Nice to see you again. Follow me, @SydneyOwen. Thanks for being here!
So I finished my 10,000 word paper for my directed reading on social media. Mid-semester my teacher found my blog and said I could use that as the word count requirement for the class. So, here we are. I’ve selected my favorites from this semester and here’s the little intro I gave to my teacher, outlining my experience. This is more for my sake than anything, but feel free to leave comments if you see fit!
Sydney Owen on: New Media
A Focus on the Socialization of Media
Spring 2009
Did you know that some 90 percent of people that start a blog quit blogging after one month? It’s true (well, at least that’s what Ryan Paugh told me when I was signing up for Brazen Careerist). Though there are a lot of bloggers out there, covering a wide range of topics, they are only ten percent of people that at one point in time thought that starting a blog was a great idea.
I created Sydney Owen on: New Media (sydneyowen.com) after I met Penelope Trunk at the PRSSA National Conference in Detroit last October. Penelope is the author of Brazen Careerist and founder and CEO of the blog network, BrazenCareerist.com. She advised me that blogging would be something that set me apart from other candidates and could potentially have jobs lined up for me before I graduated. Well, Penelope was right.
I thought long and hard about what the topic should be, who my target audience was, and what the goals were. Much like in a campaign for PR, in this case, the message is “Sydney is For Hire”. I picked the tagline “the future of PR starts here” because it does. I am entering the industry with a fresh voice and some serious knowledge of an up and coming trend, social media.
The topic is clearly reflected in the name of my blog: New Media. My posts are about everything that is going on in my life, and how new media ties into those things. A couple examples: I found out a dear friend from high school was in a coma thanks to Facebook, I networked my way through Twitter and ultimately got myself a job lined up for after graduation.
My target audience was anyone and everyone (students and professionals alike) that had anything to do with new media, public relations, marketing, social media, or a combination of them all. It sounds broad, but it’s actually a very tight niche of people.
The ultimate goal was to have people banging down my door with opportunities by the time I graduated, if not beforehand. Allow me to share some results with you:
Twitter
I set out to achieve the ultimate goal by networking, heavily focused on expanding my network on Twitter. I started my Twitter account at the end of October. As I sit here today, I have 1,010 followers. That number was in the 400’s before I attended SXSW. I have more than doubled my network in less than 30 days. The following chart, courtesy of Twitter Counter, shows the increase in followers since January 7th.
I used Twitter to promote blog posts that increased traffic to my site. As people read my material, my network grew, and my material was recognized and linked to by several influential bloggers. The great thing about Twitter is there are so many like-minded people on there, that if they like your content, they’ll send it out to all of their friends. I have people in my network that have 30,000 people following them. Imagine what that could do for site traffic.
Besides Twitter, I used Facebook to spread the word about some of my events that I did with Chipotle. I’ll get into the details of one of the campaigns in a little bit, but it’s amazing the power of a Facebook network. As I grow with Twitter, I feel like the social networking sites I first got into are becoming obsolete. MySpace is an example of a network that is now over-run with garbage. No real conversation or content. I do keep my MySpace account active to check out the music scene however.
South By Southwest Interactive (SXSW) was the highlight of my semester. I’ve included posts that elude to why, but in the short of it, the contacts I made at SXSW (which I attended per the advice of Penelope) are what landed me the gig at Weber Shandwick’s Chicago office. But I don’t want to spoil the story for you, so get to reading!
- Why PR Doesn’t Work
- How to: Find a Mentor
- I’m Chicago Bound
- How To: Prepare for a Meeting About Twitter
- Twitter Can Get You Somewhere
- Jim Storer on: The Lines are Blurring
- Aaron Strout on: Building Your Network
- How SXSW Changed Me
- SXSW part 2
- SXSW – Trip of Self Discovery
- Why You Should Blog
- How to Execute a Campaign in 24 hrs or Less
- You Can’t Please Everyone
- How Journchat Can Change Your Life
- and if by forever, you mean summer, then yes