Farmers Market Comes to and End, but the Online Market Keeps On…
01 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
This past Tuesday the Mainstreet Statesboro Farmers Market closed out it’s season with one of the biggest turn outs all year. Shopping by Lantern Light saw it’s 4th annual celebration at the market, with the biggest crowd the market has ever seen. Bulloch County residents and surrounding counties were invited to shop at the market on Tuesday before Thanksgiving from the hours of 6pm-8pm in the regular location, behind Sea Island Bank. Prompting visitors to buy their Thanksgiving meal local and fresh. Here you could buy turkeys, cabbage, sweet potatoes, and much more. Most vendors were also selling food, so a majority of the visitors had dinner at the market. Debra Chester, the found of the Farmer’s Market, said she has never been so pleased with the turn out of this event. She thinks that shopping at night has something to do with the turn out, and she plans to make this event happen more than once a year. The Farmers Market will open up again downtown in April of 2012. However, the Market2Go, which is their online market, will be up all year round.
The online market is managed by Vikki Lee, who is a vendor herself. She says it has grown exponentially within this past season and she hopes that it will continue to grow, as the year progresses. You can buy everything that you could buy at the market and more with the Market2Go online. Vikki has very high expectations for the next few weeks. She hopes to be adding new members every week, she says. So, if you shop at the market on Saturdays, but haven’t checked out the online market, you should. Love your food, Love your farmers, and remember to shop local.
FINAL–Social Media News Releases
09 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in Personal
A social media news release(SMNR) is a press release format designed for the online media world. The SMNR was written with just the press in mind, but in the online world SMNR’s need to be told in a format that is relevant to a broad variety of people – journalists, bloggers, publishers and the public at large (http://www.realwire.com/servicesSMNR.asp). The Karcher Group defines SMNRs by saying that “Social media PR attempts to neatly package your message into pieces of information that can be quickly disseminated on the Web, including video, photos, audio files, bulleted lists, quotes, resources, links, and more. This allows users, whether they be journalists or bloggers, to reassemble or disassemble the information however they want and share it on the web.” I found several different definitions for SMNR’s online, but essentially they all say that a social media news release is a press release for the online community (http://www.tkg.com/social-media-pr-template).
The executive vice president of Business Wire, Michael Lissauer, told PRWeek, “The most important thing to our clients is seeing their news release on these search engines. They know consumers go there. If they write a news release effectively, they can bypass the gatekeepers, journalists, who always had the opportunity of interpreting the release how they wanted.” Basically saying, the SMNR has expanded the audience beyond just the traditional media outlet (http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Public-Relations-Writing-and-Media-Techniques/9780205648283.page).
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0205648282?tag=internationallis&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0205648282&adid=12YXJ96FXRGEGE1E5TM3&)
The content of an SMNR can be produced in the traditional narrative style or be deconstructed so that the core facts, quotes, and contact details are all separated into different sections to allow readers to move its various elements. Social media news releases can contain images, audio and video (including embedded social media video including YouTube) as well as links to relevant websites and coverage of resulting online conversations (http://www.realwire.com/servicesSMNR.asp).
Social media news releases seem like they are pretty simple and are very accessible to find online. Social media news releases “takes advantage of the linking, multimedia and social media capabilities of the Web to make releases more reader-friendly and useful.” It also is optimized for search, conversation, and sharing, while it tells the entire story through multimedia. The only disadvantage about SMNRs is that it is harder to reach people who are not very computer-literate (http://socialtraining.wetpaint.com/page/Social+Media+News+Release).
There are several different websites that you can access that will help you create a SMNR. One website that I found to be very easy to understand and very helpful creating one was, http://www.pitchengine.com/. http://www.prxbuilder.com/x2/ is another website that helps you create SMNRs. There are also several youtube videos explaining what SMNRs are and how to create them. Here is a youtube video giving a little more information: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD_mYKc20OY.
- 5 to 10 Tips About Writing SMNRs
1. Watch your length. Since you’re SMNRs are online, you want to get your story across quicker than you would if you were writing for a paper. Short and sweet and to the point.
2. Try and choose a strong title to capture your audiences attention. If your title is not appealing, very easy for your reader to overlook and move on to the next one.
3. Use quotes, pictures, and videos as much as you can. If there is nothing but words in your SMNR it is going to be hard for someone to stay focused long enough to know what your story is. You need to accent it with things that will catch the readers eye and better explain your story.
4. Keywords are very important.
5. Make sure that your message is getting releases to the right audience. If your message isn’t getting across to the right people, then it could really hurt you.
Social Media Releases are beginning to be used a lot more than they have in previous years. It’s very important to know how to format them and how to get them out to your audience! There are several sites online that help with creating SMNRs and also several sites with helpful tips! All of these sites are very important for PR professionals!!
Reading Notes– Week 8, Chapter 14
08 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
- PR professionals should concentrate on following the basic guidelines when it comes to writing; clarity, completeness, conciseness, correctness, courtesy, and responsibilty.
- This chapter discusses and teaches a PR writer how to write and e-mail, memorandums, letters, and proposals, and discusses in detail how each one should be formatted its content, and it’s purpose.
