There is one crossover subject between Toni’s post and Doug’s article in the person of Prof. Karen Russell.

I have created a wiki (http://euroblog.pbwiki.com/) to bring together ideas for EuroBlog – it would be great if PR Conversations readers added to the debate.

Euprera’s EuroBlog 2010 research will include an attempt to assess to what extent social media is being incorporated into public relations programmes across Europe and also an attempt to create a generic social media module that could form the basis for teaching this subject. We will be looking for researchers to co-ordinate surveys in each European country and also for collaborators willing to share ideas for the generic module – reading lists, lecture themes etc.

Full details will appear on the Euprera website shortly but in the meantime if anyone is intersted in contributing please email me – philip.young@sunderland.ac.uk.

For the record my University, Sunderland, is introducing a 10 credit Introduction to Social Media module at Level One in September and has run a popular and successful 20 credit social media module for the last three years.

David Phillips and I will be discussing ways in which PR academics should engage with teaching social media at the launch of our book, Online Public Relations 2nd Ed (http://xrl.in/13fl), which takes place in London on May 19. If you can’t make the party, we will welcome contributions through Twitter etc.

Yet you and others might find interesting this post from Josh Bernoff that my friend Giampaolo Azzoni of the University of Pavia just sent me http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2009/04/why-social-media-sucks.html….
which tries fairly successfully to ‘go into’ the term social media to conclude that the ‘media’ part of the buzzword is less relevant than it appears…
your thoughts?

Social media will become mainstream while being in constant evolution, and therefore not being completely mainstream (if we consider maturity an attribute of mainstream).

Second, while it is true that there are professionals that have been rethinking the basics, it is also true that there are scores of so-called professionals who ignore the basics and several other fundamental concepts.

I hope that social media will make life more difficult for these individuals as the continuous evolution/renovation of the scenario asks for a solid background and cannot be dealt with a “mee too” attitude.

By the way I am sure you are all aware of the upcoming Edelman-PRWeek (month?) new media academic summit which will take place in June in Washington dc.
You can have more info here http://www.newmediaacademicsummit.com/

Bill introduces the issue of social media engagement by implying that bloggers expect you to remain involved in the conversation.
True, but it is so different from well practiced mainstream media relations?
So it is, of course, if one deals with journalists only to place some copy and once the copy is obtained disappears.
But this is a highly unproductive manner of developing relationships.

To all my interlocutors involved in media relations (students, coworkers, other colleagues and clients) I continually insist that they get up from the their desk and their computer and pass at least a couple of days a week in the physical company of their pre-identified important journalists, see them at work, how they work, what tools they use (participant observation), understand their primary interests and make sure that every email they send has an object which relates to each individual’s special interests.

Also, I was inspired last year in Bruxelles at the Euroblog conference by one of the Edelman presenters who introduced the concept of digital curator.

I reinterpreted this by selecting some young intelligent graduate students and trained them to identify, select, prepare weekly highly intense but very short summaries (with links of course) of issues discussed online around the world and submit them to relevant (for clients of course) journalists as a reintermediation service so that they don’t need to stay chained to their computer all day (if they trust you of course and if your selections are not excessively biased of course).

May I confess that this little gimmick (very useful and instructive for the young ones to as they learn to select, understand, summarise…all highly relevant competencise for our profession) has been a tremendous success and has greatly improved our relationships with those journalists??

Toni, you’re absolutely right that faculty have to understand it themselves first; that’s the value of the Connect conference, the Edelman Academic Summit, and similar events that bring educators and professionals together.

Three years ago, we attempted to deal with the rise of social media by launching a class called “PR Online Tactics.” It’s been a challenge to keep this course on the “cutting edge,” and course content changes each semester. We address social media by requiring students to write blogs and participate on Twitter. Students also develop interactive e-newsletters and produce podcasts. The class spends spend a good deal of time exploring online newsrooms and the differences between”blogger relations” vs. “media relations.” Finally, students are instructed in the basic concepts of search engine optimization and required to employ those principles in what they produce for class.

Now, 3 years later, we realize placing the “online” tactics in one class is simply inadequate. So next fall we will spread the components of this class across all “skills” classes in the curriculum. Our “Media Relations” class will integrate blogger relations. With the help of Pitch Engine,students will produce their own “social media newsroom.” And of course, we will examine the intersection of social and traditional media and how they influence one another.

The e-newsletter moves to our more traditional “PR Publications” class where students are asked to produce print and “e” versions by re-purposing the content to fit a different audience and a different medium. The e-newsletters, because they offer instant feedback and discussion, create new challenges for students (and instructors). Keeping up with the “tech” side of these courses has us all working long hours.

Our “Face-to-Face Tactics” class next fall will add discussion and exploration of personal online presence (We don’t care for the “Brand You” label) via LinkedIn and Twitter. We’ll look at social networks and their new role in career development and relationship building. It’s critical that we incorporate virtual interaction with F2F interaction. In the past this class focused primarily on presentation skills and event management.

To close, I return to media relations vs. blogger relations. Are they different concepts? Yes. But as Heather said early on, “relationships” remain the core element. Bloggers, like traditional media, seek a dialogue with sources who can help them serve their audiences. But students must realize that SM communicators don’t operate on traditional notions of balance & objectivity that guided American journalism for nearly 100 years. Simply put, bloggers are more likely to bite you than their traditional counterparts. Bloggers also demand that we remain involved in a story and the conversations that follow. This makes for some very, very long days!