Always love my students and very proud of them. This group was particularly fun and put in a lot of work on these projects. So, give them a look and offer them a job or internship.

OK, I finally got all the screen shots of each site into the slideshow. ;o)

Here they are. All good people. Hire them!

This is the first time I’ve required the students do a mobile version. Only a few chose to go the full route. Everyone had to at least use the simple Google tool to create a version. Some have chosen (or will chose) to take down that Google version, as it is a wee bit quirky. I have chosen to list those that I found that will (I pray) display properly on a mobile device. The WordPress versions are fine. It is the Google versions that seem to go a bit goofy at times.

Most should have some version located at the “m.<domain-name>.com” URL for their site. We got stuck for time at the conclusion of the semester, so I did not hold their feet to the fire on this part of the project. I will do that next semester. ;o) Still some quirks to work out, but I’m happy with what we did this semester.

I’ve offered to continue to help those that want to do the entire mobile thang over the coming weeks. We’ll see how many buy in. To me, this is important for students to have. How many PR pros will receive an email and perhaps click on a link to your resume? Wouldn’t it be cool if they had a mobile version to view?

Mobile is the 900 lb. gorilla, people. Let’s show potential employers that you are thinking about mobile. This is certainly one way to accomplish that objective.

Note: The students are listed in the order they shared their URLs with me on a Google form I use at the end of the semester. So, they really are not in any particular order, except for those at the top with their mobile sites. I pulled them out and moved them to the top.

• Chelsea Quinlan | Mobile (WordPress)
• Courtney Terry | Mobile (WordPress)
• Laura Hancock | Mobile (WordPress)
• Courtney Terry | Mobile (WordPress)
• Caitlyn Shatlock | Mobile (WordPress, in progress)
• Maegan Mogul | Mobile (Google)
• Cari Ellison | Mobile (Google)
• Meg Beasley | Mobile (Google)
• Mary Krueger | Mobile (Google)
• Hallie Van Dyke | Mobile (Google)
• Nicole LaMantagne | Mobile (Google)
• Caitlin DeForest | Mobile (Google)
• Grace Halbert | Mobile (Google)
• Johnny Dougherty | Mobile (Google)
• Stephen Kelly | Mobile (Google)
• Amanda Pinto
• Caroline Powell
• Shannon Donelson
• Lacey Beno
• Danielle Sherman
• Erin Edwards
• Rebecca Ritenour
• Samantha Mays
• Kelly Young
• Megen Heslip
• Ashley Jennings
• Lindsey Holland
• Melissa Hand
• Nelly Gonzalez
• Shaye Smith
• Jason Hermansdorfer
• Brooke Glassford
• Lauren Mullican
• Sarah Giffard
• Whitney Adams
• Alyssa Ramos-Herrera

Over at PROpenMic we’ve been continuing our growth. I like the way we’ve been reaching more and more students from around the world. Today, PROpenMic has students from about 70 countries and over 400 colleges and universities.

Auburn Family is another project. It recently brought the students a silver medal from SIAA. Auburn University also rewarded the students with a front page (top right hand corner) link to their project. That’s pretty cool recognition of a project well done. I’m proud of the students.

We still post at The Loveliest Village and our joint project with The Corner News has seen about 300 features and videos posted on those sites.

Last summer, I helped Auburn Works (ATAC), the Auburn Technical Assistance Center, launch their own social network. Building the Auburn Works Network is proving to help them better present just what it is that ATAC does. They teach Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma and other other management programs.

I haven’t done a complete tally of The Corner News posts & videos, but here is the total from Auburn Family, ATAC and The Loveliest Village: 1,847 Videos & 1,592 features in only 3 years! With the number from The Corner News, I believe we’re actually up to over 2,000 videos and about 1,900 feature stories. I’d call that experiential education … wouldn’t you?  Students post 10 stories and videos a semester, at minimum.

I have other news I’ll be sharing in the days to come. Among that news, you’ll see how we discovered the reach our my students and their social network connections.

But now, on to the video … with a reminder to check out PROpenMic. From the front page of PROpenMic, here’s the video and more.