- This chapter is very helpful in helping a PR professional know what to include in each form of communication.
- This chapter can also be a great reference guide to a PR professional if they have forgotten how to write a certain one or have gotten the rules confused.
Reading Notes–Week 4, Chapters 5&6
08 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
- This chapter teaches about news releases; the planning, the types of news releases, parts of traditional news releases.
- Write news releases that will appeal to editors and their audiences, and try not to violate journalistic standards.
- Keep news releases factual.
- There are different rules for news releases that are sent through e-mail.
- Fact sheets, media advisories, and media kits are all basic publicity tools that are regularly prepared and distributed to encourage media coverage.
- Electronic press kits are available online or are packaged in CD formats. They can include all information in a printed media kit, but also include audio sound bites, high-resolution photos, video clips, and product demonstrations.
- Pitching a story, you should first write a pitch letter to convince editors and reporters to cover an event or do a story.
Are Companies More Trustworthy If They Have Twitter??
01 Jul 2010 1 Comment
An article that I read today said that people are saying that companies that have twitter accounts are more trustworthy than companies that do not. At first, this came as a shock to me. How could you base a companies trust on their Twitter account? Then I started thinking about it and asking myself if I would choose a company that had Twitter or a company that didn’t have Twitter. In any situation, I hope that Twitter would not be the deciding factor, but it does make sense.
A seven-country survey of 4,243 people said that, 75 percent of people surveyed said they view companies that as more deserving of their trust than those that do not. That’s a high percentage of people who agree on this subject. Since social networking is a huge part of business these days, people expect their companies to join in on the trend too.
Companies that don’t have a Twitter or a Facebook are missing out. These social networks provide a way for companies to advertise for free and get their name out there. It is more likely that you will see a Geico Insurance ad before you see a New York Life insurance ad on these social networks. It’s not that Geico is a more trustworthy company, they just have different ways of reaching their customers than Geico.
If a company is updating their status, and sending out information about sales, and so on, people know that this company is interested in their customers and want them to know that they are always there to help! So I do kind of see where people would think that companies with Twitter and Facebook would assume that companies are more trustworthy than others. My advice to companies without Twitter or Facebook, GET ONE! Even if it’s a small business, it could help bring more business in, and if anything else, keep your customers updated on what you are doing for them!
Reading Notes–Chapter 12
01 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
- The internet and the World Wide Web have grown faster than any other mass medium in history.
- The World Wide Web allows organizations to send controlled messages without the message being filtered by journalists and editors.
- Writing for the web is very different from writing for press releases. It has a different format and this chapter discusses how a PR practitioner should write online.
- Webcasting is now used widely by organizations for news conferences, employee training, and everything in between.
- Web 2.0 is mostly consumer based and has given rise to social media.
- There are 3 kinds of blogs: corporate, employee, and third-party.
- Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr are all huge social networking sites.
- The traditional media is still out there and still very used by consumers but a lot of consumers are going straight to the internet to get all of their information.
Reading Notes– Week 7, Chapters 11 & 12
01 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
- Media relations is the core activity in many public relations jobs.
- Studies show that media relations was the number 1 job responsibility of their public relations staffs.
- 2/3 of journalists don’t trust PR people, but 81% say they need them.
- Alot of the information that is seen in the mass media comes from PR sources.
- 60% of journalists use new release all the time or often.
- Journalists use “spokespeople” as a code word for PR personnel who provide information.
- Journalists don’t want to admit their reliance on PR sources because they think it reflects negatively on them as reporters.
- The traditional media, newspapers, radio, etc., are still cost-effective channels of communication today.
- Today PR professionals are less dependent on traditional media and are more focused on the internet.
- The relationship between PR and the media is based on mutual cooperation, trust, and respect.
- As a PR professional trying to get your story out there you need to be fully prepared, because if you are not, journalists do not have time for you.
- This chapter is very informative about how you should go about dealing with journalists and teaches PR professionals the right etiquitte while working with one.
Comment #3!!
29 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in Comments
To Ashley Quinn: Death of Podcasts!!
http://adq1221.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/t-o-w-week-6-death-by-podcast/
amylynn0711 | June 28, 2010 at 7:48 pm
OMG! Me too!! I absolutely hate them!! I would rather read than listen to a mono-tone woman tell me how to do something for 20 minutes!!
Comment #2!!
29 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in Comments
To Martine Howard The New Android!
amylynn0711 says:
http://prsocialmedia.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/new-android-phone/
June 28, 2010 at 7:43 am
Found one this weekend that everyone should appreciate. Download the App “where is my droid?” and you can text “where is my droid?’ from anyone’s phone and your phone will respond with the latitude, longitude, address, and a link to googlemaps to show where your phone is located!! Pretty genius, if you ask me!!
Comment #4!!
29 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
by amylynn0711 in Comments
http://maggiecrowley.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/the-power-of-the-pod-cast/
amylynn0711 said,
on June 29, 2010 on 1:36 am
I really enjoyed your post! Podcast, besides music podcast, do not interest me at all! After reading this post I want to go download podcast from The Creative Career, so maybe I can begin to like them better! Thanks for sharing these links!! Hope you’re having a great summer!!