So there aren’t many jobs on this list, but please know I’m posting this from 1-95 northbound to New York. My internet is surprisingly strong, I’m on a borrowed Virgin Mobile MiFi mobile hotspot.

I wanted to send you these jobs-I know it’s not much-but I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to blog again, and I’ve had blogger’s guilt for the past week. I did not post one time.

But in other news, I spoke about blogging last week and helped my client successfully orchestrate a TV spot. So I wasn’t just lazing around the house. I was busy doing my PR thizzle.

Here are your jobs: hope one of these sparks your fancy. And if you have a success story like Keshia’s let me know!

Amanda

p.s. Happy Anniversary to Margie Newman and the DC Flacks! Congratulations on an awesome year of meet-ups!

Atria Senior Living Group Strategic Brand Manager (Louisville, KY)

American University Associate Director of Communications (Washington, DC)

American Museum of Natural History New Media Specialist (New York, NY)

Amanda’s Pick —–>  Northrop Grumman Social Media Manager (Arlington, VA)

Ogilvy PR Account Supervisor Hispanic Outreach (Washington, DC)

Widmeyer Communications Senior Account Executive (Washington, DC)

During my opening presentation I talked about how you can create content for your tweets-the kind of content that will eventually lead to twinfluence. Here are a few things that I really wanted to touch upon.

Evergreen Tweets

I briefly described the concept of “evergreen tweets” as being tweets you can pre-schedule to communicate more about what you do and position yourself as an expert. (If you don’t already schedule your Tweets, try co-tweet for scheduling). While you can go the route of scheduling greeting tweets “Good Morning, Good Night, Hope you’re Having a Great Day” you can take this evergreen concept further by asking yourself a few simple questions.

What is it that you have expertise about? What topic do people seek your advice for on a regular basis? What topic are you so passionate about that once you start talking about it, you can’t shut up? This is your content sweet-tweet spot. Develop your evergreen tweets from here.

If you were a business owner/consultant and I was your PR person, I would advise you to decide on a goal for yourself of your business, then craft your tweets to reach that goal. Brand yourself through these tweets and stay on message. Want to brand yourself as a writer’s coach? Craft and schedule a series of tweets about what makes writing better.  Want to position yourself as an expert on personal finance? Write and schedule a series of personal finance tips with your own unique twist.

Types of Evergreen Tweets

• Quotes (Be sure to attribute correctly. Use the Twitter handle of author when possible)
• Industry Know-How
• Professional or Consulting Tips
• Links to articles that aren’t time-sensitive

Time Sensitive Tweets

These can be the easiest tweets to create, but also the trickiest if you want to do them right. These include links to breaking news articles, event updates, links to registrations for upcoming conferences, etc. Responses to @mentions on Twitter would also fall into this category. You don’t want to get too far behind before you respond to those. But the “what I’m doing” tweets are also time-sensitive and are a great opportunity to tell people what you do and what you’re great at doing. Instead of telling us about the great breakfast sandwich you just devoured, why not tell us about the social media policy you’re putting together for your newest client, or the color consultation you’re doing for your new client.

You: Wrapping up this a #socialmedia policy for a great #nonprofit  organization in Colorado.

Your Audience: Social Media Policy?  I didn’t know you did that. I think our organization needs one…

Integrating Your Blog

Most bloggers use Twitterfeed or some other linking service to link their blog feeds to their twitter accounts so that once a new post is up, it automatically goes out as a tweet. So whenever you write a new blog post, you’ve got a new tweet. However, if you’ve been blogging for a year or more, chances are you already have a ton of evergreen content that you can schedule and tweet  from your archives! The 6 Tips for Responding to HARO Queries post never seems to fail to inspire. And unless HARO ceases to exist, it’s timely.

How do you create your content for Twitter?

Find Mopwater: On Facebook | On Twitter

Want to hear some tips on how to get your company featured (favorably) in the pages of the Wall Street Journal? Let’s face it: Who doesn’t?!

I figured you would. So I caught up with Journal Business reporter Lee Hawkins and asked him how he likes his pitches.

Thanks for watching!