I like this video.  It’s from the “Indiana University Master’s in Public Relations (program) in Indianapolis.  Professors Bob Dittmer and Julie Vincent, both APRs, address the definition of PR, the types of jobs PR professionals can do, stereotypes of PR, and other PR-related subjects.”

If You’re Spinning, You’re Lying
Bob Dittmer and Julie Vincent, Indiana University’s Master’s in PR Program

Latest News

NEW! Read PR Faculty Magazine. It is a mashup from the RSS feeds of 20+ PR educators around the world. If you have a suggested blog you’d like to see added, please write to me at PROpenMic. Happy to add new blogs.

A good group of students, in a couple of classes from Spring semester 2009, created these as their final project.

Hope you enjoy their work. Please feel free to hire them. Good students & people!

Cross-posted at PRProspects.com and the future home of that site, too.

• www.melindabowens.com
• www.kelliecelia.com
• www.ammccoy.com
• www.katijones.com
• www.annaetucker.com
• www.johnroberson.net
• www.katlinmulvaney.com
• www.jahnnahall.com
• www.margieevans.com
• www.monicaafanador.com
• www.rachelmmurphyonline.com
• www.sjbivins.com
• www.pbdebow.com
• www.kelseyware.com
• www.kcduffyonline.com
• www.carolinecassidy.com
• www.amandamiles.com
• www.marycstewart.com
• www.mbwaltononline.com
• www.klaurenchandler.com
• www.akjonline.com
• www.hillaryegibbs.com
• www.brookbentley.com
• www.faithpalmer.com
• www.elizabethmahaney.com
• www.rebeccabedsole.com

The site, hosted on the Ning platform, has been up for three weeks. You’ll note that the site is residing on the university’s domain. We have only found a few other college/university social networks. Auburn’s is the only one we can find that is totally open to the public.

Coverage has been pretty good. The Associated Press and several state newspapers and TV stations have covered the site’s launch.

Students in PRCM 4020, PR Messages in Style & Design, are managing the site. Each student has complete administrator status. Every week, one group of students write features and create videos for the site.

As of this writing, Auburn Family has 1,324 members. Here’s a breakdown so far: 680 students (Auburn & high school), 78 parents, 453 alumni, 20 faculty, 58 staff, and 110 Friends of Auburn. Please note: the numbers overlap because now you may pick more than one designation. Also, answering this question was not required for half of the signups. So, we know – for example – that we have more than 78 parents. Many of the alumni, for instance, are also parents of students.

Here are three of the stories in state newspapers so far:

Opelika-Auburn News, Huntsville Times and the Columbus (GA) Ledger Enquirer.

Why did I want to do this? It is the ultimate experiential learning experience. Well, one of them, at least. Considering that the university bought into all of our work over the past several years, I feel it serves to give a bit of validity to our classroom activities. The students are now getting to run a site for the university.

It isn’t hard to get the students excited about the exercise. They love their school and want to put their own best foot forward. It is content ripe for a student’s digital portfolio. Showing future employers that they have experience running a social network for such a large institution has its benefits, too.

I’m happy with the site’s progress. Looking forward to how it advances in the weeks to come.

Kelly Adams

Ansley Black

Jill Bledsoe

Emily Canan

Kelly Cargill

Alison Christenberry

Kelly Coffed

Carey Beth Elder

Ragan Gibson

Emily Horne

Caroline Inman

Karen Jones

Lianne Lopez-Ceparo

Evie Maddox

Mikey Mahone

Kimberly Meyers

Mallory Middleton

Emily Petree

Whitney Prothro

Maria Prysock

Elizabeth Reynolds

Merry Whidby

Jacob Wilder

Jordan Woo

Here’s an update on PROpenMic‘s traffic over the first year. Only April ’08 through February ’09 (11 months) are available.

I’ve used publicly available information from Compete.com and Alexa.com.  They are services used by media buyers to determine rates for ad buys, for instance.

I’ve chosen a selection of sites for comparison that are considered by many to be staples (of sorts) in the online communication, marketing and public relations professions.  All are niche.  All, but PROpenMic, are actually organizations or businesses with budgets.  We don’t have one of those ‘budget’ things at PROpenMic.  ;o)  More on that, later.

The reality is that we are the only social network site soley focused on bringing together students, faculty and professionals.  So, it is kind of hard to make strong comparisons.

