Spotlighting the Spotlighter: Dr. Karen Miller Russell

Dr. Karen Miller Russell spotlights public relations educators in the “Meet the Teacher” series, which she hosts on her blog, Teaching PR. Today, we are spotlighting each other. Dr. Russell teaches at the Grady College of Journalism and Communication at the University of Georgia. She has supported and guided me in my social media endeavors. Without further adieu, let’s meet Dr. Karen Miller Russell!

Tell us about the University of Georgia’s public relations program.

Our program is housed in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. UGA students have to apply to be Grady majors, and PR is one of the most popular, so we tend to get the cream of the crop — most have GPAs well over 3.0. We try to maintain a balance between teaching theory and research about PR with practical, hands-on professional training.

Your Word of Mouth class sounds intriguing. What activities do your students do in this class?

It’s a special topics course, so this is my first time teaching it. It’s actually a good example of trying to balance theory/research with practice — I had them read Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail and other research on word of mouth, making choices, and social media; and David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR, which taught them how to write a “new rules” plan for our class client, the East Georgia chapter of the American Red Cross. They also maintained blogs, did the social media coverage for the Edelman Digital Bootcamp in March, and used Twitter and other social media.

Congratulations to you and your students for winning the Bateman competition last year and for receiving an honorable mention this year. What tips can you share with aspiring teams?

Thanks! We actually also got an honorable mention 2 years ago, so the streak is building. The best advice I can share is that you have to keep your focus on helping the client, not on winning the competition. You can’t control what other schools do or what the judges want or like to see. But you can do a fantastic campaign on behalf of your client. If the students have been well trained, they should already know what to do — start with research and let that guide the strategies and tactics.

You wrote an insightful blog post about public relations serving society. There have been recent discussions about the definition of public relations. When you talk with students about the definition of public relations, what do you say? What are students’ reactions?

Students are like everyone else — they don’t have a clear definition of PR. I hope when they leave UGA, they want to make a positive contribution to society in addition to whatever personal goals they may have. To me that means choosing clients you believe in, and doing your best to promote them to the benefit of their constituents as well as the organization.

What first interested you in public relations history?

I’ve always loved history, but when I took a media history class in grad school (I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison) I saw that I could combine my interest in public relations with my love of history. Hardly anybody was doing research on it, and we had a great archive at the Wisconsin Historical Society, which included the Hill & Knowlton collection I used for my dissertation. I think doing the research is fun, and I think understanding history can help us better understand our field (including reasons other people dislike and distrust it).

What are some things that people might not know about you?

I won’t eat seafood, I love watching all kinds of sports, I have a 3-year-old, I spend way too much time on Twitter (students, feel free to add me, @karenrussell, and I’ll add you back), and I didn’t give any tests to my WOM class because I hate grading them! (Don’t worry, I gave them lots of projects instead.)

Thank you, Dr. Russell! It has been an honor to interview you.

UO’s Kelli Matthews and Lisa Poplawski Featured in Podcast

This week, Robert French, founder of PR Open Mic and faculty member of Auburn University, interviewed University of Oregon’s Kelli Matthews and Lisa Poplawski. You can listen to the podcast here.

Robert wrote, “The University of Oregon is yet another school that is embracing emerging digital media in their classrooms. The good aspect? They do it well. Their faculty and students are great. So, that’s the reason for this podcast.” (Thanks, Robert!)

Robert is doing a lot with social media in his class as well. In fact, instead of having a textbook, his students purchase a $100 flipcam for their course.

For student readers of this blog, what do you think about the idea of purchasing a $100 flipcam in place of our course packet and “Made to Stick” book? Is this an idea for me to consider for fall quarter? Students would get elementary experience with creating video podcasts.

For practitioner and faculty readers of this blog, what do students need to know about video for public relations?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Which is Better: A Facebook Group or a Facebook Page?

(Screenshot from Tim’s Blog)

During a class discussion about Facebook yesterday, Sarah Essary and Beth Evans described the Facebook group that they use for UO’s PRSSA. Ali Grise informed us of the Facebook page that FLUX (our UO student magazine) uses.

I hopped online today and found discussions by Tim Davies and Peter Leonard (also see Peter’s second post on the topic here). I also compared several Facebook group pages with fan pages. Here’s what I’ve gathered so far.

Both groups allow you to have a wall for posts, a discussion forum, pictures, and videos. So what is different?

Advantages to Facebook Groups

• You can send messages to your members’ Facebook inboxes (update: as long as you have 1,200 members or fewer).

• There are many kinks that the Facebook administrators need to work out for Facebook pages, which makes Facebook groups appealing. I see complaints about the ability to send messages to fans and the ability to add applications to Facebook pages.

• If you already have a Facebook group, creating a Facebook page could create confusion. (update: However, you can transfer your Facebook group to a Facebook page).

Advantages to Facebook Pages

• Facebook pages let you measure your traffic. Hooray! You need at least 10 fans for the metrics to work. Jump down to “Metrics” on Peter Leonard’s discussion for a picture and details.

• You are locked into a set of applications on Facebook groups (e.g., wall, photos, video); however, you can create new applications for your Facebook page (such as allowing customers to buy products). There is also an events application for Facebook pages (see here for an example and click on the event).

• When your fans take action on your page, such as writing on your wall or posting a video, their actions will be documented on the news feeds of their personal pages. Their friends could see the news feeds and check out your organization.

• Ali pointed out that fan pages stand out on profiles, whereas group pages get lost in the mix. See her page for an example. Look at the left sidebar items and compare her Facebook groups with her Facebook pages.

Which option do you think is better? Of course, an organization might want to skip Facebook and set up its own social network through ning, which was a brilliant move for PR Open Mic.

Do you know of any other advantages or disadvantages of Facebook pages and groups?

Presenting UO Spring Bloggers!

Today, my Advanced Public Relations Writing students will set up their blogs. They started learning the rules for engaging in the blogosphere through Edelman and Intelliseek’s “Trust ‘MEdia’” study. Many of them have been picking up tips on PR Open Mic as well. In fact, there is a group for student bloggers on the site.

After my students set up their blogs, they will comment on this post by announcing their blogs and including their blog URLs. All announcements will occur by next Tuesday. Stay tuned.

Update (April 16)
I have created a blogroll of my students’ blogs. See the list on the right side of this blog (after the “Recent Comments” area).

The Use of Social Networking Sites for PR

This afternoon, my class attended the local PRSA meeting. We had an excellent speaker, Niel Laudati, who spoke about his experience with launching a MySpace page for the City of Springfield. It has added a cool factor to Mayor Sidney Leiken for people, from children to seniors. Now the mayor gets high fives when he visits the coffee shop. The MySpace page also allows the city to cultivate relationships with its community members. We know from PR research that cultivating relationships improves an organization’s reputation.

During Neil’s presentation, I was impressed when one of my students referred to Tom Foremski’s discussion of pitching press releases through Facebook. Tom has tried both Facebook and e-mail as a place for pitches. For now, he prefers e-mail. See here for his latest on this topic.

Speaking of social networking, you should join PR Open Mic, a network for PR students, faculty, and practitioners.

When you graduate and land a job, do you think you’ll recommend that your organization set up a social networking site, such as MySpace or Facebook? Why or why not? (I also welcome comments from non-student readers!)

Also, any thoughts about pitching press releases through Facebook or MySpace?