Join Mopwater on Facebook

Follow Mopwater on Twitter

One of the most fascinating tidbits of info that I got from a recent panel on online media was how niche publications and websites are the future of media.

I captured some footage of David Wilson, founder of the Grio, discussing the Grio’s relationship with parent company NBC. In this clip, David describes the trickle-up effect of online news: how news can potentially break on the Grio and end up on NBC nightly news or the Today Show.

The Grio is a niche news site for African-American viewpoints. So case-in-point: Go niche.

Another one of the speakers on this panel was the co-founder of Politico.com which is doing pretty well as new media companies g0. My takeaway: Gone are the days of being super general, so if you’re writing about travel, maybe consider writing about travel for parents. Writing about style? What about style for today’s busy business owner/blogger who has two toddlers and needs to be comfortable but also needs to have great things to wear for last minute meetings?

Here is a snippet from a presentation by former print journalist and now Morgan State University professor Allissa Richardson about online media. Richardson is explaining to a roomful of journalists how to live blog their news. When blogging, Richardson warns, you will encounter your audience in real time. No lag time for the letters to the editor; your critics will show up in the comments. So how do you deal?

One way to deal is to press the delete key. Especially if, as Richardson puts so eloquently, “you don’t want that type of drama on your blog.”

But this brings up a great issue: is digital media delete media? Is it necessarily a good thing to be able to erase the negative comments that we don’t wish to see? I know we all have spam filters on our blogs for people selling products, etc. But what about real people who post comments that are simply opinions contrary to our own?

Politico columnist Patrick Gavin brought this up during the PoliTwitch event back in May. (at 3:35 in the clip)  Since he runs a political blog, he uniformly receives a bevy of partisan comments, so many that he almost doesn’t read the comments on the blog.

But what do you think about digital media, negative comments and the delete key? Should negative comments be kept as a part of the story? Or should digital media journalists and bloggers have carte blanche to “police” the comments?

And another point: Do you consider the comments a valuable part of the story?

There’s a new HARO in town. And the service is making news.

On Sunday, the New York Times published a story about the launch of the new HARO/ProfNet competitor, the San Fransico-based NewsBasis.  Ragan’s PR Daily picked up the story asking essentially why the launch was newsworthy.  “Who’s doing this startup’s PR?” mused PR Daily editors.

So…day one and you’re in the New York Times…Nice.

Wondering how News Basis works or what makes it different? Here’s an explanation from the Times article:

Journalists post questions or search for sources with a particular expertise or point of view. Reporters can ask questions anonymously to avoid tipping off competitors. They can set an expiration date for their question and remove it when it has been answered to avoid getting bombarded with pitches.

Companies, public relations agencies and academics search for questions or, if they choose, get notification by e-mail whenever someone posts a relevant query.

Services like these can be particularly useful for small-business owners who want to connect with reporters but “don’t have 10 grand a month to pay a giant P.R. firm,” said Peter Shankman, founder of Help a Reporter Out, a competing service whose membership is 70 percent small businesses.

(Let me just say that MopwaterPR has affordable retainers starting out far below $10,000/month if anyone is looking for a firm. But I digress).

Interestingly enough, News Basis seems to take the HARO model and improve upon it considerably. And while we’re on the subject of HAROs, the fact that NewsBasis can be edited in real time is pretty cool, too. Since Vocus acquired HARO in June, the service has remained virtually unchanged. However, I suspect changes will be coming. Now with this new competitor on the block, those changes may come even more quickly. The only question is, will journalists use the service? We know journalists use HARO because the queries come at you three times per day.

More on how it works (video courtesy of News Basis):

One last thing: Back when I was a journalist, we didn’t have HARO. We had the phone, our connections, our staff meetings and our feet. I can only imagine how many more stories I would have been able to churn out with a HARO-like service.

This News Basis platform seems to make it even easier. Like, what’s the point of even showing up to work? Just throw in your query and let two dueling sides duke it out on News Basis and you’ve got your quotes. Add some context, a bit of editing and you’ve got a story?

A part of me salivates as a PR professional because I know this helps everyone connect much more easily. However, I wonder if connecting easily is truly the point of journalism. There’s just something about hustling up a story, and going out there with your preconceived notions, only to have them overturned. Or better yet, to have the story you thought you were going to cover get upstaged by a juicer, more exciting, more salacious story that you didn’t even know existed.