We do (IMO) seem to be performing pretty well when stacked up against these larger organizations.  Does this mean that for social networks, it is what the members make of it?

Read my thoughts, or go straight to the stats.

For example, you’ll see that if PROpenMic accepted ads (we don’t, and never will) our network would likely be more appealing to advertisers than all but O’DwyerPR.com (and we’re pretty close to them, too).  Does this mean that low budget / no budget social networks can be monetized?

I believe it is important to note that all of the other sites in this comparison have staff and budgets. PROpenMic is a voluntary and organic social network. By organic, I mean that the site perpetuates itself. The growth of the site, and the content posted in the site, is all determined by the membership. We are all volunteers. Even me.

Our audiences are somewhat similar.  All five of the other sites either charge subscription, membership fees – or, they are using their sites to drive interest in their enrollment, seminars and conferences.  PROpenMic isn’t doing any of that (for profit).  Sure, some people promote their events in our Events group, but it is hardly the same.

All of the other sites have staff devoted to their sites (and budgets) in order to populate, promote and maintain their sites (and/or organizations).  In some instances, they have paid authors/writers creating the content for their sites.  Each of the others sites (aside from PRSSA, I imagine) produces, on average, more promotional emails to their members than PROpenMic.

Overall, I’d say PROpenMic.org is a success.  Depending upon the metric you look at, we seem to be performing close to, equal to, or better than all the other sites – except O’Dwyer’s … again, we’re awfully close to them, too.

Look, none of us are buring up the internet in Top 1,000 site traffic, but that’s not the goal.  We’re all niche.  We want to reach those relatively small audiences (that’s small in a world view of Internet traffic).  So, how do we perform in comparison to one another?

Here is the breakdown…

For the graphs below, click on them and they will enlarge.

Compete.com stats…

Unique Visitors: (average per month)

propenmic.org 7,312
odwyerpr.com 8,668
myragan.com 6,225
prssa.org 5,258
communitelligence.com 3,068
holmesreport.com 2,078

Rank: (the lower the number, the better your rank)

propenmic.org 199,336
odwyerpr.com 172,873
myragan.com 227,762
communitelligence.com 410,099
prssa.org 262,202
holmesreport.com 566,512

Total Visits: (monthly average)

propenmic.org 22,918
odwyerpr.com 11,530
prssa.org 9,221
myragan.com 6,704
communitelligence.com 4,030
holmesreport.com 2,563

Page visits/views: (monthly average of per visit pageviews)

myragan.com 12.1
propenmic.org 7.5
odwyerpr.com 6.3
communitelligence.com 5.8
prssa.org 3.2
holmesreport.com 2.6

Alexa.com stats…

Note: In Alexa.com stats the lower the number, the better your site ranks.

odwyerpr.com has a traffic rank of: 232,877
propenmic.org has a traffic rank of: 291,090
myragan.com has a traffic rank of: 508,609
communitelligence.com has a traffic rank of: 550,729
prssa.org has a traffic rank of: 644,172
holmesreport.com has a traffic rank of: 670,656

Averaging the rank of both Compete & Alexa stats:

Note, again … the lower the number, the better your site ranks.

PROpenMic: 245,213 compared to…

ODwyerPR: 202,875
MyRagan: 368,185
PRSSA: 453,187
Communitelligence: 480,414
HolmesReport: 618,584

Please let us hear from you.  I’d love to know what you think, one way or the other.

Thank you to all that have made PROpenMic what it is!  I’ll do another post on the anniversary day (April 1st) thanking some very kind people that have helped along the way.

Yesterday.

Charles Barkley states on ESPN that race was the number one reason why Auburn did not hire a black head football coach. See the video below.

Today.

Mark Schlabach states on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” program:

ESPN.com football writer Mark Schlabach told “Outside The Lines” today that two other SEC coaches told him, straight up, that Gill would never get the Auburn job, because he’s married to a white woman. Charming. (Source and see the video below)

Sure, I didn’t know exactly what would happen (Charles Barkley’s statements or Mark Schlabach’s interview), but I knew there would be a backlash by someone if the hire didn’t happen. I never imagined the full scope of the disaster we’re experiencing now, however.

