Gotta do Research/Week 8/Reading

Each week in this class I feel like I get a little bit smarter. Not a lot, but a little. This week's reading, Chapter 10 in New Rules of Marketing and PR, really hit home to me as I go into the workforce. I learned through the reading that for an effective web PR campaign to work you have to first and foremost think of your audience. While reading this I thought about one of my all time favorite classes here at ONU, public speaking. In public speaking before you write a word of your speech you need to assess your target audience and try to figure out what would work best in that particular situation and what would not work. Same goes for PR campaigns, they need to take the time to see who they are trying to reach and evaluate what the best ways to reach those people are. After that, then they can send the message. By no means should a PR practitioner just send a message without doing research. I'm taking public relations research this quarter and one thing I have found out is that research is key to having a productive anything.

Rainier For President/Week 8/PR

Recent speculations have been made about Sarah Palin's wardrobe costs. Reports say that the campaign has spent $150,000 dollars on her clothes in September alone, along with thousands of other dollars spent on her hair and make up. This might be one of the most sexist things I have ever seen. Being a PR major a practitioners job is supposed to highlight the positive attributes in the client. I see no difference in this situation. This is money that has been donated to the campaign to help Senator McCain and Governor Palin win. It should not matter what they are spending it on if it is helping the cause. Governor Palin I am sure was not the one who said let me go out and drop a hundred and fifty grand on clothes. She does what the highly paid advisors think are best. If it takes that much money to make the American people perceive her as a potential Vice President, so be it. I do wonder though, if Barack Obama spent ten grand on a suit would there be this much commotion. By the way I have no bias in either side of the campaign I'm going to be voting for myself lol. RAINIER FOR PRESIDENT!!!!

Don't Call It A Comeback!/Week 8/ONU

Looks like the football team has turned things around. I don't want to brag or anything, but I guess the football team read my last blog about them. Since my post about the bears terrible start they have rattled off three straight wins. Granted they weren't against the likes of Mount Union but none the less I say a win is a win. Everyone knew the team had potential I just don't understand why it took so long for it to come to fruition. They are playing like they have nothing to lose which they don't. With four loses on the season they are out of playoff contention. Overall they have turned things around and look like a team instead of strangers playing a pick up game. If they win their final three games the polar bears could have another winning season. Hopefully some coaching changes take place next year because this team should have gone far in the playoffs. Good luck the rest of the season to the bears and way to pull it together guys.

Viral Marketing!/week 7/readings

This week's reading talked about viral marketing. Before the reading I knew very little about viral marketing, but after reading "The New Influencers" I think I know too much. With the new era of technology it is easy to see why viral marketing has become mainstream. Once YouTube became known to the masses companies started learning how to benefit from it. One of the most famous viral marketing campaigns was the coke and mentos campaign. Although coke never endorsed the campaign it sparked a world wide phenomenon, selling a lot of each product. Viral campaigns have become the 21st centuries word-of-mouth. One person puts a video up and then shows a friend and so on. Viral marketing is a genius idea; it appeals to the masses for little or no money. A recent effort was Leonardo Dicaprio's YouTube video that encouraged people to vote. In the video he instructs you to tell five people to vote and then those five people tell another five people and so on. All facets of commerce, as well as the political world, have accepted viral marketing as a viable tool.

HD Audiobook!/week 7/PR

Audio books in high definition? This week a company released its first form of an AudioMovie. The AudioMovie is the next generation of audio books. Instead of listening to a monotone ninety-year-old man who does womens voices, you can now listen to a whole cast of actors that portray each character in the book. Is this what our society is coming to? Although I am pretty stoked about this invention I feel that it may discourage students from doing, what's that thing called? Oh yeah, reading! I do not want to sound preachy but I had to suffer through reading all those books in high school, why can't future high schoolers do the same? Only time will tell if this new form of audio book will take off, but it does sound intriguing.

What is Homecoming?/week 7/ONU

What is Homecoming? I went to an all boys Catholic high school and Homecoming did not exist. What is the point? The past three years all I have seen are locals coming in and riding rides and mooching off the proverbial teet. I love the locals but I do not really feel that they like ONU that much. We have a football game that is kind of cool but besides that we have no Homecoming dance or concert. I just feel that it is incredibly unneccesary. Please if I am missing something tell me because truthfully I do not see the point. I have heard groups say that alumni come back or something along those lines. So Homecoming is a place to let the community mooch and for the school to make money off of alumni? I say the school makes Homecoming something special for everyone, not just the fraternities or the community. We pay a crap load of money to go to this wonderful school lets throw a little money our way.