What do you think? Do sites like HARO, ProfNet and now NewsBasis make everyone’s jobs easier? Do they make journalists lazy? Do they make spin more probable? Do they add too much sheen and gloss to the news process and somewhat diminish journalistic integrity?

I’m undecided. What do you think?

Nowadays, what do you need to become a good journalist? Some may rush and say “a journalism degree.” But what do you say? We all know that students are trying to figure out what to study, what’s necessary to make a living, what it really takes to cut the mustard. So, I  asked a working journalist what he thinks especially during these tough times.  See what this New York Times business reporter says:

Surprised?

Kristina Libby, a social media consultant I profiled last week said that she would have waited to get an MBA rather than rush to grad school. What do you think?

Like Mr. Nixon stated, whatever you end up studying should enrich what you end up doing, in Libby’s case, an MBA would give her the business sense to understand her business client’s problems and run her consultancy (whereas a degree in public relations would only help her understand PR and social media principles, best practices, ethics and tactics which are still important). In Nixon’s case, a more nuanced foundation of statistics would probably have aided his business reporting for the New York Times more than a journalism degree would have.

My take: When looking to get a degree, in the beginning follow your passions and after undergrad assess what you need after working a few years. School won’t necessarily teach you to do. Only doing can teach you to do. School can refine your knowledge, expand your networks and enhance your ability to do something in a niche way. But more on that later.

So if I still haven’t sold you on my beloved Foursquare, check out Wall Street Journal reporter Lee Hawkins with Foursquare co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley as they take a walk around Cooper Square and the East Village in New York City.

Crowley shows you how he uses his own social media service, some of his favorite hangouts and how he believes Foursquare is making unwieldy cities like the Big Apple easier to navigate and enjoy. (I agree.)

Check out the tip for Luke’s Lobster from “Baratunde T.” that shows up in the post. That has to be none other than Baratunde Thurston. Random!

Join Mopwater on Facebook

Follow Mopwater on Twitter

Good morning and happy Monday to you all. I’m back from San Diego from the National Association of Black Journalists 35th Annual Convention where I met tons of journalists, a few other great PR pros, and got to present on a fun panel called “Turning Your Passion into a PR Career.”

There were so many good takeaways, but I’ll leave you with these three. One:If you’re looking for a job in journalism, diversify your skills with business reporting. Two: Business stories are always en vogue. If you’re a journalist, large public relations agencies are always looking for former reporters to bring into the ranks. Three: If you’re looking to turn your passion into a PR career, if you can dream it up, you can do the PR for it. So remember to focus on your true passions and dream BIG.

Here are my job picks for the week:

Burson-Marsteller Managing Director-Government Relations, Direct Impact (Washington, DC)

Capitol One Senior Communications Manager (McLean, VA)

Dell Global ODG Social Media Manager (United Kingdom)

Formula PR Account Executive (San Diego, CA)

Formula PR PR Assistant (New York, NY)

Google Communications Associate (Mountain View, CA)

Google Creative Director-Copywriter (New York City)

Amanda’s Pick —–>Google Events Manager (San Francisco, CA)

Harper Collins Publishers Publicity Director (San Francisco, CA)

HUGE Social Media Strategist (Brooklyn, NY)

Kembrel Fashion Marketing and Social Media Associate (Philadelphia, PA)

LewisPR Account Manager (Washington, DC)

National Trust for Historic Preservation Presidential Speechwriter (Washington, DC)

National Trust for Historic Preservation Communications Associate (Washington, DC)

Scripps Health Senior Director of Public Relations (La Jolla, CA)

Southern Living Magazine Associate Travel Editor (Birmingham, AL)

Sterling Children’s Books /Sterling Publishing Publicist (New York City)

United States Chamber of Commerce Media Relations Manager (Washingt0n, DC)

World Gold Council PR Manager (Mumbai,India)

World Vision Media Relations Director (New York City)

Social media brings people together. And conferences do, too.

I met a Mopwater PR + Media Notes “fan” today during a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention in San Diego today. My heart’s all gooey. I love meeting Mopwater PR + Media Folks.

