Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Power of New Media technology ,Social Media and Social Networking

Sources contributed by: Mariani  from book mark technology   
 Posted by: Munirah


What are the difference between Social Media and Social  Networking
Social media refers to online technology and methods through which people can share information, knowledge, content, personal opinions, swap different perspectives and insights into world issues by using conversational Media. It  is about  engagement ,Social media website content can come in many shapes and forms:
  • Content
  • images and photo
  • videos
  • audios

A social networking tools allow you to create a personal profile yourself than discuss and share information with others such as friends and family. Most of this tools allow us to create their own profile and then post content such as video, photo, text that correspondent to you area of interest.
  • Delicious
  • Dig
  • Diggo
  • Faves
  • Stumpleipon

10 of the Best Social Media Tools for PR Professionals and Journalists

Article contributed by: Saiful Anuar      Posted by: Munirah


In the ever-evolving world of social media, public relations professionals (PR) and journalists have more opportunities than ever to build strong relationships.
It serves each of us well to stay up on social media trends—learning faster, easier ways to share information.With that, here are 10 of the best social media tools for PR professionals and journalists:





Help a Report Out (HARO)


PitchEngine






PitchEngine – The emergence of the social media release (SMR) will soon dominate in interactions between journalists and PR people. Those who do not take the initiative to learn about the “new press release” will get left behind. My favorite tool to date is PitchEngine. Still in beta stage, PitchEngine offers a full suite of Web 2.0 tools for PR professionals and journalists (i.e. links to your social network profiles, video and audio capabilities, etc…). Readers may opt to receive a release on any social networks they belong to.






What I like the best? If a reporter or blogger likes what I pitch, they can subscribe to my releases via RSS.
ReportingOn
ReportingOn – Still in its beta stage, this social network is designed for reporters to discuss their beat or stories. An asynchronistic communication style similar to Twitter, the question this time is, “What are you reporting on?” There are around 600 reporters and professionals from around the world subscribed to the network. Only time will tell if this is a viable tool, and for the time being I’m a member.

What I like the best? Journalists have the ability to tag their beat(s) making it easy for PR professionals to find reporters and offer sources.
Journalisted
Journalisted (UK) – Developed by Martin Moore of Media Standards Trust, this site is meant for consumers to search their favorite reporters and stay up to date on their work. It currently boasts more than 100,000 unique users. The downfall? It currently features only reporters in the UK. Moore says he plans to broaden the reach and is currently targeting the US.

What I like the best? PR professionals can check the site before pitching a reporter in the UK to read their recent work.
Wikis – I’m opening up a broad category here—wiki pages. PR professionals can create a shared space in which to provide information to reporters. From interview source contact information to comprehensive product/company background, a wiki site can become a living media kit. Free wiki sites, likePBwiki, offer security features to protect updates and email notification options.

What I like the best? Wiki page(s) are created with user generated content and can be edited in real-time to best meet the needs of reporters.
Media people using Twitter – I have yet to find a truly comprehensive list of all reporters on the microblogging site Twitter. However, this is the closest I’ve come. A wiki site dedicated to journalists on Twitter.
What I like the best? The wiki page is organized by geographic location, offering an easy-to-use guide.



Twellow – Seek one another out and connect. It’s a beautiful thing when PR professionals and journalists form a relationship before either one needs anything from the other. Type in a key word such as “journalist” or “public relations” (big surprise) and start following.
What I like the best? The search content is based on a person’s Twitter bio, making the results surprisingly accurate.

BeatBlogging.org – A resource for beat bloggers, PR professionals can use this as a source to build a strong pitch distribution list. I’ve heard from many reporter friends that more and more they are looking to blogs for trends and upcoming story ideas.


What I like the best? Participants can nominate reporters as “innovative” leaders where they may be featured on the frequently updated Leaderboard.


WiredJournalists.com
WiredJournalists.com – Created for reporters, editors, executives, students and faculty, this tool is for journalists with access to limited resources. The members of the network keep up with Web 2.0 trends and share resources with one another.

