It’s amazing that something so sacred as marriage could cause so much ”buzzworthiness” and curiosity among the public. They never admitted to being married until the 2010 Grammys when Beyoncé won her award and got so caught up in the moment that she thanked her man. The media had a field day with her one minute speech because all of their speculations were finally confirmed.

A couple that is usually so private finally let the cat out of the bag and this again sent the media into a frenzy. They started making up reasons about why Beyoncé and Jay were unhappy. Media sites like mediatakeout.com and other gossip sites were reporting bogus stories just to gain readers when they for so long were on #teamBeyandJay and spent years linking them together. From stories of his infidelities to stories of her not wanting children, these sites reported anything they could to make their sites more interesting.

It’s unfortunate when people feel entitled to your information and you no longer have the privacy that you deserve. Because they are public figures, I think many times people want to know what is going on with them. When is that curiosity too much? When will we let our public figures breathe and have at least one thing they can call their own…like their marriage.

*this is a performance of Forever Young by Jay-Z at the 2010 Coachella Music Festival…enjoy!

Enjoy…

Throughout my public relations classes I have been referred to many popular blogging sites created by public relations and communication specialists.  They have all the credentials and qualification in communication with all the educated sounding vocabulary.  From Waxman to Mann, yes I respect their contributions to social media and blogging.  Hey I guess its only right, they are like the founding fathers to us bloggers. But when visiting their sites I have found one common thing in common, they are all boring!

PR is fun and full of energy.  So how do they manage to make even the most creative and exciting components of PR such as social media, sound like a complete bore. I am 22 years old and barley a graduate of Georgia Southern University. And I often find myself just browsing through the overload of content looking for something that interest me.  The topics would probably be a lot more “reader-friendly” if they were more conversational. I thought this was one of the first rules of making a blogging, to make it easy to read.  But how come it feels like I am reading a school textbook.

Are all bloggers old wrinkly white people? I hope not, that would be boring. And very depressing for up and coming PR practitioners.  Does this mean that I have to wait until I am over 30 to have a repuitable blog in the world of bloggers?

All social media experts all say the same thing about social media so the only difference is how the material is presented.

Lets be honest, we all as bloggers consider our works contenders for the Pulitzer Prize in our minds.  But in all actuality we are all journalists showing our work to the world.  I am new to blogging and do not want to come off as a professional that  I surely am not. But I do not want blogs to lose their fun factor.

As a blogger I vow to ….

- Always have fun blogging.

- Never use too many BIG words in my blog. Its a blog not a dictionary.

- Include A LOT of visual images  on my blog.  Too many words look like a textbook.

- Do a podcast every now and again so I can talk to my followers.

- Avoid boring topics. There is nothing about the blogging that should be boring. Hey its only the greatest thing to happen to the internet in life, social media.

I am going to write for my demographic, young socialists! No this will not be a gossip blog, and  I may not have all of the credentials of older bloggers. But the excellent thing about blogging is that we have the ability to cite sources.

Viral videos have a very big chance of putting some advertising to rest due to the fact that viral videos are shared over free networks. To post a video on YouTube is free compared to the major money that one would spend to get their videos on air. If your viral video catches on, it can have a huge success rate, even creating online celebrities. For instnace, who didn’t know Chris Crocker in 2007 when he came out with his video dedicated to publically defending Britney Spears. That video alone had over 30 million views on YouTube, and while it was a little disturbing and entertaining, he definitely got his point across.

Viral videos use music, comedy, and even shock factors to keep the viewers interested. It is up to the viewer to do the rest.