How did you find Mopwater PR + Media Notes? I’d love to hear your story.

Find Mopwater on Facebook

Follow Mopwater PR on Twitter

This morning, I attended  “Context and Consequences: A Conversation with Shirley Sherrod,” at the National Association of Black Journalists’ 35th Annual Convention in San Diego.

Sherrod has made headlines over the past two weeks for her forced resignation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture after conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted video excerpts of Sherrod’s address at a March 2010 NAACP event on  his website. The NAACP initially condemned her remarks and U.S. government officials called on her to resign. Upon review of the unedited video in context, the NAACP, White House officials, and Tom Vilsack, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, apologized soon after and Sherrod was offered a new position. Sherrod has not yet decided if she will accept the job offer.

Sherrod spoke to a round table of journalists about how she feels the media (namely Fox) made something out of nothing. She later went on to note that she plans to sue Breitbart.

I was awestruck by how real Mrs. Sherrod was. As she sat on stage, admittedly in the midst of a career crisis, with notable journalists, and was interviewed by CNN’s Don Lemon, she held a sense of confidence and self assurance that can only come from being yourself and knowing that you have been being yourself. Consistently.

“How I’ve reacted, it’s not an act. That’s how I am.  I couldn’t act any other way, ” she said of her reaction to the firestorm.

Mrs. Sherrod wasn’t shaken by allegations of her racism because she knew at her core that she was not racist. She knew that her actions have never been racist. And if anyone were to do a little digging, they would uncover the same thing.

Because she is living her brand.

Are you?

You should know that someone is always watching you. Can you say, as Mrs. Sherrod did that how you are is not an act? If you can say that, even when no one is watching, then you are living your brand.

Brand inconsistencies can come in all sorts shapes and sizes. One day it may be your clothes, but another day it may be how we speak, how we treat people or how we deal with clients and customers. If you get a reputation for dealing with your clients in a fair and equitable way, that reputation will follow you. If all of the sudden you stop paying your employees and /or subcontractors, what do you think this will do to your brand?

Think about this: if you were to face a crisis in your business or personal life the first thing your adversaries will do is begin to try to dig up “the dirt” on you. They will immediately go to someone who may have a “beef” with you. I remember that’s what we were trained to do as journalists to get the other side of the story. But if your brand is strong, and you have been living your brand, there will be no dirt to be found.

Allows let your end goals guide how you carry yourself. How do you want your clients and customers to think of you? If you work for a company, how do you want to perceived by your superiors? When you’re schlepping around on weekends, are you still living your brand? Or do you revert to a careless and less polished version of yourself: a person who may use foul language, treat people rudely, and show up in public places dressed inappropriately?

At the end of the day, when you put yourself in the public eye, know that someone is always watching. Living your brand means not acting real, but being real, so that there’s never any inconsistency.

So I broke down and hired a stylist.

And I’ll admit, I feel kind of fabulous saying that. And even more fabulous having photos like these of my own clothes:

I should back up a bit. And explain why I felt the need (and could justify the expense) of hiring someone to essentially pick out my clothes.

I used to feel so put together back when I was what I considered my perfect size, weight, and when I was doing exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I was about 22-years-old and I felt I had figured everything out. I had done pretty well with college, become this rock star English major who consistently wowed her professors with thoughtful papers on Post-Colonialism, the concept of “the Other” and the Negritude movement. I was, in my opinion (with all of the perspective a 22-year-old can muster) at the height of my writing and focused on pushing the envelope in both literature, cultural criticism and journalism. I was confident and sassy with an artsy twist.  But at the same time, I was about my business.

I was this girl:

Then…something changed. As quickly as I found Amanda, I began to lose her. I struggled to eek out a career path that included my interests in creative writing, content production and business. I started out doing public relations work with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, then I worked for a while at a lobbying firm, and got to travel abroad and do some important networking and learn the ins and outs of consulting with government agencies and  foreign countries. But soon that didn’t allow me to flex my creative muscles often enough. So I started freelance PR writing on the side. And then when this story was published in the Sunday Washington Post, I got the journalism bug. I began putting myself out there and  building my portfolio of clips. After a while, I landed a journalism fellowship to Northwestern University’s Medill School that opened the door to a coveted staff writer position at the Washington City Paper.