What I like the best? Even if you don’t visit the site frequently, it’s a nice resource to keep your finger on the pulse of new journalism trends.


Your Pitch Sucks
Your Pitch Sucks (YPS) – The jury is still out on YPS, but nonetheless I mention it. Submit your draft pitch to public relations experts for a serious review. They will let you know whether or not your pitch is up to par (and if it’s not they offer suggestions).

What I like the best? If you are a freelancer and need another set of eyes to review your work, this saves a few headaches.
Sarah is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also worked for Advocate Health Care, the largest health care system in Illinois, as the manager of communications and government relations at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital. She brings a comprehensive background in the knowledge of non-for-profit and health care management. Her personal mission to engage and employ the use of emerging technologies in all communication makes her effective in reaching a dynamic audience.
Imagery provided by iStockPhoto/ferrantraite

Sunday, October 10, 2010

“ MEDIA RELATIONS : HOW TO MAKE IT BOOM”...


 Article by: Fazellah        Posted by: Munirah

Alhamdullilah...Finally we have completed our second event entitled “ MEDIA RELATIONS : HOW TO MAKE IT BOOM”...
 As we know, the advisor for this event is En. Abuzar Bin Abd Halim and the project manager is Fatin Nadia zulkapli..once again, congratulations for such a good job..and to all the committee and fellow classmates, WELL DONE!!...

Basically, This event was held at UIC Seminar Hall on 27th September 2010 from 9 am- 1 pm.. 


The speaker for this event was En Dzulman Bin Dato Zainal, Manager Group Corporate Communications, Safura Group of Companies and also Puan Seri Intan, Ketua Pengarang Berita Harian..

The event was officiated by Dean of the faculty, Prof Madya Dr. Mohd Adnan Hashim. The moderator for this event was Prof Madya Ilias Bin Md Salleh. Thanks again for the corporation given to us...:)

The guest who attends this event was Head of Public Relations Programme, Miss Melina Mahfuz, Assoc Prof Dr Kiranjit Kaur, Puan Noraini Yusof and Puan Haryati Ariffin. The participant for this event was from Public Relations and Journalism students from semester 3 until 5.

This seminar discussed about how to build a good media relations between the Public Relations people and the journalist. Both of the speakers gave us lots of useful information for us, the students to learn. They said that, media relations involve working with various media for the purpose of informing the public of an organization's mission, policies and practices in a positive, consistent and credible manner. Typically, this means coordinating directly with the people responsible for producing the news and features in the mass media. The goal of media relations is to maximize positive coverage in the mass media without paying for it directly through advertising.

Before the seminar end, there is also a Q&A session for the student to asked questions. The event end with the refreshment provide by the organizer.

