PRSA CEO: Social Media Has Become Strategic PR Function

In this video, Gerry Corbett, chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America, explains why social media has become a strategic public relations function.

Click the image to play the following Facebook video:

So, who teaches how to manage social media in our colleges and universities? Marketing? IT? Or PR? Public relations faculty need to engage.

Mark

Google Announces New Social Media Analytic Tools

Figure courtesy of Google

Finally, social media managers have a new set of no cost tools to help take some of the mystery out of analyzing the value of social media activities. Response to Google's March 20 announcement about its new analytics package for social media has been generally favorable.

You haven't heard about this yet? Well, you need to get onboard, as Google Analytic's new "Social Reports" option provides a powerful (and free!) means for measuring the impacts and effectiveness of your social media programs.

According to the Google announcement, "The new reports bridge the gap between social media and the business metrics you care about - allowing you to better measure the full value of the social channel for your business." Specifically, Social Reports will help social media managers:

1. place a value on traffic from social media sites by measuring how they lead to direct engagements with key audience members;
2. develop a more refined understanding of social activities on and off of social media sites, which help optimize engagement and key performance indicators; and
3. make more efficient and better qualified decisions about SM programs based on credible data.

For a better understanding of how the Social Reports program works, check out "About Social Analytics" on the Google Analytics Help page. According to Google, the following four elements define social impact: sources, conversions, pages, and social plugins. Google defines these elements as follows (source):

Sources: As your content is shared and people come to your site, it's important to understand how visitors from different social sources engage with your site.

Conversions: Shared content URLs become the entry points into your site, driving traffic from social sources. Measuring the conversion and monetary value of this traffic will help you understand the impact of Social on your business.

Pages: People increasingly engage with, share, and discuss content on social networks. It’s important to know which pages and content are being shared, where they're being shared, and how.

Social Plugins: Adding Social Plugin buttons to your site (for example, Google "+1" buttons) allows your users share content to social networks directly from your site. Your social plugin data shows you which content is being shared, and on which networks.

By integrating analysis of all these elements (and visitor flow through sites), social media managers can now obtain a more complete and accurate understanding of how social media affects performance, justify the cost of social media activities, and demonstrate social media's contribution to an organization's bottom line.

To get started with setting up and evaluating your Social Reports, read the tutorials provided by Google at its "About Social Analytics" page.

Michael Bernardini (Marist, '13) Selected as Fall '12 COMMARTS Intern

Michael Bernardini

The Marist College School of Communication and the Arts has announced selection of communication major Michael Bernardini (’13) as the school’s fall 2012 communication intern. Michael has an academic concentration in public relations and a minor in global studies.

Michael (on LinkedIn) will begin his intern duties when the fall semester convenes on August 27. As the school’s intern, he will provide direct support to Dean Steven Ralston, faculty, staff, and contract employees. He will also promote awareness of the school’s student activities and accomplishments. His duties will include assisting with management of public relations, advertising, marketing and other strategic communication functions that contribute to strong relationships with the school’s key audiences.

Michael, a resident of Lansdale, PA, is a 2009 graduate of Perkiomen Valley High School in Collegeville, PA. In addition to his academic accomplishments, he currently serves as the vice-president of Marist’s Red Foxes Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA). He will serve as president of the chapter during the next academic year.

Michael is also employed by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion (the Marist Poll) and he has completed communication internships with Say Communications (healthcare, London, England); Sprout Creek Farm (social media, Poughkeepsie, NY); and Saint Francis Hospital and Health Centers (Poughkeepsie, NY).

Congratulations to Michael and all of this semester’s applicants for this position. All students were well qualified, with impressive resumes, which made for an extremely challenging selection process.

Any students interested in applying for future positions as the school’s communication intern should contact me at mark.vandyke@marist.edu.

Marist Poll Student Worker Saves a Life

From Left: Jason Sokolowski, Bobby
Berlin, Daniela Charter

Congratulations to Marist Poll field supervisor Daniela Charter and Marist College communication major Jason Sokolowski for saving a life.

While working one of his shifts for the Marist Poll on the evening of April 16, Jason's random call -- one of hundreds that he might make in a night -- woke up Bobby Berlin of Manhattan. Berlin's speech was slurred and her answers to Jason's questions about Mayor Bloomberg didn't make sense. Sokolowski, who lost a close high-school friend to a diabetic attack last November, sensed that something was wrong and again asked Berlin, "Are you O.K.?"

A recording of the call documented Berlin responding, "Ahh, what? Awww, wuh."

Sokolowski asked again, "Are you O.K., mam?"

Berlin replied, "No." 

Click image to listen to YNN report and
audio of actual Marist Poll phone call.


At that point Sokolowski called in his supervisor, Daniela Charter, a four-year veteran of the Marist Poll. Suspecting that Ms. Berlin was experiencing a medical emergency, the team called Dutchess County, N.Y., 911 emergency services, who connected with Manhattan emergency services, who then traced Berlin's phone number. Arriving at her apartment, Manhattan first responders found Berlin nearing a diabetic coma. Following treatment, she has since recovered and is now back in her apartment.

