Tara Seymour is a public relations senior at the University of South Florida. She specializes in creative thinking and promotional development and thrives in seeking new innovative ways to create a brand. She is an active member of PRSSA and PRSA, and is an intern at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL.

Standing out in the public relations world is nothing less than an up-hill climb. As a graduating senior at the University of South Florida, I have witnessed the competitive nature of PR students. Everyone wants to become the best—that one student to become the legend of their school. Unfortunately, there is not enough room for every student to become a PR legend. However, I am convinced that with hard work and devotion every PR student can find their place in this career.

Finding your place in this career takes time. It is not something that can happen overnight, in fact, it takes years to develop. I found my place in public relations through my ambition. My ambition has taken me to places I never imagined I could go, and it has opened my life up to a whole new world of opportunities. Two years ago, when I was beginning my journey in mass communications, I was driven, but I was unprepared for what the real world had in store for me. It took a real life experience to prove to me that I needed to work harder to get to where I wanted to be.

In December of 2007, I had an internship opportunity at HARPO studios in Chicago. To land this internship I had to go through my first real interview. A panel of HARPO employees interviewed me for nearly five hours. It was a great experience, but it scared me to death. My lack of experience was evident, and I didn’t have the skills to back up my interest. That day I realized how competitive this world is, and how much work I needed to do to get the job I wanted.

When I got home, I put 100 percent devotion into my future. I wanted to learn everything, get experience and grow as a student and future professional. I did research on career options, I dived into job searches, I practiced my interview skills and I invested time in career centers. It became a full-time job preparing for my future career, and it still is today.

The feeling of not being prepared or experienced gave me the motivation and final push I needed to jump into public relations. I spent all my spare time interning and learning about mass communications. But, I still struggled to find my niche in PR. I took full advantage of my mentor and the professors who were willing to guide me in the right direction.

They were incredibly helpful, and I would not be where I am today without their help. My mentor provided me with insight, suggestions and future internship opportunities. She was not only supportive, but she also introduced me to many professionals in the media workplace that I now network with today.

Even with the help of my mentor and professors, it still took me five different internships to figure out what I wanted to do in public relations. It was challenging, but all the hard work has paid off. I have walked away from every experience with valuable tools and new lessons learned that I will take away with me for the rest of my life. Finding a niche and a place in PR takes time, but with ambition and hard work anyone can get there with the right attitude and determination.

“You have to figure out who you are—and are you going to be true to that?” – Mona Pasquil, vice president of MSHC Partners, Inc. and business development consultant and sales strategist for IBM. Keynote speaker at the 2009 PRSSA National Conference in San Diego.

Tara Seymour

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Picture Credit: Taken by Cherisse Fonseca Rivera

Monica Lynn is a senior public relations student at the USF School of Mass Communications. She is currently an intern at French West Vaughan in Tampa. She is a member of USF PRSSA and is the marketing chair for the non profit organization, Hooked on Hope.

Learning about public relations inside and outside the classroom has been a winding river full of lots and lots of rapids this semester. I felt like I was up a stream without a paddle most of the way.

I am a first semester senior studying mass communications at the University of South Florida. I began taking mass communications classes a year ago, yet I feel like it has been a thousand light years since then. I have come full circle from thinking I picked a sort of easy major because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, to wanting to be the head of a PR agency in t-minus 10 years. Whoa, how did that happen?

If I have ever had a moment where I felt like I was the most ill-prepared person on the face of the Earth for a specific task or goal, it was the first day of this semester. I can not even recall the amount of times I heard the three terms ‘social media’, ‘Twitter’ and ‘blog’ that first day and every day after for that matter. Before this semester I thought Twitter was a complete joke and basically for people that had nothing better to do than to tell all of their followers when they were going to the gym. Blogs, I figured, were for people that had way too much to say and just wanted an outlet to vent. I considered social media in general to be a fairly big deal, but I didn’t see why that mattered in public relations.

Needless to say, my thinking was quite flawed. Literally, the first night of this semester, I was completely overwhelmed. I went home dazed and confused, but I still created a blog, Twitter and LinkedIn account. My professors kept reiterating the fact that students are the young ones and majority of the time they are the ones who are expected to know how to do social media for whatever agency or company they work for. So, basically if we weren’t already engaged in social media, as in more than just having a Facebook account, we needed to quickly do just that. Over the course of this semester I have come to the realization that social media isn’t kind of a big deal, it is THE deal in a lot of instances. It has, and still is, single-handedly changing the way businesses do business. It is as simple as that.

