of my soap box. Just remember you have the power to choose.

Social Networking at its best...

Ok so as you know I am currently enrolled in an Internet PR course. Our instructor wants us to us Twitter.

If you do not know what that is you can find out here: http://twitter.com/help/aboutus

I set up my account today which was fun and new, but it got me thinking about how many other sites do people use today to network and get there name out there. Now I know there are a whole lot of sites out there. Take for example Facebook, more and more businesses join everyday, Myspace same thing and some of you may have never heard of sites such as Jaiku and Pownce for microblogging.

Now if you are anything like me you have no idea what those last two were either. So I did a little research.

To find out more about Jaiku: http://www.jaiku.com/
To find out more about Pownce: http://pownce.com/

To me it seems like there are a lot of resources out there but most of them mirror each other. I thought that Pownce was kind of like a twitter account and that Jaiku was more of a facebook account.

After I finished setting up my Twitter account I found a blog written by Brian Solis talking about facebook and how it is becoming the place everyone is going to sell their personal brand.

http://www.briansolis.com/2008/09/facebook-is-hub-for-your-personal-brand.html

I find it neat how myspace and facebook started out as a place were college students and graduates could keep in touch with there friends and has now turned into a valuable tool to many business to get their name out there.

So What is Internet PR???

Ok so I wanted to start out my blog by first letting people, who may not already know, what is Internet Public Relations exactly... Well for years pr practitioners have been using the same resources such as newspaper, television and word of mouth, well now pr practitioners are able to use the web to incorporate into there pr campaigns, such as blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds and social media. There is also a direct-to-consumer communications environment known as PR 2.0.

Brian Solis writes a very informative blog on PR 2.0.

PR 2.0 Is Not Web 2.0
http://www.briansolis.com/2007/02/pr-20-is-not-web-20.html

Although PR 2.0 is big, there has been a change in social media. Online videos and blogs are the next big thing for the communications industry. It adds a new challenge to an existing PR, marketing and web initiative. Social media has reinvented itself and but the power in the hands of those with a camera, PC and an internet connection.

Mark Rose wrote a great question and answer on blogging.

Blogs Force Change In PR Agency Practices
http://www.globalprblogweek.com/2005/09/23/rose-blogs-and-pr-firms/

It is interesting to see how over the years the practice of PR has changed so much from the good old press release to companies starting blogs and joining online sites.