During all of this change, my style was in limbo, but it didn’t really matter. Because no one was really looking at me, or so I thought. I was simply the writer; the vessel charged at getting the story out into the world.

Fast forward a few years. I’m on maternity leave, and my editor is calling me to let me know that my paper is making further cuts so I have a decision to make: I can give up my job or stick around and take someone else’s spot. I pass on filling the space since I was contemplating getting back to my PR.

By this time I was a mom, and totally without a sense of style. Marriage, another baby, a blog, and a company later puts me here before you, the same soulful writer who is not  (as I waxed poetically back in 1999)

in my milieu

I want

to pack a lunch

and head for the high grass.

I want to slide my Doc Marten’s on

then kick them off

to wait for me outside

the enchantment of a grass-covering blanket.

But I can’t do that now. Doc Martens? Yeah right!

This stylist is amazing. She told me candidly: “Amanda, you have to represent your company, now.” Recently we were preparing some looks for my upcoming trip to San Diego for the NABJ Conference.  I’m speaking on a panel about Turning Your Passion Into a PR Career, and I never know what to wear to these things.

We picked out a few different things to wear and Robin, (the stylist), helped me pair everything together with accessories and the right shoes. When she pointed to pair of wide leg black pants and said “You can wear these on the plane, with a nice cardigan…” I laughed.

“I can just wear my yoga pants,” I said.

“Amanda,” she said sternly. “You’re going on a business trip to make a presentation. Who do you think you’re going to see on the plane? Your audience. You can’t look great at the event, and look a mess on the plane.”

That’s what she said. But you know what I heard?

Keep your branding consistent.

Is your branding consistent? You may have the most amazing logo, the most clean copy writing and beautiful brochures. But what about you? Is your personal presentation pulling the package all together? Or are you failing your brand, causing the house you’ve so carefully built to fall apart once people meet you in person?

Ouch.

So now, I try to be cognizant whenever I leave the house because while I may have the heart of the poet, I have to have the sheen of your publicist.

I’m interested to know how you are navigating this terrain. Is your branding consistent? How much time/effort do you put into your outward appearance and how important do you think it is? Have you had to do a rebrand?

*Image Credit: Luxe Chronicles

I think I scare my husband.

Whenever we leave the house, I double and triple check my purse or Mopwater tote to be sure I have my iPhone, iPhone charger and, depending on how long we’ll be away from the house, my Flipcam and MacBook. I have to be equipped at all times because I never know what may happen once we step outside that door.

This is the mindset of the new PR pro-always ready for whatever may happen whenever it may happen and wherever it may happen. You never know when an opportunity may present itself.

Case in point, I recently attended a seminar on fashion and social media that was hosted by my PR pal James S. Walker. During the seminar, James gave a number of great ideas to enterprising fashion professionals (who are ready for whatever) to use social media to score traditional media coverage. I am sharing James’ advice in the video below:

I showed you the video for two reasons. One: James’ message resonates with this notion of leveraging the moment for public relations. You’re down in the Metro, interviewing people with your Flip cam or your iPhone and turning that into some sort of segment on street fashion. Two: I’m showing you how I was there in the room getting footage of James to share with you, leveraging the moment for my own PR. Since I’m in the business of highlighting the work of other PR professionals,  sharing new methods and giving you “tools for great PR”  one way I am able to do that is by leveraging the moment-being ready with my camera and recognizing when the information is getting good and knowing that you, the reader, would love to get the information, too.

James had no idea I was capturing that footage, but you should know that if I’m in the room and you’re saying anything interesting (at least in the realm of PR or social media), it’s liable to end up on one of my content channels

If you’re going to leverage the moment, you’ve got to be ready. You can’t ever be without your tools. Here are some of my tips for leveraging the moment for PR.

Get Equipped If you don’t already have a camera, a simple point and shoot is fine. You’ll need something that takes video (it need not be a Flip, although I am quite happy with mine) and computer software for video editing (I use iMovie). If you travel a lot, you’ll  need a reliable internet connection (I’ve been using the Sprint Overdrive and it’s great because it is a mobile hot spot that can accommodate up to 5 computers at a time.