Asked about the call, Bobby Berlin said, "If something hadn't been done, I don't think I would have made it until morning."

Remaining humble about his role in saving Bobby Berlin's life, Jason Sokolowski chalked up the incident to a "perfect storm" of random chances. "It all came together for her," Sokolowski concluded. "It just wasn't her time to go."

Jason Sokolowski is a Marist College junior in the School of Communication and the Arts. He has an academic concentration in advertising with a minor in psychology.

The Marist Institute for Public Opinion, better known as the Marist Poll, is a survey research center located at Marist College. Founded in 1978, the institute measures public opinion on a wide variety of topics at the local, regional, state, and national level. The data collected by the Poll are widely reported by journalists and analysts around the world.

For me, students like Jason Sokolowski and staff members like Daniela Charter are just one of the many rewards of teaching and studying at Marist College. Go Red Foxes!

News reports by YNN TV's John Wagner and NBC-TV4 New York's Melissa Russo contributed to this blog post. See additional stories and photographs by the Washington Post, the Poughkeepsie Journal, and Marist College Public Affairs.

PR Professional Lecturer Donohue Named Marist COMMARTS Faculty Member of the Year

Marist College's Jennie Donohue

The Marist Student Government Association (SGA) has selected Jennie Donohue, professional lecturer in public relations, as its 2011-2012 School of Communication and the Arts Faculty Member of the Year. Students across the Marist campus nominated deserving faculty members for this award during the spring 2012 elections for SGA.

Donohue joined the full-time faculty at Marist College in the fall of 2010. She is an award-winning communication professional with more than two decades of industry experience. Among other responsibilities, she serves as the faculty adviser to the college’s Red Foxes Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America. She is also a charter member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Hudson Valley Interest Group, which is in the process of forming the newest chapter in the PRSA, the world's largest professional organization of public relations practitioners.

I have had the pleasure of working closely with Jennie since her arrival at Marist in 2010. In the short time she has been on our faculty, she has energized the teaching of our public relations courses, established guest speaker program that introduces students to some of the nation's leading public relations professionals, guided the rapid growth and development of Marist's PRSSA chapter, helped the PRSSA chapter launch a student-run communication agency, and helped modernize the college's public relations curriculum.

I can think of no candidate more worthy of this year's award. Please join me in congratulating Jennie Donohue on this special recognition!

Expert Lessons in Strategic Communication

I  was privileged to have two brilliant guest speakers join my strategic communication course at the U.S. Army War College (Carlisle, PA) over the last few days. The course is one of several electives offered by the Center for Strategic Leadership this spring to senior military officers and government civilians from the United States and 66 other nations. Fellow faculty members Dennis Murphy and Ben Leitzel assist in teaching our strategic communication course to eight senior military and government service students from the United States, Zambia, Poland, and Lithuania.

Rear Admiral Hal Pittman

On March 30, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Hal Pittman (biography) talked to students about the strategic communication program conducted by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) based in Kabul, Afghanistan. Rear Admiral Pittman, a U.S. Navy public affairs officer based at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, FL, just returned from one year in Afghanistan as the ISAF Deputy Chief of Staff for Communication. He provided our class with a fascinating briefing on what has to rank as one of the most sophisticated and complex political-military strategic communication programs achieved to date.

I described his briefing in more detail on the DIME Blog of the Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College. Click the following link to read my post. You can also click this link to read and download an unclassified set of slides that Rear Admiral Pittman used to illustrate his briefing about the ISAF strategic communication program.

On April 10, our class hosted a visit by Mr. Ron Rhody (biography), an award-winning journalist, book author, corporate public relations executive, and consultant to Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Rhody is also a member of the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Communication Council, which includes senior counselors like Harold Burson, founder and chairman of Burson-Marsteller; and Ed Block, founding director of the Arthur Page Society. Mr. Rhody was escorted by Dr. Frank Kalupa, Professor of Communication Studies, James Madison University. Dr. Kalupa served as the 2010-2011 Visiting Professor of Strategic Communication at the Center of Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College.

Mr. Ron Rhody

Mr. Rhody offered an insightful description of strategic communication from the perspective of corporate communication. This lesson served as a valuable companion to what we teach our students about government strategic communication. First, strategic communication is an essential senior leader function. According to Mr. Rhody, “I can’t think of a Fortune 500 company today that doesn’t count strategic communications as a crucial part of its overall operating plan.” Mr. Rhody elaborated that the key to successful operations is creating by-in among strategic audiences, or “the ability to understand your constituents’ wants and needs and find ways to associate their interests with your actions.” Furthermore, “The strongest single tool for achieving this is communication.”

This leads to the goal of corporate strategic communication: “to get people to do something, not do something, or let us [the corporation] do something…. Because they see how their self-interest is served.”