Regardless of whether or not you believe Tommy Tuberville was fired or chose to resign, that happened at the same time that a heretofore unknown coach at the University of Buffalo was making a big splash. Turner Gill took a cellar dweller of a football team and beat the undefeated Ball State program to win the MAC conference title. It was the dream public relations move, if nothing else. It was the way for Auburn to step up and cross the race barrier, too. But, to make it better, on paper – Gill actually does look as good as (if not better than) the coach we’ve now hired. Opinions vary on that, of course.

Since Mississippi State broke the color barrier for black coaches in the SEC (and no big name coaches were interested in coming to Auburn) this made the situation ripe for Auburn to make a bold move. Hire Turner Gill as our next head football coach.

Since Auburn did not do what some call “the right thing”, we are now experiencing the following public relations disaster. Check it all out. There is a lot to digest. Never before, not even in Auburn’s Eric Ramsey or Petrino/Jet-gate scandals, has Auburn’s name been so fully dragged through the mud.

The sad thing is, this is really about the athletic department, but it actually has caused numerous references to the school at-large.

My questions, “What would you do? How can Auburn successfully deal with this fiasco? Or can they?”

Track the fallout yourself: Twitter | Web | News | Blogs

Just a sampling of two stories: Auburn was cool with Turner Gill being black, but not his wife being white. | Was Turner Gill Denied The Auburn Job Because Of His White Wife? Those two sites alone are perfect examples of how social media has changed the game for everyone. The first site has about 3,000 average readers. The second site, Deadspin? It is one of the top 4,000 sites on the Web. It has over 360,000 average readers. Oh, and of course – there is ESPN – the TV network and their site … the 16th most popular site on the Web. Social media spreads the story with more reach than traditional media in many instances. This is one of them.

The original story follows these two three updates:

Note: ESPN is covering this so much, for two days they’ve had an Auburn category tab on the front page of the College Football section.

Mark Schlabach stated on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” that two SEC coaches told him Turner Gill would not get the Auburn head coaching job because “He is married to a white woman.” (Quote comes at about 3:16 in the video below.)

This is the type of public relations fiasco that no one wants to have happen. How can Auburn address these issues? What should the NCAA do? What would you do if you were advising Auburn University on a PR plan for this crisis?

Earlier, we shared how Auburn University was pursuing a new football coach. The story bode well for Auburn, had they chosen Turner Gill. Instead, they went with Gene Chizik. The backlash started on the day of the announcment. Today, it got bumped up a notch.

Charles Barkley, former Auburn basketball great – and outspoken gadlfy, told ESPN today that “You can say it’s not about race, but you can’t compare the two resumes and say [Chizik] deserved the job. Out of all the coaches they interviewed, Chizik probably had the worst resume.” (Watch Video)

“You can say it’s not about race, but you can’t compare the two resumes and say [Chizik] deserved the job. Out of all the coaches they interviewed, Chizik probably had the worst resume.”

– Charles Barkley

There are some (perhaps many) that feel Auburn missed an opportunity and, by not hiring Gill, set themselves up for this criticism.

Auburn has chosen to not respond to this criticism – so far. Making matters worse, two coaches wives’ actually called into a local radio talk show with their opinions about how Auburn handled the firing (resignation) of 10 year coach Tommy Tubberville.

Listen to Amy & Donna’s calls on Eagle 93.9 Sports Call radio program.

The school says that Tuberville resigned, yet they choose to still pay his 5 million dollar plus buyout. Many observers suggest that you don’t pay a buyout if someone chooses to quit.

To Chizik’s credit, he’s not responsible for the firing/resignation – or for the hire. He just took the job. Still, Chizik’s record (5-19) as a head coach is questionable. Gill turned around a perennial cellar dweller, Buffalo, and took them to a MAC conference title.

What do you think about this public relations problem, given Barkley’s public comments? Post your thoughts below.

Auburn University, one of the traditional powers in NCAA college football, is pursuing a new coach. Auburn is often considered one of the top 25 college coaching jobs. So, what makes this news?

Race. Ethnicity. PR.