PR Tools/week 6/reading

This week's reading really brought to light the amount of tools that are available in the social media world. Over the past few weeks I have learned about so many tools that it has become hard to decide which ones to use and which ones to discard. One tool that I will definitely utilize is the RSS feed. In the reading it talked a lot about RSS and how it was not currently being used to its full potential. Podcasting is also a tool that I have not had the opportunity to play with yet, but I will keep you updated. Hopefully this book puts me ahead of the curve when it comes to social media, but only time will tell. After reading this chapter I reviewed all of the various tools that I have learned thus far and listed the pros and cons for each. Almost every single one can be used in future employment. Social media has made everyone in this class ahead of the masses. In closing thank you ABD. Aggy.

Barker speaks/week 6/PR

Travis Barker was recently involved in a plane crash, which took the lives of his best friend/assistant and bodygaurd. He was also severely injured himself. Travis recently spoke to DJ AM for the first time since the accident via blog. When I found out Travis spoke for the first time on his blog I was shocked! Wow, we have come far in a social media aspect! In the old days (six months ago) this would have been published in a newspaper article or aired on a video interview, but instead he opted to write on his blog. In the past few months I have noticed a trend among celebrities. Instead of calling up MTV or Perez Hilton they just release the information or statement themselves. By doing this the artist can connect on a more personal level to his/her fans as well as not having to pay a publicist. Travis Barker was able to update his fans on his status as well as share his condolences for the lives lost in the plane crash. With a blog you get the whole story. If it were a TV interview the channel would have cut out most of what he said because of time restraints. Travis Barker inadvertently brought about awareness to the blogging world. I wish him a speedy recovery.

Where's our entertainment?/Week 6/ONU

What ever happened to having concerts on campus? I remember my sophmore year we had O.A.R. come and it was the jam. Since then all that we have had are these old performers that only our parents would care to come see. We pay a whole lot of money to go to this school and we get very minimal entertainment in return. Even if we had to pay for tickets students would still go. I say SPC steps their game up and gets a big name here in the spring. Whenever I talk to someone for SPC they say they have no money in their budget. Well do not waste it on comedians and stupid magicians. Why doesn't SPC ask the students what we want to see rather than assuming what we want to see. Ohio State has had close to ten concerts a year for free and it is not small name bands. Last year OSU had Kanye West and Rihanna. Now I don't think we could afford Kanye West or Justin Timberlake, but let's see what we can afford. Let me know what everyone thinks.

Podcasting/week 5/reading

Before Social Media class the only kind of podcast I had heard of was from I-Tunes. Technology has brought a voice to the unheard. Anybody can voice their opinion, whether right or wrong, and there are people that are willing to listen. Podcasting is basically blogging in an audio form. Nowadays everything from T.V. shows to radio shows are broad casted via the internet. We have come a long way from the old radio shows. I found in my reading that podcasts are like Tivo for radio. Anything recorded can be heard in audio form. I feel that podcasting is a more legitimate form of social media because you can hear the voice of the creeper posting rather than just his creeper words. Over the next few years look out for podcasting to breakout into the mainstream. Overall podcasting is in the early stages and is prime for the youth of America.

Do You "Believe"/week5/PR

Criss Angel, who is known for his hit TV show "Mindfreak", recently opened a live show named "Believe" in Las Vegas. The previews of this new show and the reviews over the past week are not as good as hoped. Although the show is considered in the preview stage, a time to work out the kinks, audience members were furious at what they saw. They said that everything was very predictable and that it had all been seen before. Criss Angel is known for his breakthrough illusions, but audience members said they were nowhere to be found. So far there have not been any positive reviews about this show, except to say that there is potential. Criss himself has not issued a statement but his PR representative wrote to the all-star blogger, Perez Hilton, to say that fans loved it and gave him a standing ovation. Here's hoping that everything gets straightened out by October 31st, the official opening of the show, because Criss has signed a ten year contract to perform the show 8 days a week. The bad reviews could affect ticket sales drastically. Before the internet you really had to go to a show to get the feeling of it. Now, you can get pictures, first hand accounts, and even video of the actual preformance before you go. Apparently the show, which is teamed with Cirque Du Soleil, costs $85 million to put on. Nothing that costs that much could be that bad. Criss needs to make a statement himself and address the obvious problems with the show and reassure his future ticket buyers. Nothing starts out perfect and with some fine tuning I'm sure Criss can make believers out of "Believe."

Slow Start/week 5/ONU

So it was another tough weekend for the polar bear football team, falling to 0-4 with a loss to Muskingham. I still have to give these guys credit, they play their hearts out for the pure love of the game. They do not do it for money or a scholarship they play just to play. That being said I do not know how much more this team can take. This is the first time since I have been here that they are 0-4. With the playoffs out of the picture can this team pull it together to at least finish strong? Dean Paul might be looking for a job pretty soon unless he turns this team around. In two of these games they were simply out-coached. With the players ONU has they should be at least 3-1, if not undefeated. I wish the team the best of luck throughout the year and hopefully they can rebound next year.