Poynter

SM: Friend? or Foe?

Advertisings’ Biggest Day!

So what is your favorite part of the SuperBowl?  Is it the sweat, the action, and loud cheering?  Or are you like half of America and only watch for the commercials?  Well, I am one of those commercial-watchin-junkies.

According to most Superbowl viewers, the game was not that exciting…and the commercials seemed to be stuck in the same place as the game.  For the most part, the commercials were just “eh, that was cute” – but then there were a few that really stuck out and made you want to laugh until you peed!

Here are some of my favorite commercials from this year:

 

 

 

 

AP Style: Confusing

AP Style: Definitely NOT what your elementary teacher taught you.  What makess AP style so confusing is that there are so many different variations of abbreviations!  The reason for this is because you simply can not fit everything into a printed newspaper or magazine article, so there had to be compromises.

Here are some quick tips for AP Style:

• Spell out the numbers one through nine; for 10 and up, use Arabic numerals.For ages and percentages, always use Arabic numerals, even for numbers lessthan 10.

• Spell out numerals that start a sentence; if the result is awkward, recast thesentence: Twenty-seven detainees were released yesterday. Yesterday, 993 freshmen entered the college.

•The one exception to this rule is in a sentence that begins with a calendar year: 1938 was a turbulent year for Leon.

• For large numbers: use a hyphen to connect a word ending in y to another word: twenty-one, one hundred forty-three, seventy-six thousand five hundred eighty-seven

• Do not use commas between other separate words that are part of one number: one thousand one hundred fifty-five

Comma(,):

• Do not put a comma before the conjunction in a simple series: John, Paul,George and Ringo; red, white and blue.

• Use a comma to set off a person’s hometown and age: Jane Doe, Framingham,was absent.

              -Joe Blow, 34, was arrested yesterday.

•Ethnic groups:

-The preferred usage for African Americans is “black.” The term is notcapitalized.

-Preferred usage for Caucasians is “white,” also not capitalized.

-Preferred usage for Asian people is “Asian,” capitalized. Please notethat in British usage the term applies only to people of the IndianSubcontinent.

-“American Indian,” capitalized with no hyphen, is preferred over “NativeAmerican.”

•Newspapers and magazines:

-Do not place in quotation marks.

-Capitalize the in the name if that is the way the publication prefers tobe known.

-Lowercase the before names if listing several publications, some of which use the as part of the name and some of which do not: TimeNewsweek, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

-Where location is needed but not part of the official name, useparentheses: The Huntsville (Ala.) Times, The Toledo (Ohio) Blade.

Groundswell says Listen

Don’t you jsut love when you tell someone a story and then realise they weren’t paying attention to a word you said?!?  HA!  I didn’t think so.  So why do some businesses not listen to the words of their customers?

Have you ever gotten an unsatisfactory drink from Starbucks?  I know, it is rare, BUT it does happen occassionally.  When you do get a bad drink what do they do for you?  They make you another one!  They listen to the fact that you did not like your drink.  They also listen to their customers through Twitter.  If you ever have a problem with the service you received, just pop on to Twitter and complain away!  (I know, sounds rude, but how else will they know what to change??)

Customer satisfaction is the most important quality of business.

Besides the obvious reasons of why Listening is important for your customers, here is why it is important for your business to succeed:

 

The Growndswell Book states that this is how your business will change through listening:

1. It’s likely to change the power structure of your organization.

2. The instant availability of information from customers can become like a drug that companies can become addicted to.

3. Listening to the groundswell will relentlessly reveal your stupidity. When customers can complain, bitterly and accurately, about the way you do business and you can measure and quantify their complaints, it’s hard to deny your own flaws. The constituency for stupid policies and products will evaporate in the face of highly visible customer feedback.

4. You may think that listening is the easiest way to engage with the groundswell because it’s low risk– it doesn’t require you to put yourself into the conversation. But while listening is part of a conversation, every conversation includes talking as well…So if you’re listening now, expect to be talking soon, too.

So if you are a business owner, why would not listen???

Social Media Marketing Cheat Sheet

I stumbled upon this awesome social media blog called THAT Agency, which led me to eventually find this little nugget of gold: The Social Media Marketing Cheat Sheet.

This blog post even has a link to download the PDF file of the cheat sheet!  I highly recommend this to ALL PR majors!

Take a look!

 

Picture Source: THAT Agency

 

 

Picture Source: THAT Agency

 

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Have you ever seen a piece of photography and have just been speechless?  Where you have just stood there with your mouth open in amazement?

I am what I like to call myself an “amateur photographer” – so I have an interest in photography, but I have not fully pursued it.  So since I am interested in photography, one of my hobbies is to just browse other people’s photos.

Among my many browsing adventures, I stumbled upon a familiar name to some Southeastern students – Dan Austin.  I had heard about him from my fellow SBLC-ers and that he did photography – so I looked him up on Facebook.

You know what I said about experiencing a “speechless moment”?  Well, that is what I experienced when I saw some of his photos!

He has done work for magazine covers, famous singers, album covers, etc.

Here are some of my favorites:

Dan Austin Photography

Dan Austin Photography

Dan Austin Photography

Dan Austin Photography

Dan Austin Photography

Dan Austin Photography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So if you ever are in need of great photographer, Dan is your man!

Club Rush

It’s a new semester.  Preview Days is next week.  So what does that mean?  It’s time for another Club Rush!

Photo by: Liz Colburn

Senate will be hosting the Club Rush event on Friday, February 3 from 10-2 on El Prado

This Club Rush is to show new spring students and preview students what our university has to offer.  This is a time to showcase what clubs and organizations we have and to find out how to get involved and grow as a student body.

So what should you expect at this particular Club Rush?  Well, for one, it is Homecoming Week, so El Prado will be all decked out in fire colors and students will be reppin’ the “Fire Attire” to excited for that nights activities.

Also we have vendors such as:

• Local Churches
• Local Restaurants (I heard a rumor that Moe’s is bringing chips and salsa!)
• SEU Clubs and Organizations
• Live Music
• Food (Don’t worry Daniel’s Fast participators, we didn’t forget about you!)

Go to Senate

Have you ever said “I wish guys could live in buttercup” or “I hate our mascot, fire dogs put out fire! – not support it!” ….Well…..GO TO SENATE!

Photo by: Liz Colburn

SBLC hosts a once a month Senate meeting that is the last Monday of every month in room A115 at 6pm.  This is an opportunity for students to speak their voice.  I used the example of boys living in Buttercup – Chris Owens, himself, said that if someone proposed that to senate, the results would most likely be positive.  Also, it has been voted on to change the school’s mascot – all because someone proposed to change it.

So if you have a yearning desire for something to be changed, then do something about it!

For more information contact:

Daniel Widergren: drwidergren@seu.edu

and

Liz Colburn: eecolburn@seu.edu

DIY: Melted Crayon Art

Looking for a colorful addition to your boring walls?  What could be more colorful than a box of crayons???

I found a fun and creative craft on Pinterest which led me to a blog with the proper instructions.

Creating this fun, colorful artwork is really simple!

Picture from: Pinterest

Step 1: Get a box of 64 count crayons and put alike colors together

Step2: Hot glue crayons to canvas

Step 3: Blow hair dryer on Hi in downward motion on crayons

Picture from: Pinterest

And Voila! You have a new piece of wall art!

Picture from: Pinterest