Auburn is also the land grant institution for the State of Alabama. Land grant colleges were created, in part, to provide education for minorities – primarily blacks. (Source)

According to Auburn, the university’s Fall 2008 black / african-american enrollment is 1,642 students. Given that the school’s caucasian / white enrollment is 17,225, black students represent 0.087 of that enrollment, less than nine percent. (Source) The total caucasian & african-american enrollment for Fall 2008 at Auburn is 18,867. This is in a state where over 26% of the population is black / african-american. (Source)

Mississippi State won the honor of breaking the diversity / race barrier by hiring Sylvester Croom, five years ago. Croom recently resigned. There are some, perhaps many, that wish Auburn had been the leader in this regard.

The number of black coaches in the major NCAA programs is still lacking. The number dropped from six to three this year.

Already, two Facebook groups have sprung up calling on Auburn to hire Turner Gill. See Turner Gill for the Auburn Tigers Head Football Coach and Turner Gill to Auburn

An Auburn favorite son, Robert Gibbs, helped send Barack Obama to The White House this year. (Note: Gibbs grew up in Auburn. His parents worked in the Auburn University Library for over two decades. Robert chose to attend school at NC State. Still, he holds a fondness for Auburn and has spoken about Auburn many times on national television.)

Another Auburn favorite son, Charles Barkley recently said Auburn should hire Turner Gill. Perhaps Barkley can do for Gill what Gibbs did for Obama.

Gill is reportedly meeting with Auburn today. Read Gill’s appeal heating up, Auburn is latest to come calling.

There are many people in sports forums expressing concerns about taking a chance on such an unproven coach.

It will be interesting to see if Auburn will do the right thing and hire Turner Gill.

“bradjward: HEY!!!! If you had 133 characters to tell a class of PR college students something, what would it be? Tag it #jr342. Thanks!! And retweet.”

The responses started rolling in. Five pages. Over 60 responses.

[iframe http://search.twitter.com/search?max_id=988531643&page=5&q=jr342 580 400]

The Tweets actually were quite good.

Update: In fact, they were so good – here is the presentation he worked up for the presentation.

Kevin Dugan, Strategic Public Relations, on @prblog, and in PROpenMic, posted about it on PROpenMic last night. Twitter Creativity, Beauty, GOLD MINE.

Kevin’s post reminded me of that experience and started my brain to spinning again. You know that’s always a scary thing. So, I thought … with people seeking advice on Twitter, what if they searched Google? So, I did.

Google is your friend. ) “best advice” for “PR students” … Yep, I went searching for knowledge from the great wizard behind the curtain.

It begs the question, like in the video below, “Where did we go for these answers BG?”

Well, my guess is … the library, or we asked someone face-to-face. What a concept. )

That said, as if it’s news to anyone … people are using online resources more and more every day. As in the case of Brad’s Twitter thread, the advice can be quite good and useful.

Let’s see if Google does a good job. You can be the judge.

Here are the top Google results:

[iframe http://www.google.com/search?q=%22best+advice%22+for+%22PR+students%22&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS266US266 580 400]

Open the search for “best advice” for “pr students” in another window, if you wish.

I was a bit surprised to find posts from this blog, Marcomblog and Forward Blog all in the top 20 results. Made me wanna do the Snoopy dance a bit, I’ll admit.

But, look deeper and you’ll find that almost all the results are relevant and do provide some good advice.

This further started my mind spinning and it reminded me of another classic I saw the other day. It came from Bob LeDrew, @bobledrew and FlackLife. Here it is, go see Let Me Google That For You, a very funny site. Bob shared that in the PRMindshare listserve, actually. I’m glad he did.

It’s a funny site and fits this discussion. When students ask questions, I often want to say, “You know, (insert name of software here) has this wonderful button in the top menu bar. It’s called “Help” and you’ll learn a lot by exploring there.”

Lessons here? There are a lot of good people online that will help you. Much of the advice you’ll find can actually be quite useful and worthwhile. That said, always be skeptical. Double check. Do your own research. Form your own opinions. The name of the blog, infopinions, comes from the realization that all this social networking and sharing really is (a) a little bit of information mixed with (b) a little bit of opinions. Skepticism can be a good thing. Be skeptical and research for yourself. Then, when you do find good info … thank the good people like Brad Ward, Kevin Dugan, and Bob LeDrew (and all the others) that enrich your life by sharing it with you.

OK, that’s how my mind works. I know. Scary.

