Next Steps

Social media…. I have learned so much over the past four months and continue to learn daily. There is a whole entire world out there that I wasn’t aware of. I am intrigued by social media and the many platforms.

How true! Life isn’t about finding yourself, especially when dealing with social media. Its about creating yourself, your brand. I am going to incorporate as many platforms as I can to create my image. I now have the tools to be successful in my future as a communications major.

I am going to use social media to prepare for my life after college. This includes setting up my accounts so I can engage with the world around me. I also plan on taking more courses on social media etiquette as I believe like anything it else, it will change overtime.

I will continue to blog, as it has become an addiction for me. Engaging with others that have the same interests is a fun past time. I will develop a keyword strategy, smile at all times, be vain, rack up recommendations, strategic connections and finally share with those connections.

I am excited about my future and my new love for social media. I am looking forward to what the world has to offer!

Personal Brand

A Personal brand is your image, your reputation. Your brand is your promise of excellence, your distinctive characteristics that set you apart from other workers and job-seekers. Your brand is the essence of who you are, what you can do for an employer, and your potential for the future.

Your brand includes your education, technical expertise, key accomplishments, skills, strengths, family, friends and values

While your brand is just a collection of words that describe you, keep in mind that your actions must match those words. Otherwise, your brand is just an empty promise that will have devastating effects on your reputation. Your brand is a combination of what you say about yourself and what others say about you. The good news is that you have complete control over the first and a fair amount of control over the second. The bad news is that a significant amount of information may be floating out there about you (true or not) that was published before you started caring about your brand.

It is time to start caring. Take the time to complete Social Media Training and Awareness courses. When you are ready to create your brand, know that it has already been created – you are just going to add to it. Search the Internet using your full name (with variations, nicknames, if necessary). If you are on Facebook, Google+, and other social networking sites, look at your profile(s) — including pictures and friends’ comments and postings.

If you are on LinkedIn or other professional networking sites, review your profile from an outsider’s perspective. Check forums or other places in which you have posted comments. If you have a Website or blog, examine how you are portraying yourself.

Now its time to enhance your brand, create a personal website, create social networking accounts, and manage them professionally. Remember everyone has access to your personal brand – guard it with life! Focus and don’t waste your time or time of others. Online social engagement doesn’t sleep, you must prioritize your brand, as it is a reflection of you.

Death of Print

Death of Print – Knowledge Marketing – The Death of Print has been Greatly Exaggerated

 

“Death of Print” is well on its way, if not here already. With technology growing the way it has, taking over the world, there is no need for print. Although we will still print from our PC’s, it is easier to bookmark the page and also more cost efficient. Don’t get me wrong, I love to cuddle up to a good book and read the night away. In today’s world, I have a tablet that has replaced that book. In retrospect, the technology has also cut down on costs. I no longer have to purchase a book at the bookstore. I can go online and buy the book for ½ the price I would pay at the bookstore. I no longer purchase newspapers, all the headlines are online. I pay for my Internet and I have the world at my fingertips. Magazines can be purchased digital and the cost is less than the paper edition. Printing will no longer be the primary delivery of news and entertainment. With technology taking off, digital is a better way to receive the news. With my interest in communication and the studies I have taken, this will help my in the future to further my career. Technology plays a huge role in our lives and keeping up with the media will help me to be more successful personally and professionally. Media is used every day in my life and the more knowledgeable I am on the situation, the more successful I will be. This shift is now a norm for society, only 21% of Americans have never been online. The primary reason given is that they have no desire to go online; the second most common reason is that it is too expensive. Other reasons are: It’s too difficult, they have no computer, or they have no access.

 

The article stated the best way to sum-up the future for print and publishing is a great quote from Susan Glasser, editor of Politico Magazine. She stated, “If you define your publication by the platform on which you publish, you pretty quickly risk irrelevance. I would rather think about it in terms of the audience, content and mission of the publication.”

Print has not died as a content medium.

 

Thankful for Selfies

Thanksgiving and all the many blessings I have….

All of Us….

