Social Media Internship

This week I thought I would get a bit more personal with you guys and talk about something that effects me and people like me who are or will be pursuing careers in public relations.

It can be hard for people with a degree in public relations to be able to fully describe to others what it is that they do or what kind of job they hope to have. There are many things that can be done with a public relations degree. PR graduates do not have to work in agencies like many assume. You can work in hospitals, you can work for a drug company, you can work for a museum, you can work for an individual, you can do event planning - the list goes on. However, before graduating and getting your degree in public relations, it is recommended that all students participate in an internship that relates to their field. PR students get internships in a variety of places doing various jobs that may or may not relate to what they might do in the future. I didn't want to get stuck in the position of wasting my time in an internship that wouldn't benefit my experience, so when I got an e-mail from Disney telling me that they had posted their summer and fall professional internships, I was excited to check out the ones available in the Communications section. The very first internship listed had the words "social media," front and center in the title - I was ecstatic. I love the idea of blogging, tweeting, and Facebooking for a purpose. I couldn't have imagined a more perfect opportunity to put many of my interests into action while expanding my knowledge on a topic that greatly intrigues me. I altered my resume and cover letter in order for them to be more specifically geared towards the position and Disney in general, and sent them away hoping for a positive response.

About two weeks later, I received an e-mail thanking me for submitting my resume but they had found someone to fill the position whose background better fit the desired qualifications. I wouldn't call what I felt sadness exactly, but I was definitely disappointed.
Though I did not get the internship that I wanted, I remain very excited that an internship focused on social media existed at all. I think the fact that a company like Disney has created social media internships for communication students lends credibility to the fact that expanding your knowledge of it and improving your skills with it, is extremely important for all communication students and professionals to do.

Also, I found this image very interesting.

Think Before you Tweet

Hey guys! As some of you may be fully aware because of a personal struggle with it, censoring ourselves on a daily basis can be a bit of a chore. Sometimes our thoughts and feelings or a witty little remark just seems to flow out of our mouth without much filter. Many people would say that a constant filter is necessary for all of us in order to live a more respected life, but I feel slightly differently.
There is some spice to life that saying what you feel brings. Dumbing yourself down for the sake of others makes life considerably less exciting and less humorous. However, there is one situation where I feel as though censorship (maybe more like censorship in being more aware of others emotional states) should not only be a suggestion, but a requirement.
Can someone make a big mistake when all they're doing is stating their opinion or crafting a funny statement in response to something? You bet. Kenneth Cole knows this lesson all too well. The fashion designer sent a tweet out into the interwebs a couple of weeks ago that sent a shiver down many readers spines.

Ouch, Kenneth. Now, if I have to be perfectly honest, I've said some things in private conversations with close friends that could have been taken much worse than this little tweet. The difference? My remarks were private and made around only those people who I trusted totally. Cole chose to take a crack at a serious world issue through one of the most public venues in the world. There are some people on Twitter who sit and wait for tweets like this. These people live for the juicy, the mean, and the mistakes. The instant they see something that could potentially be made fun of shamelessly or used against the tweeter, they take a screenshot and post it everywhere they possibly can.

Cole deleted the tweet in the same day that it was posted because of the negative response he began to receive. However, as you can tell by the picture of the tweet above, his words will never totally be gone. Everything and anything you chose to put on the internet has the potential of being around forever. Any word you type, any audio file you record, and any photo you upload are no longer totally yours alone.

I beg of you, think before you tweet. Are you saying something that you would say to a room full of complete strangers? If not, you should probably think again.

KFC piggybacks The Apprentice

"If you don't get noticed, you don't have anything. You just have to be noticed, but the art is getting noticed naturally, without screaming or without tricks."  -Leo Burnett

People magazine story on KFC and The Apprentice

Back in 2004, KFC was planning to unveil a new type of chicken to its customers. They were going to begin to serve oven roasted chicken and they needed consumers to notice this.  Now, personally, fast food ads aren't the most long lasting as far as memory is concerned. You see the commercial, you think about it for, maybe, 15 seconds tops, and you rarely ever think about again. KFC needed this new type of chicken to be successful in a bad way, so they needed a really good way to get people talking about them - even if they weren't talking about their chicken directly.

At the time, the reality show The Apprentice was relatively popular. Most people who were at least mildly aware of the goings-on of the entertainment world had some knowledge about the show and what was happening with it. As the show began to come to a close and it was winding down to the last two remaining competitors, KFC decided to swoop in and jump on the back of the awareness of The Apprentice.

KFC began to advertise something a little unconventional - money and a job waiting for the runner-up of The Apprentice. KFC was offering them $25,000, a years supply of KFC (yuck) and the title of Chief Sales Officer for a week.

Many people consider what KFC did a bit of a trashy spectacle.  I chose the quote at the top of this post because it is the exact opposite of what KFC chose to do. People definitely noticed KFC because of this but it was not in a natural way - KFC force fed awareness to every single person who monitored the progress of The Apprentice.

In many ways I consider what KFC did to be brilliant.  They spent almost no money to advertise and they still got the attention of millions of people all over the country. It is hard to fault a company who can spend next to nothing and still be able to effectively advertise.

Whether I agree with the way KFC went about spreading the awareness of their new company and their new product, it could certainly not have happened without the indoctriation of social media into the world of PR and advertising. KFC picked the brains of all the bloggers and Facebookers of the world and saw that they were all talking about The Apprentice. What better way to utilize that free information given to them through various social media outlets then to turn it right back at them and use it for their own benefit?