Culpwrit

Social Media is the ecosystem for which professional and personal relationships are created, nurtured and grown.  As a student, recent graduate or newly hired communications professional, Social Media and the tools that define social landscape, will quickly become pervasive as you research and observe the markets that are important to the business your represent. It is this listening and learning that reveals the exact channels you need to reach the people defining your communities and also provides you with instructions and strategies on how to genuinely engage and participate.

You must combine these new media strategies with traditional methodologies in order to be successful in the continually evolving public relations profession.

Words to the Wise:  The Social Web can and will be used against you in a court of public opinion. At the same time, it can also work for you to aggregate, package, and portray a strategically crafted personal brand. As a student, recent grad or someone who’s new to the workforce, you probably didn’t realize that after all these years of uploading or contributing content to the Web that people would eventually search your name in Google or Yahoo to piece together a picture of who you are and what you stand for. It is a fact that employers, universities, grad schools, potential partners and customers, and even friends, will proactively research information about you that’s readily available on the Web. Now that you know this valuable bit of information, the real question is, what are you going to change today or tomorrow? What will you do differently moving forward?

Be sure to read Brian’s highly informative “State of Social Media” post as well as his instructive 3-part series on the “Socialization of Your Personal Brand.”