Professional Philosophy

I have developed this leadership philosophy to help guide me as a professional. As a professional I am committed to helping both personal and professional growth for those I lead, as well as within myself. I believe in consistent work toward these principles. And I expect those I lead to hold me to the same standards of accountability. The following are my core beliefs as a leader and team member:

1. I believe as a leader it is important to set an example. Anything I expect of you, I also expect of myself. I will not ask you to do something I would not do. I live by a Gandhi creed, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
2. I believe communication is of the utmost importance. I will provide productive and constructive communication that is relevant to the job, or task at hand. And I expect you to do the same for me. The best way for our team to succeed is to ensure we have open lines of communication.
3. An integral part of healthy communication is being able to listen to every member of the team, and to value each members thoughts and ideas. I will not always have all of the answers, but I will actively listen to your point of view and seek out the answers to all your questions. Together, we will further our Mission Statement with open lines of communication and listening to all team members equally.
4. I believe accountability to our team, our employer, and ourselves to be of the utmost importance. I expect you to do what you say and follow through. You can count on me to do the same. We function as a team, supporting one another to ensure all tasks are completed in the most efficient and effective manner. If there is a time you feel you cannot complete a promise made, then I expect you to let me know so we can work out the issue together.
5. I believe in team work. You are not alone in your work, and you should not feel as if you are. I will not engage myself in the blame game, and I expect the same of you.
6. I believe in excellence, not perfection. Perfection implies there is no room to grow as a team, and our team will continue to grow each day. I expect you put your best foot forward and give each task your all. I will not tolerate sloppy work. You can expect the same of me. Together we will create a team that pursues a higher level of excellence with each passing day.
7. I believe in the acknowledgment and celebration of accomplishments. All accomplishments, no matter the size. Sometimes a team grows in leaps and bounds, and sometimes the team grows by taking baby steps, growth is what I expect.
8. I believe in speaking frankly, yet professionally. If you feel my comments are critical rather than constructive I expect you to tell me. Together we will find a solution.
9. I believe in being a professional. Being professional contains all the aforementioned beliefs as well as; being on time to work, giving each day your best, maintaining a positive attitude, providing the best customer service you possibly can, completing all assigned tasks efficiently, and working together as a team are integral parts of being professional.
10. I believe as a leader it is my job, my duty, and my privilege to provide you with all of the skills and opportunities to grow. I will give my best each day, and I will continue to grow as a leader, exemplifying all the attributed of my own philosophy.
11. All of these standards I have set for myself include my ability to listen to the conversations going on around my organization and jump in when you’re ready to interact with your potential customers or supporters. I need to find out what they want, what they’re talking about and use that to determine how I will engage with them. With todays technology, I can work from anywhere on Earth and I will continue to stay up to date on social media and my content, all in a professional manner.

Video Editing

Video Editing is a topic I have always been found of. I appreciate technology and all it has to offer the digital world. Recently I have learned to use Adobe Premium Pro CC 2014. This tool is absolutely amazing and not difficult to use. The upgrade that came out has many bug fixes that include:

• ‘Async’ asserts could occur when exporting some file types
• Incorrect angles could be shown when separate multicam clips were created with different sort order
• Waveforms could be improperly drawn when nesting a multicam source sequence
• Effects could fail to render within effect mask boundaries
• Garbage could appear around the edge of a layer that had a blur video effect applied and a mask on Opacity
• Masks could offset Gaussian Blur in CUDA mode
• Attempting to move a column to the left of the Name column in the Project panel could break cell selection
• Occasional instance where sequences could never finished rendering
• Relinking to spanned MXF clips could be incorrect
• UI responsiveness could reduce in large projects after relinking
• Exporting merged clips could generate silent or missing audio
• Importing sequences could sometimes fail
• Incorrect timebases could be used on EDL export
• Incorrect field display could occur when using Mercury Transmit with GPU acceleration
• Audio presets were sometimes not working correctly if used with a different format container
• Complex video assets could produce a blurry image every 1 second when encoded into H.264
• Mask Expansion could not be rendered correctly during preview scrubbing on layers that were scaled to 50% or less
• Applying a speed change to a multicam clip could cause the extended duration of the clip to play with no video
• Merged clips that contain clips with sync offsets could display out of sync indicators when used in a sequence
• Crashes could occur during export to QuickTime.
• Masking and Tracking: Brightness & Contrast could be incorrectly displayed in an Adjustment Layer
• File import failures could occur when no assets were selected in the Locate Media dialog
• Asserts and crashes could occur when exporting project to OMF
• Crashes could occur when rendering audio with a locked submix track
• Submixes could sometimes lose audio
• Noise could be heard in submixes with empty tracks
• Source monitor timecode and program monitor overlay could be off from one another in multicam sequences
• Audio overlays for Multicam and nested sequences would only display as audio time units.
• 24p/50p XDCAM EX files were sometimes 1 frame short when smart rendered
• MPEG2 TS files with 6 tracks of stereo audio could only play/show first stereo track when imported in to PPro
• Playing IMX 50 clip could freeze video
• Locking all Audio Tracks could cause the system to slow down dramatically

Some of the Editing Enhancements:

• A Codec column was added to the Project Panel
• Sequence Timecode was added as a display option in the Monitor Overlays
• Clip name and Timecode filters can now be set to reference and display information for clips on specified source tracks.