I am an advocate of research, planning, and evaluation in communication strategy. Communication is more than simply pumping out tactical messages. Therefore, I was gratified to hear Mr. Rhody stress the importance of the planning process in strategic communication. Here is his list of planning essentials: 

1. Be clear on the objective.
2. Be clear on who must be reached.
3. Determine what the audience needs to know, or think, or believe in order to hold opinions or take actions that support your objective.
4. Fashion messages and assemble information that will be persuasive and motivating to specific audiences; and then re-enforce those messages with actions that validate them (e.g., do what you say you will do).
5. Set an action timetable and provide sufficient resources (money, people, etc.).
6. Assign responsibilities to put the plan into action, then monitor, evaluate, and adjust as needed. 

In closing, I will share some universal words of wisdom provided by Mr. Rhody, which have obviously contributed in no small way to his success. This advice applies equally well to public relations as it does to strategic communication, so students, take note:

1. Always assume that anything that can go wrong will, so be prepared.
2. Make sure you have the facts.
3. Take the initiative and tell what you know, when you know it.
4. Get all the bad news out as rapidly as possible … or suffer dying by a thousand cuts.
5. Tell it straight … avoid spin.
6. Take the story directly to your constituents, in your words, with your facts.
7. Try to do what’s right.

If you are wondering how to achieve the kinds of success enjoyed by experts like Rear Admiral Pittman and Mr. Rhody, here’s a suggestion: become a student, study them, and follow their advice. If it works for them, it probably will work for you, too. Click this link for a copy of presentation slides provided by Rear Admiral Pittman. Click the following link for a copy of Mr. Rhody's talking points. You can also follow Rear Admiral Pittman on Facebook and Mr. Rhody on his blog.

Congratulations to Marist Red Foxes PRSSA!

I just received a note from Jennie Donohue, professional lecturer of public relations at Marist College, providing an update on the activities of Marist's Red Foxes Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA). I was so impressed with the chapter's accomplishments this year, that I decided to share some of this good news with my blog followers.

According to Jennie, who is the chapter's faculty adviser, the chapter's executive board established several goals at the beginning of the school year last fall. These goals included recruiting and retaining more members in the chapter.

Of note, I served as the chapter's first faculty adviser when it received its charter from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) in December 2005. The chapter attracted immediate national attention by recruiting more than 70 members during its first semester of operations in spring 2006. According to PRSSA national headquarters, this accomplishment represented one of the fastest starts for a new PRSSA chapter on record -- made even more remarkable by the relatively small size of the Marist student body (around 4,000 undergraduates). However, over the next few years, membership began to decline, so the chapter leadership undertook efforts to survey members and find ways to encourage students to join and remain in the chapter.

The chapter's efforts have finally paid off in an impressive fashion. As of March 2012, the Red Foxes chapter reported the following accomplishments:

• An enrollment of 81 paid members, which nearly doubled membership (48 members in 2010-2011).
• Establishment of an active special events committee that has already built a strong reputation on campus.
• Development of a full staff  for the chapter's newsletter esPResso (click here).
• Enhancement of the chapter's blog (click here).
• Organization of a new student-run public relations firm, North Road Communications. The firm has already taken on professional clients like the Mid-Hudson Valley chapter of the American Red Cross.
• Introduction of a chapter awards program.  

In addition to this good news, Marist is proud to report that the current Chapter President Alexis Murphy, who will graduate in May, received national recognition for her work over the last year. First, she authored an article about the chapter that was published in the USA Today college edition. 

Alexis Murphy receiving
PRSSA Gold Key Award



Second, she was one of only a handful of students in the nation to receive the prestigious PRSSA Gold Key Award for her leadership. Alexis has been very influential in the chapter's success, serving on the executive board as president-elect and then president. Her blog posts, tweets, and news releases have been published by PRSSA on its social media sites, which has helped put Marist's PRSSA chapter on the national map.

I wanted to add a congratulations to Jennie Donohue, as well. After several years as faculty adviser, I felt it was time to turn over my responsibilities to someone else. That someone else could not have been better than Jennie. Jennie, who was active in PRSSA as an undergraduate student, has gone on to earn her MBA and enjoy a very successful career in public relations practice and teaching. Marist and our students benefit greatly from Jennie's professionalism, energy, ideas, positive attitude, and ability to inspire students.

Finally, thanks to the many professional mentors (including Marist alumni) who have helped and pledged support to the Red Foxes PRSSA members. There are far too many of these extremely talented and incredibly busy professionals to name here, but of the professionals I have worked with five come to mind. Thanks to Michael O'Brien (Ketchum), Tim Massie (former Marist chief of public affairs), Gerry McNulty (Marist Communication Intern Director), Jim Keller (IBM), and Justin Meise (River Communications Inc.), who have dedicate countless hours to travel and engagement with our students, without any compensation other than the pride they gain from helping to develop the next generation of public relations professionals.

Please join me in congratulating the members, advisers, and mentors of the Marist Red Foxes Chapter of PRSSA!

Mark