"What has Google Ever Done for PR?"; Share This

In this week's reading of "Share This: The Social Media handbook for PR Professionals", the author mentions the many ways that Google has revolutionized not only the world, but the PR profession in particular. In just our Social Media Principles class alone, we have seen that Google Analytics is one of the many critical tools for success in PR. The other ways to use Google for PR are Google Alerts and Google News. The worldwide phenomenon of Google is used every second by someone on the Earth. Someone on the globe at every point in time is searching something on Google because it is so iconic.

Google Analytics, which is mentioned multiple times throughout the book, is a system of algorithms by Google that can determine statistics which couldn't be accessed otherwise. Information such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay-per-click) are now at our disposal. These statistics and analytics are numbers that
have completely changed the way we can use the internet and online networking. Knowing what times of the day people visit our website, how long they stayed on our site, what content they viewed and how long they viewed it and when they viewed it. All of this information is critical to the way we improve and progress as a profession.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is another way that Google has helped the field of PR. SEO is a way to determine what keywords were generated or put into the search engine to find the site. If for example, my site was a Nike Shoe site, I would probably see the key search words, "Tennis shoes, running shoes, kicks, Nike shoes, or workout shoes." This kind of information is also vital to how we will move forward. If the key words that are searched are low in hits or views, then we can adjust the way we want to have our product or site be found. Awareness of the site also comes from this information. The more views, hits and traffic a website has

'Lurking' behind closed doors

Today's adolescents are constantly spending time on social media. The Plurals generation has a staggering amount of people that are considered social media "lurkers". According to this CNN story, the term "lurking" means, "reading the never-ending stream of their peers' activities without posting anything themselves." The lurkers of social media are purely checking their peers posts and not posting anything with their own opinion or stance.

When I first saw this article, I had to ask myself, "Are you a lurker?" I am an avid social media user, but I often catch myself lurking and simply roaming through the social media feed just to like things and explore others posts with no intent to post anything myself. The lurking method to social media is more apparent and popular than we may think. A lot of my friends are terrible Twitter junkies and will do whatever they can to find the newest trend on their timelines. Even when they get on Instagram or Snapchat, they are opening the app and looking at the activity with no intent to post something themselves and start a new conversation on their own.

Lurkers are a new breed to the technological audience. Does that mean because they are new, that they are unimportant? In some peoples opinions, yes. Social media can be used for multiple reasons, and in my opinion, just surfing the web for the newest meme or the funniest vine, is pointless. I hate seeing guys, especially guys my age, go nuts about being on Twitter and talking about their timeline. Don't get me wrong, Twitter is an amazing tool for networking, communicating and PR, as well as to socialize, but when all you do is get on Twitter and waste your data on retweeting videos of cats using GoPro's and 30 second fight vines, it is a waste of resources and just a desperate attempt to entertain yourself.

Polar Bears Take A BIte Out Of The Blue

All hope seemed to be lost for our Polar Bears on Saturday when they were playing the John Carroll Blue Streaks in a conference football game in University Heights, Ohio. I wasn't in attendance, but I knew that our football team had a big game on its plate versus a nationally ranked John Carroll team. A win would move the Polar Bears to 4-1 and maybe the best start to a season in a while for ONU. After using social media, I found some tweets on my timeline talking about the game. Coincidentally, I was driving back to Ada, so as a loyal listener, I tuned in to 94.9 FM The Beat and listened to the broadcast of the ONU game. With the game on the line, on a 4th and 20, Freshman QB Will Freed chucked a deep ball to senior tight end, Justin McCray and he pulled the ball down for a 37 yard touchdown pass. The Blue Streaks still had 4:22 left on the clock but the Polar Bear defense prevailed and held their ground. ONU is off to a hot start, maybe its hottest in recent years. A freshman QB from the West Coast is under center, an electric receiving core and a defense that refuses to give in. The Polar Bears have beaten 2 teams in a row that have been major problems in years past, so now with Mount Union in the near future, Coach Dean Paul and his troops will truly be battle tested.