Mean Girls 10-Year Anniversary

Ten years ago, the world was introduced to the best and most quoted movie of our generation. Of course, I’m talking about Mean Girls. The hit movie featured Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried and everyone’s favorite Gretchen Wieners (I mean, does anyone even know her real name?). The movie, and my personal guide to surviving high school, quickly resonated with girls of that age demographic who were facing the same real life issues, including cheating boyfriends, disloyal friends, what to dress up as on Halloween and gaining weight. And come on, who didn’t write their own Burn Book about girls in their high school after this movie was released?

huffingtonpost.com

Mean Girls quickly became a cultural phenomenon. That’s why, for the 10-year anniversary for the movie, the Internet was flooded with Mean Girls memories to celebrate the milestone. In honor of the anniversary, Twitter crunched some numbers to determine the most tweeted Mean Girls phrases that have appeared the most often since 2010.

1. You go Glen Coco
2. So fetch
3. It's October 3rd 
4. On Wednesdays, we wear pink  

An entire decade has passed and these quotes are still relevant and appear on social media probably every day. Social media is always adapting and changing so for a movie from ten years ago to still be relevant on Twitter, it must be doing something right to have such an effect on its viewers.

CNN even participated in the Mean Girl fun and ran an online article about why Mean Girls is still “fetch.” The movie featured “too gay to function” Damien at a time before gay rights were fully embraced, especially in high schools. And we got to see a sweeter side of Lindsay Lohan, before she spiraled off into a drug and alcohol addict.

On the 10-year anniversary, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention of female bullying in schools, launched its own Mean Girls campaign with a different spin. Anyone who has watched Mean Girls before knows the famous line “you can’t sit with us” when Regina George was banned from sitting at The Plastic’s table because she wore sweatpants the whole week. The Kind Campaign took advantage of the decade anniversary to launch its “You Can Sit With Us” movement.

The Kind Campaign 

The purpose of “You Can Sit With Us” is to finally put an end to girl-on-girl bullying within schools. The campaign launch was done at a perfect time, especially since Mean Girls does depict the idea of female bullying. “You Can Sit With Us” went viral on social media with many celebrities sharing the picture and #YouCanSitWithUs hashtag on Twitter and Instagram. The organization took advantage of a cultural phenomenon and turned it into something of meaning. Mean Girls will always be a favorite movie of millions of people, but a movement to end bullying is something that really should be a cultural phenomenon. That is so fetch.

Sources:

The Kind Campaign – “You Can Sit With Us”

http://www.kindcampaign.com/kind-country/?page=school

France, L. R. (2014, May 1). 'Mean Girls' is still 'fetch'. In CNN. Retrieved May 2, 2014, from http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/30/showbiz/movies/mean-girls-10-year-anniversary/

Grossman, S. (2014, April 30). These Are the Most-Tweeted Mean Girls References. In TIME. Retrieved May 2, 2014, from http://time.com/82790/mean-girls-twitter-references/

Biggs, C. (2014, May 1). You CAN Sit With Shay Mitchell, Sophia Bush + Amanda Seyfried. In MTV Act. Retrieved May 2, 2014, from http://act.mtv.com/posts/you-can-sit-with-shay-mitchell-sophia-bush-amanda-seyfried/

NYPD Twitter Hashtag Backfires

This week, the New York Police Department initiated a social media campaign to create buzz for the organization by engaging its followers to use a hashtag. The NYPD asked its Twitter followers to tweet pictures that they had alongside the New York City police officers using the hashtag #myNYPD. The NYPD public relations department apparently thought these pictures would be of good sentiment. What ended up happening was completely opposite from what was intended, as in the picture below.

Picture retrieved from: mashable.com

People took this opportunity to poke fun at the New York Police Department. Tweets were posted that showed police officers in a displeasing manner, using brutality and misconduct towards individuals as they were being arrested.  

Picture retrieved from: mashable.com

This person tweeted about the brutalization New York City police officers demonstrated towards an older gentleman for jay walking. Tweets flooded in using the hashtag #myNYPD, expressing overall distaste for the New York City police officers. It was quite opposite from what was intended for the NYPD social media campaign, which was meant to create good sentiment and engagement with the community.

Deputy Chief Kim Y. Royster, a spokesperson for the NYPD, defended the Twitter campaign. She said that despite the backlash, it was a way to “provide an open forum for an uncensored exchange and this is an open dialogue good for our city.”

However, the social media campaign was not all negative. The NYPD received many tweets and pictures of individuals paying respects to the hard-working police officers. Despite the overwhelming negative response to the Twitter campaign, there was just as much positive reinforcement for the NYPD.

Picture retrieved from: mashable.com

(The photo above displays the positivity that the NYPD Twitter campaign received.)

The campaign caused quite a stir this week in New York City and on social media platforms. The New York Police Department public relations team did what it could to come up with an innovative way to engage with the community it defends and represents on a daily basis. From a public relations standpoint, it was a great effort by the NYPD to engage with its followers.

For me personally, it doesn’t seem like police departments do enough to try to reach out to followers on social media, so I think what they did was a great idea. The NYPD isn’t always going to make everyone happy, but it seems as though the organization completed its plan to provide an open forum for ideas on social media. The negative backlash probably wasn’t exactly what the NYPD had expected from the campaign, but the organization handled it with grace without letting it get too out of control.