An End, and a Beginning, for the Media


By:  James Poniewozik on Wednesday December. 31, 2008 from TIME 
Contributed by: Elysha   Posted By: Munirah
When the economy sneezes, the media business catches pneumonia. The problem for the media business in 2008 was that the economy caught pneumonia. When the economy gets pneumonia, the media business gets it too--then someone knocks it across the back of the head with a shovel.
Advertising is clattering. (GM is essentially a media-funding company with a carmaker attached.) The audience is fragmenting. And the old means of business--grinding up trees and delivering them, shooting radiation to antennas--are being superseded by the Internet. (And it's not just the news media feeling the pinch. NBC's giving five hours of prime time to Jay Leno is as much about saving money as about the comic brilliance of his "Jaywalking" bits.)
Journalists now read the business pages the way octogenarians read the obituaries. The Tribune Co., which owns the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times, declared bankruptcy. National Public Radio laid off 7% of its staff. The New York Times mortgaged its headquarters. Media companies from Viacom to NBC to Gannett to (gulp) Time Inc. had massive layoffs. Newspapers contemplated not publishing on certain days, going online-only or closing altogether. It's enough to make journalists wonder, Is this the end?
Yes, probably. And a beginning. Because there was good news for the media in 2008 too, and it had a lot in common with the bad news. For while the media business (the exchange of information for money) was lousy, the media (the conduits of information) were multiplying.
When an earthquake shook Sichuan and terrorists shot up Mumbai, eyewitnesses' texts poured out through Twitter. Some of the biggest scoops and best analysis in the election came from blogs and some of the best satire from YouTube. Political websites took off. The media have never been so ubiquitous or polymorphous. I can access more information on the phone in my back pocket than I could have, as a kid, in my hometown library.
Even old media benefit, in a way. A couple of decades ago, most New York Times readers lived on the East Coast or in certain big cities. Now, thanks to the Internet--the big, scary, media-killing Internet--it's read by millions worldwide.
Problem is, those millions read it for free. With the price of information dropping like a bank stock, no one knows how to make money off the media anymore. Or enough money, anyway: most of the companies firing reporters are profitable.
Now, those of you working for car-parts suppliers (or those of you laid off by them) can be excused if you don't break out your tiny violins out of pity for journalists. Where all this becomes your problem is that the daisy chain of free info--the Drudge links, the news crawls, the text updates--ultimately leads back to a professional journalist, somewhere, getting paid to learn stuff. And right now, he or she is weighing job opportunities in telemarketing.
Meanwhile, anxious consumers and advertisers are closing their wallets. And all our endless media platforms amplify the bad news, which ups the anxiety. Repeat loop as necessary until we all get to the poorhouse. (I hear it has wi-fi!)

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Twitter Tweaks Website to Show More Photos, Video

        Sources from: AP         Contributed by: Julina    Posted By Munirah

MULTIMEDIA TWEETS: Stone (right) talking beside Williams about changes to the social network at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. - AP

SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter is turning its text-messaging website into a multimedia showcase by adding a new pane that will make it easier for its 160 million users to check out photos and videos.

The redesign may compel people to linger on Twitter's website for longer periods and come back more frequently, making it a more attractive advertising vehicle.

"We are still figuring out all the new possibilities," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in an interview.


The facelift, expected to roll out around the world in the next few days, splits the website into two panes.

One is devoted to the 90 million messages, or "tweets," posted on Twitter each day, and the other features the images contained within the text. Until now, most links to photos and video have been displayed on other websites or browser tabs.

The new look further underscores Twitter's emergence as a major communications hub.
In the process, Twitter has evolved from a geeky hangout when it started four years ago to a worldwide phenomenon today.

People are mainly opening accounts now so they can follow the tweets from the friends, family, celebrities, media outlets and lawmakers that interest them. These spectators, or "lurkers," tend to only publish their own thoughts or observations periodically.
 
COSMETIC CHANGES: Williams making a presentation about changes to the social network at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco

Twitter is turning its short-messaging website into a multimedia showcase by adding a new pane that will make it easier for its 160 million users to peruse photos and video. AP
 
Forrester Research analyst Augie Ray said he believes the growing audience of spectators is the main reasons that Twitter had to do something to make it easier to wade through the sea of content cascading through its website each day.

"Improving consumption of Twitter-based content is important not just for Twitter, but for interactive marketers as well," Ray wrote in a Tuesday blog post.

Twitter didn't even start allowing advertising within a limited number of tweets until five months ago. The privately held company, based in San Francisco, still gets most of its revenue from a series of data-sharing deals with Google Inc, Microsoft Corp and other companies.

Stone said Twitter still needs to work on its business model before pursuing an initial public offering of stock. That most likely will mean attracting more advertisers in a way that doesn't disrupt the exchange of information and ideas on the service.

The split-screen approach of the redesigned website appears aimed at achieving that goal.
The website's left pane will look familiar, featuring a timeline that chronologically stacks all the tweets from the people that account holders choose to follow.

The right panel appears to open up new real estate for content. It is being set up so users can click on individual tweets to look at embedded images and other information without having to navigate away from their homepages.

Social Media Make Waves




The Star: Saturday September 19, 2009    Stories by EILEEN HEE
Contributed by: Julaila                             Posted by:  Munirah


FOLLOWING the results of the general election on March 8 last year, it became evident that the social media had become increasingly visible to Malaysians as news sources.