ABC. Always Be Charged I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been equipped with a dead battery. But it’s bound to happen when you’re a heavy user like me. I’m always on my iPhone shooting photos and video, tweeting and Facebooking. Then there’s my MacBook. I’m editing videos and running multiple programs at one time so the battery takes a beating. So I try to keep my power chords with me and a power adapter for my car on hand in case I can’t find one in a room. Take a spare battery or scope out the outlet situation wherever you go.

Think Links. When you’re out there in the world, be in the moment, but always be thinking how can I turn this moment into a hyperlinked piece of content? Because at the end of the day, if another person online can’t link to what you’re doing, or retweet the link, the sharing stops. And that’s the point of leveraging the moment and making the web work. You have to make things easy for the next man to grab hold of and share.  So if you’re taking photographs with key people at an event, post the photos to your Flickr account. Or better yet, write a blog post, post the pictures and put captions naming the people in the photographs. Then tag the post with those names. If you’re capturing video, upload it to YouTube. Once you do this you have a link that you can shorten (use bit.ly) and share via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email or wherever. You can also embed the html code into your web site (on a side widget) or into a blog post to get multiple uses out of one piece of content.

Note: how many hyperlinks can you count in this post?

Share. Send. Immortalize Online. Once you have this awesome content shorten the link (the blog post or YouTube video) and tweet it, Facebook it, E-mail it, create a newsletter with it. Send it out into the world. Once you send your leveraged moment out into the online world, guess what? Your moment just became immortalized. Check back in one month, 3 months, or even one year. That blog post or YouTube video will still be there accumulating equity on the web.

Pretty cool, huh?

What are your favorite tips for leveraging the moment for PR?

It’s Monday. And it just so happens to be my birthday. So happy birthday to me! Cake for everyone.

Seriously, I just want to let you know how happy  I am that you’re a part of this community. You are the greatest birthday gift of all. Really.

AT&T Director of External Affairs (Washington, DC)

Bank of the West Corporate Communications Social Media Officer (San Francisco)

City of Philadelphia Communications and Outreach Coordinator (Philadelphia, PA)

Department of Agriculture Writer (Washington, DC)

Devex Communications Director (Washington, DC)

Formula PR Senior Account Executive (San Diego, CA)

Holland & Knight, LLP Freelance Copywriter (Florida)

Market City Inc SEO/Social Media Account Executive (St. Louis)

The Marketing Store Senior Multicultural Copywriter (Greater Chicago Area)

Microsoft Director of Strategic Marketing Communications (Redmond, Washington)

Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative Communications and Government Relations Specialist (Baker City, Oregon)

Republic Director of Communications (Miami, FL)

Amanda’s Pick———->Spectrum Communications Digital Associate (Washington, DC)

Southern Poverty Law Center Communications Assistant (Montgomery, AL)

United Nations Foundation Director of Online Communications-Public Affairs (Washington, DC)

United Way Worldwide Director of Strategic Communications (Alexandria, VA)

The Walt Disney Company Manager of Executive Communications (Lake Buena Visa, FL)

The Washington Post Publicist / PR Specialist (Washington, DC)

Wells Fargo Communications Consultant (Des Moines, Iowa)

—————————————————————————

Join Mopwater on Facebook

Follow Mopwater on Twitter

Register for the DC Power Twitter Workshop (Early Bird Rate Ends Wednesday)

Author, Speaker and Rockstar David Meerman Scott + Amanda Miller Littlejohn

CANCEL your meetings. HOLD your calls. BLOCK your entire day on Wednesday July 28, 2010. Vocus is hosting an online version of their 2010 Users conference: Retweet: Engagement Means Business — an event you shouldn’t miss – and you don’t even need to leave your desk to attend.You want to get this information.

And it’s free.

What?!?!

