Learning to conquer the media... socially.

Today was a great day for public relations!

I spent today at a great conference titled "Mastering the Changing Media" hosted by the Public Relations Society of America's Southwest Missouri Chapter. I learned so much! It's nice being a college student and having such incredible opportunities available.

The presentations given by Gary McCormick, Libby Bender, and Jeff Risley were so progressively minded and informative. As a college student so interested in social media right now, I couldn't have been more excited.

How can a person not be excited about social media? It's shaping the way we communicate in so many ways. And it's shaping fast. I can't understand people who dismiss it as a fad. It is certainly not a fad. Facebook has 300 million active users. Twitter users are expected to exceed 50 million by the end of this year. I certainly don't know that many people... not yet at least. Think of how many opportunities to build relationships that is.

I'm double majoring in both Advertising and Public Relations but this semester has definitely shown me that Public Relations is more up my alley. Talking to strangers? Building relationships with people? Those are probably my favorite hobbies.

Later in the evening, DC Networks (Drury's student chapter of the Association for Women in Communications) hosted our annual Extreme Networking Event. It was another successful evening of great conversation and helpful tips from professionals in the communications world. The mock-interview sessions were great and make me feel a bit better about my internship search (shameless plug: anyone looking for an intern??). Even with the intense rain, we had a pretty good turn out and I certainly am thankful that the professionals were willing to offer their time and knowledge.

I'm so excited to be studying Public Relations. I really don't think there could be a better time than now to be in the field.



Oh, and I got the recommendation to download the Flock web browser... which is going to do one of two things: keep me up to date and constantly informed of the social media world, or prevent me from ever efficiently completing an assignment for the rest of my college career. Okay... probably both.

Regardless, it's still the coolest web browser ever. Just saying.




Peace&Hiccups

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Sugarloaf Mountain

I don't appreciate the awesome things around me like I should.

I got a phone call today from James at 10:55am. This is a bit before my natural waking time. When I got in touch with James around 12:45, I discover he was calling to see if I wanted to go to Sugarloaf Mountain.

Yes! I wanted to go to Sugarloaf Mountain! What a great idea! Oh, but wait... James can't anymore. My response was too late. Well... I was determined to go anyways.

And I did go to Sugarloaf Mountain today. It was beautiful outside. After a bit of procrastination at the house, I packed a picnic lunch and drove out to Clarksburg.

Why did I think to do this earlier???

The mountain was beautiful. My friend Lindsay and I made our way up the trail, huffing and puffing as we came closer to the top. It was more of a work out than I remembered. It was worth it though.

The sun filtered through the trees perfectly and the view was magnificent. We found a nice flat rock and had our lunch.

It struck me that so many people have never had that view of the area we live in. It's really gorgeous. But I will bet that a good portion of the people living in Maryland have no idea what the lay of the land really loooks like. That's a view you can only see from high up. It made me think... I have no idea what a birds eye view of Missouri looks like, I should check that out. Everywhere is so unique, beyond the sites of everyday suburbia.

We even met some pretty cool kids during our adventure. Who would've thought?

I've decided I'm going to start doing things like going to Sugarloaf more often. It's right there, it's fun, it's a good work out, it's different, it's something to do, and it's free! Everyone should be getting in on this... honestly!

I'm going strawberry picking on Wednesday... and next week, I might try to tackle Great Falls. I'd like to ride my bike over in that area. It's good for that.

Maryland's alot more beautiful than a lot of people realize. We need to start appreciating it.

Thoughts on Social Media

Social Media is awesome.



This is not an unbiased blog post. But I suppose that's the point of a blog, now isn't it? I love social media. It's so interesting to me, seeing how so many people can connect so easily and quickly. I love making such connections and talking to people, about anything, really. I'm so glad my Media Writing teacher made our class sign on to Twitter. It's been one of my favorite things about this semester.



I hate it when people are so quick to put down Twitter. People who hate Twitter, usually don't understand Twitter. Or at least don't attempt to use it in a very productive way.



"It's just like Facebook," they say. But they're wrong. Sure, you can use Twitter to follow your 30 close friends who might use it as well. You can find out what they ate for breakfast or what time they're leaving work. But that's not all that interesting. Facebook is great... for it's own individual reasons. On facebook, you follow the lives and connect with people who you mainly know in person. It's a more unique social networking site targeted towards the individual.



When you use Twitter, you need to realize that you're part of something bigger. It's not all about you; it's about the community. It's about conversation. You follow and are followed on Twitter by strangers. But there are alot of strangers who are alot smarter than you. It does a person good to step outside their own personal network and listen to what someone across the country or across the world might have to say.



I've learned alot just listening to the variety of thoughts and opinions from random people on twitter. I follow republicans. I follow democrats. I follow moderates. I follow teachers. I follow my peers. I follow news stations. I follow radio stations. I follow Joe Schmoes. It's fun.



You only get out of Twitter, what you put into it. I think that's one thing that people new to Twitter need to realize. If you don't tweet, and you don't follow people, and you don't write things that are interesting to others and that involve others, you're not going to enjoy using twitter. If you want followers, reach out. If you want to learn things, type some of your interests into twitter's search engine and see who's talking about it. Find someone interesting? See who they follow. Be interesting. No one's going to be drawn to an a page without a picture and a few tweets about the family cat.

Just give it a chance, all you twitter haters. Yes, it can be time consuming if you let it, but you're in control. It can also be very rewarding. Take an hour out of your day and do some searching. You might like what you find.

Peace&Hiccups, Ellen