Today, I can’t be more grateful that even though USF doesn’t offer any social media classes, my professors still gave us a huge dose of social media every day in class. This braced me for my internship experiences.

A few weeks into my internship, my company started moving forward with an aggressive social media strategy to build the agency’s presence on the Web. I have had the opportunity to be a part of it, and make suggestions a long the way. It has been an enlightening semester, and has opened my eyes to the opportunities social media presents within public relations.

At my office, I was actually called the “social media guru” the other day. I truly had a moment when I read those words in an e-mail sent by one of the account coordinators. I think I realized more quickly that social media was the “it” topic right now, and I seized the occasion. Now, social media has, in a way, set me apart from all the other interns.

I fully plan on continuing my knowledge of the “groundswell” that social media has been termed. It needs to be an integral part of pr campaigns from here on out, and I want to be ahead of that curve and not trying to paddle up stream again with no paddle

I am a sucker for good reads. I read everything. I am the girl who reads the advertisements in the bathroom stalls.

This week I had a discussion with other public relations professionals on what blogs we have been reading lately on a regular basis. Here is a list I was able to compile and have made sure they are in my Google Reader.

• UnMarketing
• Chris Brogan
• Peter Shankman
• IttyBiz
• Conversation Agent
• Communication Overtones
• The Brand Builder
• Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers)
• Altitude Branding
• Mark Collier
• Danny Brown
• David Meerman Scott

One I had never heard of, but I am looking into, was Pioneer Woman. I have been amazed this week at all the information I have gathered from conversations I have had online. I encourage you to join online chats, take advantage of free webinars and engage with a few people using any social media tool.

See that tab at the top of my blog. The one that says “IQResources”. My goal is to some day put all the resources I have found in one place so that everyone can have easy access to them. Right now it is an empty page, but my goal is to start putting it together over the holidays, when I don’t have to grade papers or prep for classes.

I would also like to send email updates with resources and other stuff that have helped me along my journey. If you have not done so already, sign up for my email newsletter and updates today!

If you have a blog your reading on a regular basis, I would love to hear about it. Leave a comment or email me at cherisse@innovativequeen.com

This week I had the privilege of being the moderator for #soloPR, a weekly chat with independent public relations professionals and consultants. The chat happens every Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. EST. (I want to thank Kellye Crane for the opportunity to fill in her shoes while she was traveling. Thank you!) I have been participating in this chat for a little while now, and I can not tell you how much I learn from this group of pr professionals each week. I always say it is the fastest hour of my week.

I wanted to take the opportunity to share with my blog readers some of the things we talked about this week.

First question was about building media list on a pr solo’s budget. Let me just tell you, I go about it the old fashion way. I make and keep my own of media contacts. I found this question interesting because I just taught my PR Writing students how to create media lists. A great tip that came out of the conversation, and seemed to be an occurring theme, was teaming up with other solo professionals to share accounts with Cision or Vocus. I love that as public relations professional we count ourselves as a member of a community. We are willing to share resources and contribute to each others success.

We also talked about mentors, do we have them and how did you approach and build a relationship. I was inspired by this dialogue. First, it made me realize that social media has opened up a world of mentors for me. They may not know it, but I follow, watch and keep track of what they are up to through Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Second, I reminded my students yesterday that they never know who is standing in front of them teaching their class. Class work is just as important as any internship or network that they have. Kelli Mathews, a professor at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communications, wrote a great guest blog post yesterday on Lindsay Olson’s blog. Don’t forget your professors!

I am not sure why I think I never have anything to blog about. This chat gives me tons of topics every week. I encourage you to join us. You don’t have to be a pr pro, you can just be interested in what we do. Stay tuned next week. I am writing two new blog posts. One on our third question this week on how much pr do we really do, and another on the fourth question on all the resources that we use.

By the way, Happy Halloween!

Today this blog is just my heart!

I had all the intentions in the world to blog today, but I had worked really hard all week on a presentation for this morning. I thought it had gone really well, only to find late this afternoon that things had not gone as well as I had thought. What really added to my disappointed was being told that it seemed like I had put no time into it, when I really I had dedicated weeks to accomplish this particular goal.

Well, tomorrow is a new day. I will set new goals for next week. I will accomplish what I set out to do. Today, I challenge you as well. Push through the rough spots. Follow your passion and your heart. Together we will accomplish more than we will ever know.