For a class, we were asked to create a viral video that allows viewers to see our client in a way that would stick with them, so this is what we came up with:

Jalen Testerman was a young kid that started breakdancing at the age of 3 or 4. He became so popular on YouTube that Ellen invited him on her show to show off his breakdancing skills. I think people like to see amazing things like this, so this is him breakdancing…

Another video that went viral was this one. Ellen also had this young lady on her show as a guest…

Another show that may reflect the PR world well is a show called Kell on Earth. Kell on Earth is a reality show that follows the day-to-day activities of Kelly Cutrone and her fashion PR firm, People’s Revolution. This might actually be the most accurate portrayal that I’ve seen considering all you see is them working. I honestly feel that unless you are super successful in the PR field, there are going to  be times in your career that looks a lot like what Kelly and her people go through. From the first episode, we saw Kelly and her staff sweating to make their clients’ shows a success. I know a lot of things that happened on the show might be a little over exaggerated for the sake of viewership, but reality can’t be altered that much. We followed her on her journey of good times and bad times, like in one episode when her client fired her because he wasn’t at all happy with the outcome of his event.

Some call PR spinners, but I call us work horses. We work hard at our job so our clients will have less to worry about. We have a different set of responsibilities and it is important that we as PR professionals remember that our first priority is the client, and I think Kelly Cutrone and her staff do a pretty good job at doing so.

direct link: http://jstroud86.podbean.com/mf/web/e69y5j/girltalkpodcast.mp3

“GIRL TALK” with Jayme Stroud and Maranda Butler

Theme Music-Beyonce’s Sweet Dreams and Young Money’s Roger That

Welcome to our radio show on WPYT the People’s Station

• Introduction of Speakers
• Introductory conversation and background topic information

(Transition- Theme Music)

Brief History of Myspace

• Reasons why it is declining

1. Controversy – Child safety and stalker cases
2. “Portal strategy” site while Myspace and Facebook focus their attention on social media solely
3. Inability to update and change with the times. They have a slow response time.
4. Other sites such as You Tube, Twitter, and Facebook have all of the components of Myspace but better
5. The “it” factor of social media sites. They are hot for the moment.

(Transition-Theme Music)

Brief History of Twitter

• Reasons why it is on the rise

1. People can post on Twitter in over 20 languages…can Myspace do that?
2. Twitter is a better advertising tool and it gives more opportunity for consumers to voice their opinion about it.
3. Let’s talk about “lurking”
4. Communication is instantaneous

(Transition-Theme Music)

Questions from callers/tweeps

Thanks for tuning in to Girl Talk on WPYT the People’s Station…Catch you next week!

(The End-Theme Music)

Last semester we had to join PROpenMic for a class and ever since it has been an enjoyable experience.

For example, in that same class, we had to do an informational interview. I was having the hardest time finding a PR professional in Statesboro so I took to the internet. Within a day, I had someone willing to help me by allowing me to interview them. He let me set up the time and we talked on the phone until I had everything I needed.

That’s just one example of the goodness that comes from PROpenMic. They also have sections where they have different job and internship opportunities for upcoming PR students and grads.

PROpenMic is a very valuable tool for us PR professionals because it is like a big family. They lend advice, they blog about useful topics, and they even recognize members’ birthdays. PROpenMic is like a smaller Facebook for PR professionals. It keeps us all connected.

Doing podcasts can be very beneficial for both work and play. Podcasts have no limit and they can be done in very different ways. The podcast that we did do, we made into a radio show. PR professionals can do a lot with a podcast. They can communicate to the public about their clients, or they can just inform upcoming PR professionals on different information that is coming to the forefront of the PR world.

Here’s a video to get you started…

Bieber’s marketing team has done a great job keeping his appeal high and negativity low. With hits like “Baby” and “Never Let You Go”, he is appealing to both young and older crowds. Sometimes an artist can over saturate the different media channels, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, television, etc., but Bieber hasn’t done that. It’s hard to say whether or not he will last or whether his buzz will die, or even if he will keep the same steam sending young girls into a frenzy when they merely hear his name.

MTV brought back a show that has been off air in years just to get Justin’s story.You would like to credit Justin’s “people” for all of his success, but I would have to give that award to the fans as well because they are keeping this teen star in the spot light by continuously tweeting and always wanting to know more.

By allowing Justin to be his 16 year old self, his camp is allowing fans to fall in love more. They allow him to talk candidly in interviews, pulling out all of the stops to talk about things as wacky as how he maintains his swoop bangs.  His appeal comes from the fact that he is a young man and they are allowing him to be just that…a growing young man.