You're Your Own PR Person - Blog 10

    What part of your personal life is private when it is posted to the web? At what part does the judgement start when you’re interviewing for a job? When do you turn on the charm and sell yourself? These are some of the questions that are commonly on the minds of college students who are looking for a job.

    Over the course of my three years in college I have learned the answers to these questions. I never really understood at the beginning when my parents didn’t like the idea of me posting a lot of personal information on myspace, Facebook and other social media sites. Now though I completely understand. No matter if the posts are deleted they are there forever. Anything I put out on the web is subject to be seen when I’m applying for jobs. Nothing is private any more when it is on the web. And that means whatever I put out there when I was 16 reflects on me now as a college senior applying for internships.

    That brings me to the second question. We all wonder when do they start judging us for the job. I have had the opportunities to listen to professionals come and speak to us in many classes. They all agree that judgement starts a good time before the interview. Whether it is when you drive on the grounds or walk into the building. Personally from my experience the best answer would be that is starts from the very moment you send in your resume. They judge you on that and go and look you up in LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. They will know so much about you before you even walk in the door.  This can really hurt some of us because some students don’t see the need to present themselves professionally online when it is supposed to be social.

    I have heard from professionals that if the person doesn’t look good online then they don’t hire that person. This means that we are making an impression at all times. It is not only important to charm the boss when you are in the interview but they are always watching and it is important to be on your best behavior all the time. We are our own personal PR. Anything I do is subject to grounds of how people see me. This is not only true for PR students wishing to go into public relations but true for every person. We are the best marketers of yourselves. We need to make sure that we are always presenting ourselves professionally.

    I feel that as a PR student I have the upper hand because we are taught to please the client and present things to the public appropriately and effectively. I can take all that I have learned for how to handle a client and apply it to my every day life when wanting to present myself to the public. I am glad that PR has taught me that it’s not just for clients but for myself as well.

Rodeo Houston Runs Live Twitter Feed - Blog 9

Cans Promoting School Pride - Blog #8

    The University of North Texas hosts CANstruction every Spring semester during Greek Week. Greek Week is a week where every Greek chapter comes together in eight teams to compete in friendly competitions for a whole week and then get honored at the end of the week for all that they have done that year. One of the events the teams participate in is CANstruction.

    CANstruction is not just open to Greek Life but open to the entire school and any organizations or departments that wish to participate in. This year the event had to moved inside to multiple spots in the union due to the weather but that didn’t stop the students. Students come together during CANstruction to build something from their cans and then donate the cans to food homes.

    The theme this year is school pride. UNT is not one of the strongest schools for school pride but the turn out this year was amazing. The new brand identity for the school is present in the structures the students are building. “Green Light to Greatness” is the new tag line and is the theme to so many different groups.

    This is a different side of PR that I’ve seen. So many people think PR has to be through an agency or corporation but this spirit is a different PR. These students are walking promotions for UNT. They are coming together in spirit of UNT and will leave and tell people they know about UNT. Students that find a connection to their school are more likely to promote their school. It’s a simple fact.

    These students will spread good things about UNT and continue the hype of the new tag line. The brand identity didn’t stop at the reveal event but continues in events throughout the university and through the spirits of the students. I think that is the best PR there is. An inspirational PR is what I would like to belong to. PR is more than what we learn in class with communication plans and social media releases. Those are necessary to learn but a classroom cannot teach you this. I want to be inspirational in my PR career.

UNT Tag Line Glitch - Blog 7

    Early this week UNT seemed to have a major glitch in their web system when this is what the main UNT web page looked like for an entire day.

Top left is old UNT tag line; top right is new UNT tag line.

Not too long after the reveal of the new tag line “Green Light to Greatness” was revealed the UNT main page (www.unt.edu) seemed to be having some major problems.

    Now I don’t personally know if the tech guy just forgot which one was the correct tag line or not but I guess it was better safe than sorry and put both tag lines on the banner. No one at UNT tech support or staff noticed this glitch until 9:00 that night when a UNT student posted a screen shot of the home page on her Facebook account. Now it’s just speculation that it was because of one student’s post out of 36,000 students but it sure was a nice coincidence. Even if it wasn’t taken down due to her post the better question is why was it even up there? And why was it left incorrect for so long that day?

   The front page read “Discover the Power of Ideas” and also “Green Light to Greatness” for the entire school day. Students were talking about “UNT’s mistake” on Facebook and Twitter for all of Tuesday but it was not taken down and fixed until that night. This is not a timely correction. If I have learned anything about PR this semester it is to be timely. Don’t sit on issues or wait for them to get worse. Do something to fix it and handle the situation.

    Maybe this glitch isn’t the biggest problem out there, I know it’s not but the fact that it took tech people so long to notice it and fix it is bad. It makes UNT look like a joke. We have four bold goals now but can’t even get our tag line on our front page correct? How can we be tier one when we look like fools for an entire day?

    I really hope this doesn’t happen again and it just shows how powerful social media is. Some students may not have noticed what was wrong if it wasn’t for it being discussed and posted about on social media sites.

Sources:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=744604887 - Brittni Barnett’s Facebook