Sources:

Laird, S. (2014, April 23). NYPD's Feel-Good Hashtag Campaign Backfires. In Mashable. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://mashable.com/2014/04/22/nypd-hashtag/

Ford, D. (2014, April 24). #D'oh! NYPD Twitter campaign backfires. In CNN. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/22/tech/nypd-twitter-fail/

Wilson, M. (2014, April 24). NYPD’s hashtag promotion goes awry. In PR Daily. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/16533.aspx#

Making Social Media Work for Your Brand

We all know about it. We’ve all been taught how to use it throughout our entire college career. We grew up in the generation where it was created. It’s social media, of course. It’s obsessive, addictive and sometimes incredibly dramatic (especially for me). But, it is definitely a must to be educated on, especially for public relations professionals. In fact, it is important no matter what career you pursue in the future. It is probable that social media will be a part of your day-to-day responsibilities. 

socialmediasmarketing.com

Public relations and social media go together like peanut butter and jelly. You can’t have one without the other. It is a way to engage with an audience and also get information out about a brand, company, business or nonprofit. It is such a fast-paced development and if you aren’t keeping up, it is likely you will be forgotten.

So part of the responsibilities of the younger, less experienced public relations professionals is to keep up with a company’s social media page, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and so on and so forth.

Word of mouth is huge on social media, so it can influence opinions about a brand, negatively or positively. So what are the most important things to consider when posting to social media on behalf of the business you are working for? What things need do you need to avoid doing to prevent a major crisis from occurring?

Engage in conversation

Don’t be on social media just to be on social media. You have to make use of the vast audience that you have on various sites.

Share links

Whenever a story is published about your company, be sure to share it so your viewers can read it as well. People want to hear good things that your brand is doing, so be sure to share. Also, it is nice to share things about other companies that you’re associated with. It can build your following base, as well as theirs.

Know when to post

Each social media platform has an ideal day and time in which posting is appropriate. Just because it works on one platform, does not mean it will work on another. Know the platform you are on and your audience. Socialmediatoday.com has a great infographic about the best times to post.

socialmediatoday.com

Pictures, please

Always share pictures with your audience. Links to articles and websites can only keep attention for so long. Share a picture every once in a while to keep your audience excited about your brand or company.

Keep it real

Every brand has its own personality so don’t steal someone else’s. It’s okay to admire another company’s social media presence, but don’t become something else that is completely different from the brand’s identity.

Create content for each platform

Just like certain times do not necessarily work for each platform, some content does not translate across the board. You have to create different content for each social media site that your brand is on. Some things work better on Twitter that might not work on Facebook, and vice versa. It is okay to share pictures on all social media sites, because who doesn’t love pictures?

Sources:

Richards, E. (2013, November 11). 8 Easy Ways to Use Social Media to Optimize Your PR Campaign. In Social Media Today. Retrieved April 11, 2014, from http://socialmediatoday.com/erinr/1905096/8-easy-ways-use-social-media-optimize-your-pr-campaign

Frasco, S. (2014, January 7). 15 Do's And Don’ts of Social Media. In Social Media Today. Retrieved April 11, 2014, from http://socialmediatoday.com/stephaniefrasco/2039866/15-dos-and-don-ts-social-media

Role of PR in Event Planning

Whenever an organization wants promote a new product, service or cause that it is supporting, it does this by hosting an event. An event can be held in a variety of ways, but the main idea is to provide information and fun to people within an organization and its audiences or stakeholders. Because an event is all about connecting a client with its publics, event planning has become a very important and specialized part of public relations. Event planning entails generating buzz surrounding the event that is being promoted.

http://www.jaelcustomdesigns.com/wp-content
/uploads/2012/01/event_planning.jpg

Recently for an internship, I planned an event centered on the reopening of a salon due to its change in ownership that occurred at the beginning of the year. I had never planned an event in my life, so not knowing where to start, I did what any future public relations professional would do and started promoting the event on social media. I used the company’s Facebook and Instagram accounts to release online flyers of event information. I planned all the essentials after that, including food, beverages and entertainment.

Social media flyer created by me

I only had about a month to plan everything to it all happened very quickly, and I didn’t get to plan everything as well as I would have liked to. As a part of public relations, event planning is something I will probably have to do as a part of an entry-level job in the future, so I wanted to ensure that I would be prepared next time I would have to plan an event.

• Develop a PR plan for the event – develop a communications plan (like we have been doing in class) that lists the goals, objectives, strategies and tactics for the event. It will also include who the target audience will be and what the key messages will be. It is very important to know how the audience wants to be reached:
• Social media
• Traditional media
• Integrated media
• Make a list of event details in advance – everything from décor to food needs to be decided upon months in advance. It doesn’t need to be pushed aside until the very last minute.
• Have a hook – what is going to be interesting about the event you are promoting? Are there going to be prize giveaways, entertainment or a theme to differentiate it from past events. Make the event stand out and promote what ever it is that makes it special.
• Have a budget in mind – it’s not the most interesting part of planning an event, but you must know how much the business is willing to spend so you can plan accordingly.
• Promote the event to local residents and businesses – for the event I planned, we used the local newspaper and the Chamber of Commerce to disseminate information about the event to local businesses and residents of the community. We also had a ribbon cutting ceremony that many business-people attended and it was featured in the paper the next week.
• Promote the event through social media – to me, this is the most important part of event planning. You want to inform your audience, which takes the time to follow and engage with your business on social media, about the event. Start Facebook contests or Twitter and Instagram hashtags a couple of months in advance to create excitement for the upcoming event.

Sources:

Spiewak, M. (2012, May 8). It’s My Party: The Role of Public Relations in Event Planning. Retrieved March 28, 2014, from http://smpsboston.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/its-my-party-the-role-of-public-relations-in-event-planning/

Warner, J. (2013, June 2). 42 Tips For Producing A Memorable Small Business Event. In Small Business Trends. Retrieved March 28, 2014, from http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/06/small-business-event-planning-tips.html