SPC Retreat

This weekend I had the opportunity of attending the SPC Retreat at Beulah Beach in Vermillion, Ohio. Not only did I have the opportunity to attend the retreat, but I was also able to plan the retreat with the help of my advisors and executive board.

There were three goals we hoped came out of the retreat

(1)

The first goal was to have all members get to know one another better, especially our new members. This year we accepted 14 members and many of them were able to attend the retreat. SPC thrives on an effective and successful team, so it was important for all members became comfortable with one another. Of course, much of this was achieved through conversation and hanging out, but we also had structured activities to help get to know one another. My favorite activity was passing a ball around which had facts written all over it. If you caught the ball you would introduce yourself and then read the fact your right thumb landed on. An example of a fact would be,” if you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?” I now know several facts about others I would have never known before and it helped facilitate conversation.

(2)

The second goal was to start planning our calendar of events for spring semester. We started with brainstorming events for each month of next semester. The ideas could be silly or dumb, but we tried to facilitate as much feedback as possible. After brainstorming, groups were asked to pick two items from a bucket. The items were strange things such as a tiara or a crocodile hate. Each group was asked to create a complete event based on their items. This activity was designed to foster creativity and to have the groups get a better understanding of planning an event, but it also produced many unique events.

(3)

Our third goal was to make sure everyone had fun! Beulah Beach is a retreat center on Lake Erie and there was opportunity to canoe, paddle boat, kayak, and explore the grounds. We were also able to zip line across the water and have a campfire complete with s’mores.

Overall, I think the SPC Retreat accomplished our three goals and allowed for productivity, but also many great memories!

The Future is Now

Changes in technology happen almost instantaneously. The changes happen so quickly and it is hard to even see how things have changed until years later.  Here are facts about technology, which are hard to believe.

• The first iPhone was released in 2007
• Twitter was created in 2006, but did not become popular until 2010
• Instagram was released in 2010
• Snapchat was released in 2010
• The first text was sent in 1992, but wasn’t fully utilized by the general population until 2000 

It is astounding to believe many of these technologies have only been around for around 10 years or less and each of the programs has gone through many changes throughout its lifetime.

“Share This” by The Chartered Institute of Public Relations discusses in Chapter 22 the future of the web and PR through ‘Web 3.0.’ Web 3.0 is described as the web becoming a universal medium for the exchange of data, information and knowledge. In essence, the web not only includes and understands content, but also social interaction and communication to humans.

The author suggests PR people to harness Web 3.0 to gain access to information about behaviors and influence the web collects from humans. There is so much data offered on the web right now and no one is doing anything with it. It is important to stay ahead of the game and don’t let changes pass you by. It is important to understand the change when it is happening and figure out the effects.

Social Shopping

Social Shopping is something I have been getting into lately because mainly I can save money. I have never really seen the sites I have been using as social shopping until I recently had a conversation about one of the sites posting what shopper was viewing on their Facebook page.

So, what is social shopping you might ask? Social shopping is the combination of social media and e-commerce. It takes all the key aspects of social media: friends, groups, voting, comments, discussions and puts those aspects into a shopping environment.

The sites I use are Tobi, JustFab, Shoe Dazzle and Polyvore. Tobi, JustFab and Shoe Dazzle promote signing up with your Facebook account by allowing you to receive a significant discount. Each site allows you to interact with your friends by posting what you are viewing on the shopping site on Facebook. You are also able to pin a certain item to your personal Pinterest board to see what your friends say. Some of the sites even have a live chat feature.

Polyvore is a community powered social commerce website. Members can create image collages called "Sets". Active Polyvore communities exist in the areas of fashion, interior design and artistic expression. I use Polyvore to create outfits. There are thousands of clothing items on the site from all different stores. Once I finish creating an outfit, there are links available to purchase the clothing items from the stores. Many of the sets I have created I have bought.

Social shopping is not ideal to some because it may post on your social media sites on your behalf, which can be annoying. However, it can be changed in the settings. Also, some people online shop in order to avoid the social aspect of shopping in a mall or stores. In this case, social shopping is not meant for them. For me, I think it is great to seek others advice and utilize the different unique tools of social shopping.

I created this outfit on Polyvore last Christmas. I own most of the items from this set. 

Family Day

This Saturday was Family Day at ONU and it was a great experience! I am a senior this year and my family has never come for Family Day. I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity, so they were fortunately able to make it to Ada for the day.

In addition, many of the Family Day events are organized by SPC, so I also had the opportunity to spend my first Family Day as the president of SPC. In the past, Family Day was on a weekend of a home football game. However, ONU’s football team now does not have a home football game until usually Homecoming. Therefore, SPC wanted to have Family Day on the day of the Harvest and Herb Fest, which not only is fun for ONU, but also helps out the Ada Community.

My family loved the Harvest and Herb Fest and my two nephews and niece loved eating all of the fair type food, especially kettle corn! After a wonderful day spent with my family, I had to get ready for the final SPC event of the night, Six Appeal!

Six Appeal is a vocal ensemble group from Minnesota that has a comedic flair and a great amount of energy. They performed in Presser Hall and every seat was full. Six Appeal uses no instruments and is solely an a cappella group. They sing renditions of classics, top hits and original songs. Six Appeal made the night a great experience and I loved getting to know them!

“Six Appeal was amazing and should definitely be brought back to ONU”

“Such a great show. “

“Aca-Awesome!”

Pitch Perfect

In this weeks reading of "Share This," the author, Julio Romo describes pitching by using social media. It is obvious that social media has a huge impact on most peoples lives. A huge impact has also happened to the corporate world, including PR practitioners. Social media allows PR practitioners change their traditional ways and allow them to have a range of channels to engage with journalists and online influencers.

The engagement becomes more personal and it is important to know how the relationship functions in an online setting. One way to do this is through a digital address book highlighting key media that is of interest. Many companies have twitter lists of their journalists. One example is Buzz Feed. Buzz Feed commonly promotes their journalists and encourages others to follow them.

So what does pitching to the media look like on social media? Similar to the example below. It should be something that makes sense to them. In this example the PR practitioners is tweeting to a tech journalist about the Google Glasses. He can relate to this and it is something he is genuinely interested in and something he would want to report. However, I would say this pitch is a little informal, but it is clear that they have already established a relationship together. 

“Effective understanding of people will ensure that being good at public relations is no longer to be expected. Being great at understanding people will be the minimum prerequisite.”

It is important to establish relationships with the media more than ever on social media. If a PR practitioner does not have relationships, then no one will take their pitch seriously.