Now, on to the video that will definitely make you think. It, too, comes from us via great contacts. Caroline Jones, @carolinejones on Twitter, who kindly shared this cool video posted by Phil Gomes in Edelman Digital’s Authenticities blog.

And, while we’re at it, here’s a presentation about Twitter as a PR tool. Good info! It comes to us from one of our favorite academic bloggers, Corinne Weisgerber, PH.D. at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. You’ll love her blog: Social Media for PR Class. Thanks, Corinne!

And, to top it all off … this presentation was even tweeted last night by @prsarahevans of PRSarahEvans.com. ;o)

Alana Wells, Sherry Namburi, Miles Duncan, Brett Pohlman, Lindsay McCormick and Whitney West were all members of the PR Campaigns class, Summer 2008. This site is their creation. Search for their resumes at PRProspects.com and hire them. ;o)

The mission?  Bring together students and alumni in an online community.

It launched last week.  In less than a week, members have looked at 2,673 pages on the site.  That’s 11.67 pageviews per visitor.  Members spend, on average, 9:49 on the site per visit.  We’re in the early stages of inviting members.  We have 141 signed up, as of Monday evening (six days into the site’s life).

I can’t let you in, as we’ve made this a totally private site.  I can, however, share a look at a screenshot. (Sorry, big file. 800kb)

Colleges and universities have their own alumni departments & programs, to be sure.  But, when you want to bring your niche group together in their sites, it isn’t always possible.  This site will help us connect with our best resources: alumni and students.

We aren’t trying to replace Alumni’s efforts, or thwart them, but we needed a way to engage your students and alumni directly.  I actually believe that our efforts will supplement Alumni’s work.  We can keep our alumni more engaged with the department.  That way, when Alumni contacts them … they still have a relationship with the university.  Cool idea, huh?

More universities should consider this.  Why not?  You have a built in workforce … students.  They can run the site and keep it active.  The site could even be worked in a course’s activities and exercise requirements.  If not that way, you could use your in-house ambassadors (if you have them) or the PRCA / PRSSA chapter could run it.  Hey, it’s good experience for the students.

The Department of Communication & Journalism at Auburn University is often the largest department on campus.  We’ve often had over 1,000 students.  And, in case you’re wondering, our PR program has a higher minimum GPA (than most any program on campus) to even be considered for enrollment.

We want to keep in touch with our alumni.  They are successful and so valuable to our current students.

I see this site as sort of a mini-PROpenMic.  It is a a Ning.com Web site.  Our site is, I believe, more dynamic than any other department social network I’ve heard of at any university.  But, I’m not familiar with all.  Surely, there must be more out there.  Does your program have such a site?

I believe these sites are the wave of the future for college and university programs that wish to keep in touch with their students in a way previously impossible for most departments to launch.  Ning makes that possible.  (Yes, I’m a big fan of Ning.com.)

Students will actually run the site.  Each semester, classes will be responsible for creating the content published on a weekly basis.  From videos to interviews with students & alumni, we will be able to keep the site fresh.

Ning’s various features help us keep the site rich with content, too.  Events and music players allow us to share podcasts and post upcoming events around the area, not just department events.  Groups allow us to share job and internship listings.  Alumni may contribute content, too.

Finally, the key to this type of site being successful is to have faculty buy-in.  That commitment of time assures that students will hear from the faculty.  Communication becomes open and more frequent.  Sure, I’ve heard some faculty (not necessarily at Auburn, either) say that they really don’t want more communication.  So, I’m happy that Auburn’s PR faculty bought into the project.

Other potential pitfalls?  The site will allow students to share their ‘issues’ with the program.  Well, OK.  Hey, if they aren’t complaining here … you can be sure they’re complaining somewhere.  Why not be aware of their feelings and opinions?  I don’t get those that want to avoid student input.  Sure, I understand why they feel that way, but the rationale just doesn’t sit well.

OK, that’s our new student network.  Your thoughts?  I was wary of posting about this, but the students worked hard on it.  We may have some people attempt to sign up (that dont’ belong) but I’ll just have to deal with that.  If nothing else, I love the domain name.  Thanks to Barbara Nixon (on Twitter) for letting me bounce ideas off her, too.  )