This week it seems like I just can not catch up. There is always something to do and learn. No matter how much I say I am going to stay on schedule, I also have to remind myself to stay flexible. Why you may ask? Because the most important thing to me is my relationships with those I serve.

I have been working with Carolyn Gill, a local life coach in the Tampa Bay area, with setting up her new blog, Feedburner, Youtube.com and Facebook. It is amazing to me what I learn while sharing these social media tools with others.

Did you know you can record a video straight from YouTube and publish it in an instant? I learned that this week. Here is how you do it?

1) go to www.youtube.com

2) Login in to your account

3) Click on upload (yellow button on the top right hand corner)

3) click on record from webcam

4) And record!

5) Hit stop and click on publish

It is that simple. This is a great public relations tool for small businesses. It is easy for them to communicate with their clients through short videos. If you find resources that are helpful to you and your clients, and would like me to include them in my weekly resources, email me at cherisse@innovativequeen.com

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I waited until today to write this post because I really wanted to think it out. During yesterday's #Solopr chat I was directed to Media Metamorphosis, a blog by Chuck Tanowitz. Tanowitz post yesterday recapped an event for entrepreneurs, basically teaching them pr 101. This sparked my interest because he had two critiques of the panel. First, they had no idea how public relations helps media relations, and second was public relations is media relations.

I am challenged by the idea that public relations is media relations and that business owners think that they can do it on their own. Something that has taken me years to perfect and is always work in progress through relationship building. I loved a comment by Doug Haslam, in which he used the word facilitates.

I am constantly having to define what I teach and do to my family and friends. It reminds me that potential clients may not understand public relations either. I love my profession because it gives me the opportunity to serve others, which is why the word facilitate sparked my interest.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I enjoy thoroughly looking up words in the dictionary. Even the words I use everyday, a thousand times a day. My heart for service loves the definition of facilitate in Dictionary.com, “to make easier or less difficult; help forward (an action, a process, etc.)…”

How would perceptions of those around us change if we used facilitate to define public relations?

Public relations is not just about media relations. When I am helping out an organization, I always start with the basics. You know that whole research, action, communication and evaluation thing. But if public relations is about relationships, how about starting with this?

1) How can I make things easier or less difficult for the organization?

2) How can I serve this organization to help them move forward?

3) What is “our” action plan?

4) How do we get the process going?

Sometimes these questions involve media relations, but most of the time it does not. So if you are a business person reading this, next time you come across a public relations professional who is ready to serve you, give them a chance to be your facilitator. I promise your will be blown away with the results!

I really wanted to write this blog post yesterday, but it was my birthday! I had a conversation with my sister that went something like this: “Thanks for being the only one who has called me all the to wish me a Happy Birthday. I have gotten tons of birthday wishes on Facebook and got a text message from a friend, but not one phone call. I have almost 500 followers on Twitter to whom I announced several times it was my birthday, and no one wished me a happy birthday. My own mother has not even called.” My mother did eventually call! Last night I did get wished a happy birthday on Twitter after mentioning it on #smbookclub.

It got me thinking, is it ok today to think that a text message or a post on Facebook is personal enough for certain occasions. Do we live in an impersonal world? How has social media affected this?

In public relations we talk about relationships. We talk about implementing social media into our program plans in order to open up the conversations. In order for this to happen we need to remember the following:

1) In order to get responses, you have to respond.

2) Certain occasions, like birthdays, wedding announcements, having a baby, and you’re moving, require to hear someone's voice on the other end of the phone.

3) Certain news is better in person.

4) Always remember people really do care and want your opinion.

5) It is still ok to use pen and paper.

Sarah Evans, of Sevans Strategy, posed the question on Facebook, “When was the last hand written thank you note you received and who was it from?” Maybe if we think about the last time we received a personal touch, we will remember to give a personal touch.

Does social media have personal touch? Is it ok to think that a text, a tweet or a message on Facebook is enough? You tell me!

I have started to write this blog a million times. The word focus has become part of my everyday vocabulary. "Focus, Cherisse, Focus."

Over the summer I started a new ritual. At the beginning of each week I set goals for what I want to accomplish by the end of the week. The start of a new semester has made me realize how thankful I am that I started setting weekly goals for myself in the summer. The thing is I don't always accomplish the goals I set. Often I find myself being thankful for what I did accomplish throughout the week. The revelation for me is that instead of being hard on myself for not accomplishing my goals, I have to think about it as redefining my goals. Be flexible!