I attended the Vocus Users Conference in June and saw these presentations in person. Let me just tell you, the fact that Vocus is repackaging them and offering them online and for free is absolutely incredible. I am traveling part of the day on June 28, but I’ll be jumping on from the airports and wherever I can get a good Wi-Fi signal so that I can relive this awesome content all over again.
Here’s the line-up:

• Deirdre Breakenridge: From PR’s Past to Social Media Power
• David Meerman Scott: Game Change: The New Rules of Marketing and PR*
• Beth Harte: Integrated Marketing Communications: Engaging Your Audience Online
• Lee Odden: Optimizing PR for the Web in 2010
• Brian Solis: Engage or Die!

Date:  Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Engage! Author Brian Solis with Mopwater PR's Amanda Miller Littlejohn

Time:  9:30AM – 5:30PM Eastern

Cost:  The Online Conference is FREE. Free, y’all! The in-person conference started at $800 per attendee. Yes.

Click Here to Register

You heard it here first. Don’t ever say I never gave you anything

Join Mopwater on Facebook

Follow Mopwater on Twitter

Kristina Libby, 25
Current City: NYC and Washington, DC
Social Media Consultant, 4+ years
Online Kristina Libby,LLC and KMV Media
On Twitter @kristinalibby; @kmvmedia

Mopwater: Describe your path to Social Media PR: How did you wind up in this
field? KL: I have an MA in Genocide Research from a top 10 International Relations school. I never had a clue that I would be tweeting on behalf of luxury fashion brands a few years after. Needless to say, I didn’t jump into this with both feet. I started out blogging for a nonprofit. I kept looking for a genocide research jobs and I dabbled a little on the side. Soon, my freelance clients increased as my interest in my chosen field decreased. Eventually, I had to face the facts– I wasn’t  going to write policy briefs on post-genocide security threats, I was cut out to be an online marketer.

Mopwater: Describe a pivotal moment in your career. Did you have a mentor or internship that really solidified your interest in this field or helped you hone in on a specific focus area?  KL: I did a lot of work for National Geographic Museum and feeling the excitement and momentum behind their Terra Cotta Warriors campaign really solidified my interest in working in this field. The excitement people felt, the access it gave them and their energy and dedication were contagious.

Mopwater: Describe a typical workday including your work hours. What do you do all day?  KL: I’m online 24 hours a day. I’m tweeting, Facebooking, monitoring, blogging and outreaching from wherever I happen to be. It’s not a 9-5 job; it’s a lifestyle.

Mopwater: Describe your office setting and workplace.  KL: I work from any place that has a laptop and WiFi. Now that I have a fancy WiFi stick this just means I have to find an outlet. The freedom of my job is the most beguiling part.

Mopwater: What are your favorite and least favorite PR and social media tasks and why? Do you love to pitch? Dread writing releases? Adore blogging for your brands? KL: Favorite: Interacting with our growing communities.
Least favorite: The increasing possibility of developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

Mopwater: Who are some of your clients, and what kind of projects do you take on for these clients? KL: National Geographic Museum, Leggiadro, Bake Me A Wish, Slobproof with Crypton and more. For each of these clients I do different things but for all of them I actively market and represent their brands online. Their voice is my voice.

Mopwater: Describe a recent project where you produced results of which you’re really proud. KL: For Slobproof with Crypton I used backwater social media channels to place the brand in the New York Times. For National Geographic Museum, I grew their facebook fan page from 0 followers to over 7000 in less than a year.

Mopwater: What is your favorite thing about this job and do you think you’ll be in this position in 5 years?  KL: I hope so! I hope to grow what I do and bring in new talent. The job is exciting, dynamic and constantly changing. What isn’t to love?

Mopwater: What aspect of the industry are you most excited about?  KL: The speed at which everything changes.

Mopwater: If you could work on any dream project of your choosing, what would it be? KL:I’d love to work for a brand like ProFlowers or LL Bean who have high online conversion rates for shoppers but barely existent social media. Showing them the benefits of effect social media would be so rewarding.

Mopwater: What if anything would you have done differently in your career up to this point and what advice would you give someone who is trying to break into your field? KL: I probably wouldn’t have gotten a masters in the field I did. I would have waited to get an MBA. For someone who is considering it, I would say give it some time. Do some more work, find something that feels natural and do that. Don’t get an advanced degree because you don’t know what else to do.