Today, many companies in Malaysia are increasingly asking the question: “How can we engage with the blogosphere?” And soon, the Twitter-sphere, etc.

Anne Costello... ‘Blogging in Asia has come of age.’

The Twitter account of Star Online has about 5,000 followers today.

Social media is changing the communications industry.

According to Text 100 account director/social media strategist David Lian, what is fundamentally changing is the way one communicates and receives information.

“More than ever, companies need competent communicators who are able to understand and effectively communicate in the social media field using the latest social media tools,” he says.

The Text 100 Global Blogger Survey 2009 yields some useful insights as to how companies can harness social media in their communications programmes. With a panel of 24 Malaysian bloggers also taking part in the survey, there were also some interesting insights on the local market.

Senior vice-president and director of Asean, Anne Costello, says that blogging in Asia has come of age and the influence bloggers have within their communities is finally being recognised by corporations.
Text 100 survey indicated a ‘mainstreaming’ of blogging in most markets, with most bloggers reporting increased contact from PR professionals or corporate communicators.

“Roughly 90% of the 449 bloggers surveyed welcomed contact by PR people,” she says.Leonard Lee... ‘Facebook has over 250 million users worldwide.’

However, some of the PR efforts demonstrate a lack of understanding of how blogging works and why people blog.

“In the past 12 months, bloggers welcoming contact by PR people has increased from 10% to 93%,” she says.

Costello says that PR firms are doing a great job in letting people know that while blogging is still new in the media industry, it’s not something to be ignored or looked down upon.

“It’s great if PR companies get a wide range of bloggers for a particular campaign/client even if the content of the blog is not specifically targeted at what the campaign is about,” she says.

The survey also indicates there is significant opportunity for deeper relationships with this increasingly influential community.

It also highlighted that PR people continue to blindly send corporate press releases to bloggers. Costello says PR professionals are failing to read the blogs and truly understand their target blogger communities.

“RSS feeds are a key source of information for bloggers, second only to other bloggers. If companies aren’t making their information available via RSS feeds, then they’re failing to use the bloggers’ channel,” she says.
The survey also reveals that corporate bloggers and websites are also consistently deemed more credible sources than microblogging, newspapers, social bookmarking sites and television.

“The majority of bloggers are still part timers. Adjust your strategies accordingly,” she says.
“Outside of the US, the majority of bloggers surveyed blogged for less than nine hours per week,” it says.

Digital Kung Fu Sdn Bhd head of digital business Leonard Lee points out the staggering influence of social networking sites to extend the reach and effectiveness of a brand campaign online.

“Facebook has over 250 million users worldwide, sharing over 10 billion photos, while worldwide unique visitors of Twitter was 32 million in April 2009 and each day, Twitter users are generating roughly 18 million updates,” he notes.

Facebook has since then announced that it has 300 million users.
He said there are 734.2 million Internet users across the globe access at least one social networking website during the month.

“What this means for businesses is that brands could leverage their customers social value and use it to gain potential customers,” he says.

Since Digital Kung Fu’s establishment in January 2008, it has worked with successful brands such as Lipton, Sony, Isuzu and Malaysia Airlines.

“We aim to build our client’s presence through creative digital mediums and transform client’s communication channels and messages from a cost centre to a revenue centre,” he says.

Digital Kung Fu is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mesdaq-listed MNC Wireless Bhd. As a digital and social media specialist, it helps brands and businesses with their customers via interactive and mobile marketing, social media and branded games.

He says there are 16 million Internet users in Malaysia and the figure will reach 20.4 million by 2012.
“Consumers these days are less interested in information and more interested in entertainment. These insights are vital considerations when creating new branded online destinations,” he says.

In Malaysia, he says, there is a 66% social networking reach, with 181 average minutes per visitor per month and 14.2 average visits per visitor per month.

“Social media is not about advertising, it’s about relationship,” he says.