How true is this when we are trying to be innovative and implement social media into our public relations practices? Social media can be a great tool, but only when you focus on bits of it at a time. So many times, I start in one page and wonder off to another page.

Effective social media begins with a goal and then requires perseverance. Here is what I have done to stay on track.

1) Focus on two or three platforms. I am currently focusing on blogging, Twitter, and Linkedin.
2) Set a schedule.
3) Set a number of how many blog post do you want to write in a week, how many tweets do you want to send out in a day, how many followers to I want to get, how many connections do I want to make.
4) Get involved! Join chats, discussions, and leave comments on other blogs.
5) Always leave time to learn new things.

In the end, you will know if you persevered if at least one social media tool is working for you.

Bonus: Evaluate your social media practices? What are your goals? Is perseverance bringing you effective results?

There are so many ways to define public relations.  I read numerous blogs lately trying to ask the question that never dies, what exactly does pr mean?  Today, I get the privilege to talk about what is public relations with my pr writing students. It made me start thinking about what I love about the industry.  Then I realized I define public relations by what I love.

I love public relations because it is about people.  The phrase “the publics it serves” melts my heart.  PR is a servant job that deals with an organizations internal and external publics.  No matter what your role is within the industry, you represent people’s needs, wants, desires, and dreams.  My clients depend on me to help them achieve a vision for their organizations. In turn, I serve them by counseling them, building relationships, and implementing plans to achieve organizational goals. 

I love that public relations is about community.  I am reminded daily, that without those around me I am not successful.  I need input from my peers.  I crave the approval of my colleagues.  I learn more from my “students” then they learn from me because I well aware that without them I become stagnant.  I recently read a blog by Chris Brogan on community.  These words made by Brogan made me shake, “But oh, the people who live for community, the ones who know that the human-shaped web is much more powerful in the longer run than any technology out there today, those are the ones to watch. If you run across someone who feels that strongly about community, and who knows what to do with those feelings (because remember: execution is everything), make friends, build a relationship at once, and work forward into what you can do together.”  This is who I want to be!  I hope that I inspire those around me to be the same.

I love public relations because it is about two-way communication.  I hate to hear myself talk, but I love people’s input and ideas.  I love that I can bring a thought, or an inspiration, to the table and those around me can take off with it.  I like having the confidence within myself to let others talk.  Public relations allows respect.  Something which others outside of pr might find arguable.

I think you can not define what you do until you know what you love about it.  How about you, what do you love about what you do?  If you work in public relations, what do you love about it?

What does influence mean in 2009? What makes someone an influencer?  This was the first thing I read in my email this morning.  It was posed in an email I receive from Sarah Evans who provides the resource Commentz.  My first thought was, “Am I a person of influence?  Would I be considered an influencer”? 

Influence to me is a positive word.  It’s a call to action to improve the world around me.  I am not able to have influence over everything, but I do have the power to affect the individuals and organizations I work with.  As a communicator, I know I have the power to teach others and challenge them to find new ways to communicate with the world around them.

To be an influencer, in 2009, you must think about the following:

1) You must equip yourself with knowledge. Knowledge brings power!
2) Find an positive outlet to communicate with others.
3) Be aware of your own personal responsibility to the field and your clients.
4) Have the courage to be innovative.
5) Be willing to speak out when no one else wants to.

So, I ask the question back to world.  What does influence mean to you?  What makes someone influencer? I don’t think that I have reach my potential when it comes to influence, but I sure hope I am on my way.

Bonus: Become my fan on Facebook!

This week I read a blog about innovation from Ben Shute. He is the creator of the The Online Business Adviser. It made me think about how I define innovation in my business and personal life.

Shute defined innovation for him as “original thinking, or revolutionising old thinking to a level where it becomes something that stands on its own merits.” I really like his meaning of innovation because when I was coming up with the name for this blog I chose the word innovative because it represented someone who was intending to move or be characterized by moving towards something new or different (See dictionary.com).

In public relations we always need to find ways to “think outside the box”. I think this is true for life in general. But how often, do we get stuck doing the same things we have always done because we think they are working. Notice I say “think” they are working.

Sometimes it takes jumping out of the box, and putting innovation in action, to realize that we are not maximizing our communication potential.

I want to be surrounded by people I can help “think outside the box”. Clients and friends who are not scared to dig deep and be innovative. For me, innovative is having the courage to actively pursue something new or different.