LinkedIn Speaker

LinkedIn is a social media tool used by many professionals and college students engaging in networking. It allows people to make a more formal connection and join each others networks. LinkedIn is becoming one of the most preferred ways of networking now days. You can network with coworkers, colleagues, friends, or with people that share the same interests. Currently I am using LinkedIn to network with professionals I hear speak or meet in person. The reason for this is a possibility for an internship. Networking is so important and LinkedIn makes this easy to do.

In PR Tactics II class I had the opportunity to listen to Katie Felton (@KatieFelten) speak on LinkedIn. She is currently a Promoter/Strategist at MKELive. Katie also hosts her own show "Tech Talk with Katie." She is very knowledgeable in the aspect on social media. Twitter and LinkedIn are tools she feels very strongly about. Katie told the class a lot of valuable information we can use to promote and brand ourselves in this social media world. One point she made very clear was to make sure you have a professional looking head-shot on your profile. People feel more connected to someone when they have a picture. As the sang goes a picture is worth a thousand words. She also highlighted the importance of having keywords in your headline that will help brand who you are. For example she has social media, twitter, linkedIn, event promoter. Those describe what Katie knows and what she is interested in. As I mentioned before LinkedIn is all about connecting and networking, that's why Katie also told us to not be afraid to ask a friend/colleague/co-worker to introduce you to another possible networking opportunity. If you would like to network with an employee at a possible place of employment and you have a friend who is already connected with this person, ask your friend to introduce both of you through LinkedIn. This is a professional way of introducing people in today's changing world. I feel this information could be very helpful as I continue to use LinkedIn as an opportunity to network and connect.

Katie was very insightful when it came to LinkedIn. I thought she had a lot of advice that can help students brand themselves in a social media world. Katie is very active in the PR world and is a great connection for any student to have. She is a great person to have as a connection for college students like myself hoping to soon get a career in PR.

Terrific night of networking

Last night I attended an event that was very entertaining, while being beneficial at the same time. The event was put on by BMA Milwaukee and it was held at Manpower. The main focus of the event was the lighting round interviews. The event brought over 100 college students together with professionals for the chance to network. There was also a social media presentation put on by Fullhouse. Fullhouse is a digital marketing agency that uses digital channels to integrate sales and marketing programs.
My evening actually started by eating pizza. Tazinos was generous enough to bring in pizza for the students to eat between the different activities. The pizza was delicious. We also networked with a couple Manpower employees during this time.
I then proceeded to go to the presentation put on by Fullhouse. This was a very informational presentation about how to brand yourself through social media. They talked a lot about LinkedIn and how to use this tool to establish your brand. They also talked about how you can use it to network and build connections with others in the industry.
From here I went to the lighting round interviews. This was the main focus of the event. The first professional I sat down with was an employee from Fullhouse, Allison Gugala (@agugala). She asked the question most employers ask at the end of an interview. The question was "Why should her company hire me?". She was very helpful in her feedback and told me what I should concentrate on when answering this question. The second professional was Katherine Walls, Vice President of Accuval. She asked "what will your co-workers/fellow students say about you?". She also gave good feedback but she also really liked my answer, which was helpful. Another women I interviewed with was Jeanette Mayotte, Professional Marketing Manager at Manpower. She simply asked me to tell her about myself. This was a very fun interview because we were able to interact and talk back and fourth while I told her about myself. The thing she really liked was my overall energy, which was a nice compliment for me to hear.
The final thing I did during the night was met with a professional to have my resume reviewed. This was an awesome experience for me because of the professional I was able to meet with. The women I met with was Noreen Fieber. We had a very long but beneficial conversation. One piece of information she really helped me with was my objective. We fixed it so it would sound more like something I would say to an employer if we were talking face to face. She also told me it would help to make a bulleted list of my skills instead of writing them in sentence form. This is because employers only scan a resume for a few seconds before they decide to read more or throw it to the side. I found this very beneficial.
The overall night was a lot of fun and very interesting. I found it very beneficial to my future. I also met professionals that I may now network with for my future. I would suggest this event to any college students looking at furthering their knowledge.

The PR Student

I'm Tyler Anderson a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Currently I am in my eighth of ten semesters. My emphasis of study is in Public Relations. I also have a minor in business. I originally was an Accounting major until I realized that sitting behind a desk and crunching numbers was something I could not see myself doing everyday. I like the idea in PR that nothing is ever going to be the exact same. PR gives you the opportunity to be creative and professional, because ultimately you are establishing the image the public views.
So far as a PR student I have completed PR Principles, and PR Tactics I and am currently taking PR Tactics II, PR Strategies and also PR research literacy. I really enjoyed PR Tactics I and all the hands on exercises we completed. The mock news conference was a very good experience that I enjoyed working on. The reason I enjoyed that was in my career I would love to work in sports PR. I would either love to represent a sports team as a whole or a specific athlete or maybe even celebrity. For one I love sports and stardom. That would be awesome to be the person held responsible for protecting a "stars" image. The job would come with much responsibility, which would make it so great.
As a Senior in college I am at a point in my life where I do not want to leave college but I also want to start a new chapter in my life. As hard as it is to see myself having a career and working 40+ hours a week I think a little bit of me is looking forward to the responsibility of being an adult. There also is the future of a family which is scary now but soon will be a reality that I will enjoy. So for my fourth and fifth years I am going to have the time of my life living as a kid and adult at the same time before the real world is reality.