If you have ever been in to editing, check this out. I am amazed by all of the detailed work. I will use this in my future career in Public Relations. I am excited about learning about more tools to edit my visuals.

Working at home in pajamas

PR in your pajamas – Practical Publicity for Entrepreneurs – Blog Site

I absolutely love this site. There are so many blogs that relate to the topics that I find interesting. I log on daily to keep up on the newest blogs, grabbing the information I need to stay active in the PR world. Some of the newer blogs consist of:

• How to Create an Effective PR Survey
• How Travel Can Grow Your Small Business
• The Ultimate Guide to Visual Press Releases
• Public Relations and Customer Service: The Two Faces of Your Company
• Protecting Your Reputation: Active Steps You Can Take To Keep Your Private Life Private

The one I found most interesting is the different types of visuals to use in a press release and how to create them. Since starting my blogging life, I have had a difficult time creating visuals that are interesting and eye grabbing. I can fill my blog with content, but without visuals they seem boring to the average eye. Throw in a well-educated blogger and they are bland and not worth reading. Some of the ideas consisted of images, videos, infographics, and slideshares.

Some helpful tools are PowerPoint templates, Canva, Placeit, Adobe Voice, and Wistia. After some research and time, I found these tools to be very creative and attractive to the eye. When all else fails, outsource the visuals. I found a few options to take advantage of and they are budget friendly:

• Visual.ly
• 99 Designs
• Freelancers
• Free Stock Images

When using these options, pay attention to the citation guidelines as legal issues can present themselves.

Blogging can be extremely fun when working in PR. Take advantage of all the visuals you can, as boring your audience shouldn’t be an option and it can harm the company. Working in PR is so exciting and can be done from anywhere. This is the new way of the careers ahead for me. I am excited to have the opportunity to having the option of working from anywhere there is internet connectivity – from home, coffee shop, an office, the mall, or at home in my pajamas.

http://prinyourpajamas.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/infographic_multimedia-press-releases-pr-newswire.jpg

Target Audience

As we know that public relations are the most important tool to make my presence felt in this highly competitive business world. But, we are often ignorant about the essentials of public relations. Public relations essentials include the objective of using public relations, your target audience, etc. Out of them, the most essential aspect of public relations is understanding your target audience in a better way. To understand my target audience better, I should know who my target audiences are.

To understand my target audience better, I should know their current attitudes, opinions as well as interests. This could be known through market research and by watching the trend of the public demand. On the basis of these information, I should formulate public relations campaign in such a way that it caters to their attitudes, opinions, and interests. It is very important to know my target audience right from the inception of the project and the more I know about my target audiences, the better impact I can create on them through my PR campaign. Knowing my target audience better helps me in the next step of my PR plan – targeting the right media channel.

It will depend on what campaign I am working on as to who my target audience will be. My internal audiences will include the employees, stockholders, and investors of the firm as well as the local community, suppliers, and current customers. External audiences will be those people who are not closely connected with the organization. One my target audiences are identified, the public relations program must be developed and delivered to the receivers. Knowing my target audience will be extremely important in my career.

 

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship. What does it mean? For me, it is so important to my future career goals because I want to be that person that has the capacity and willingness to develop, organize, and manage a business venture along with any of its risks in order to make a profit. I want to have the spirit characterized by innovation and risk taking, and to have an essential part in the nations ability to succeed in an ever changing and increasingly competitive global marketplace.

 

I love everything about this topic. My future depends on me getting out there and doing the best job that I can, taking risks and making the best decision I know how for the company I am working for. Public Relations is a demanding business. It’s important to keep your brand both visible and positively received by the masses of online channels that consumers are accessing. It’s important to make the most of press releases when the company you’re working for does something newsworthy.

 

Being an entrepreneur means setting at least 15 minutes aside everyday to concentrate on the newsfeeds and social media sites. It will also be important for me to leverage the power of influencers in my circle. I won’t always have time to push the media, making friends with people that can help me do so will only benefit me and the company I work for.