PR professionals need more than a Great Firewall to protect their online brand July 11, 2007
Posted by dixonpaul in Career Focus, Social Media.add a comment
In my last post I argued that young PR professionals need to embrace social media as part of their personal branding. Social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook are leading the revolution – it’s a no-brainer that professional communicators need to get a firm grip with what’s happening online, and be an active part of it.
But things aren’t that simple: what happens when a potential employer, impressed by your CV and LinkedIn profile, then clicks on Facebook only to discover that picture? He might not put the phone down, but he will want to delve into the pockets of your life (possibly the ones after a few too many shandies) that you didn’t want him to know about. Heck, you had already forgotten about them and moved on.
PRO’s Need to Embrace New Technologies to Keep Pace with Fast Changing Internet World July 10, 2007
Posted by dixonpaul in Career Focus, Social Media.add a comment
In my latest flirt with the on-line virtual world “there.com” I commented to a fellow avatar how great she looked in her bright pink boots – only for her to flee into the jungle. Did I offend her? Should I have pursued her? I think I was more confused in suddenly facing a decision that was for me, well, weird. But for 400,000 there.com members these kinds of experiences aren’t weird at all – in fact they’re perfectly normal.
Online social interaction is transforming the way people communicate, the emergence of blogs, vlogs, podcasts, RSS, and social interaction websites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Second Life have created an arena for people to communicate in a way the world has never seen before. If PR is really about communicating with your publics, then PR practitioners – especially those who are just starting out like me – need to embrace the emergence of new media as a powerful tool for PR practice in the future. (more…)
