Pretty Please

Midterms are over.

I am officially one-fourth of my way done with my senior year. As a soon-to-be graduate, it is time I start getting serious about my post-college job hunt.

We always talk about making sure you’re interview ready. Meaning, your resume is updated, your portfolio is reflective of your best work, and your online reputation is squeaky clean.

So, I went through my resume and portfolio: updating, editing, and re-designing. By the time I was done I was tired. Truthfully, I didn’t think I needed to check up on my online presence. After all, what could possibly be up there? I keep my Facebook appropriate (I’m friends with my mom), I’ve never been arrested, and I use Twitter professionally.

Alas, I Googled myself.

I got what you would expect: social media accounts, articles from my university, my sororities web site, high school speech competition results, even my high school graduation announcement – nothing but confirmation that I was indeed an actively involved college student.

But then to my dismay at the bottom of the first page a tiny, red flag showed up.

My Formspring Account.

For those of you who don’t know, Formspring is a social website, launched back in 2009, which allows people to ask you questions anonymously. The questions and their given responses are then published on the your Formspring profile page.

Unfortunately, I must admit that I once enjoyed the site. What can I say? I was young and naive. But due to the amount of inappropriate questions I was being asked the site’s appeal quickly faded. I think I used the site for two weeks, answering about fifteen questions and then left it lingering in cyberspace, only to find it two years later.

Note to self: delete the profiles you no longer use.

Now, I doubt this would be a deal-breaker for a potential employer but it is still a valuable lesson. Who knows what you may have lingering out there.

Check yourself, before you wreck yourself.

My university recently added a leadership concentration – Leadership Education and Development – that sounded too good to pass up.  

I’m currently in Theories to Leadership and it has been one of the single most inspirational courses I have taken during college. And it only took three years to find!

Last week’s class focused on inspirational leadership. To drive the message home, my professor played Simon Sinek’s 2009 TEDX video about the Golden Circle of Inspiring Action.

If you haven’t already seen the video be prepared to have your mind blown.

This video resonated so deeply with me for the same reason I continue to purchase Seth Godin’s books. It is because what is being said is common sense. So common, in fact, that the majority of us forget about these practices in daily life. 

In a nutshell, Sinek explains that when most people communicate they first address “What” they are doing, followed by “How” and “Why” they do it.

That makes sense right? Wrong!

According to Sinek’s Golden Circle, people are more drawn in by hearing the “Why” first, then the “How” and “What.” If you can get someone to understand “Why” then it is more likely they will want to know more about what you are doing.

Being a Public Relations student – emphasis on the student – I immediately thought about how this concept could be used to help market myself better during job interviews.

The beauty of the Golden Circle is that it can be applied to almost any aspect of your life. Want to get people to join your club? Want more Twitter followers? Want to shine in an interview? All you have to do is tell them why convincingly enough and you’re already one step ahead of the competition.

I implore you to take time to understand why you want to be in this industry.

Figuring that out is priceless.

I was watching some HGTV, with my pup, this morning when I saw something that really saddened me. 

Magic Johnson tossing around cell phones in a Quicken Loans commercial.

First of all, I couldn’t even tell you what Quicken Loans is because I was too focused on the apparent depreciation value of Magic’s career.  

A normal person would have made it through the commercial and went about their day.

Not this girl.

Since I clearly missed the commercial’s message, I went on online to find out more. Here is a little snippet taken from their web site: “Quicken Loans is the #1 online lender and the 5th largest retail home loan lender in America – according to National Mortgage News. “

I started thinking about brand management. Where is the link between Quicken Loans and Magic Johnson? Is he so broke that he needed to used the service and found it to be very reliable?

I’m not buying what you’re selling and that is a problem.

It seems as though the company was desperate to find any attention-grabbing gimmick to bring in new clients.

News flash: Celebrities are not a one-stop shop for all of your publicity woes, especially if your brands have nothing in common.

Yes, I know he hasn’t been on top since the 90’s but as someone who was a member of the Dream Team and is enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame, he should not be doing commercials for an online mortgage lender. If he really needs to pay the bills, I would much rather see him stay true to his brand and continued his HIV activism and NBA commentating.

Bottom-line, if I were Magic’s publicist/agent/best-friend/mother I would have told him to walk away. No matter how much you need the money or are craving a second glimpse of spotlight, never tarnish your brand.

Your brand is all you have and face it, without that you’re just another Joe – or in this case – Johnson on the street.

Haven’t seen the commerical? Check it out.

The PR girl in me went crazy reading the November Cosmopolitan today.

As a cover-to-cover reader – who thoroughly scans the cosmetic ads, raunchy tips, and helpful hints – it took me a while to get to page 122 of the magazine. To the untrained eye all I stumbled across was an article featuring statistics on women who fake orgasms. But as someone who has spent three years studying Public Relations, I found much more.

Cosmopolitan has teamed up with 20 of the magazine’s international editions to declare November 4^th, 2011 International Don’t Fake It Day.

According to the article, the idea stemmed from a cosmopolitan.com poll in which 86 percent of women reported faking an orgasm. It is no surprise that this fearless magazine would be home to a poll about faking it, but taking the results and using them to create publicity is brilliant.

The article urges readers to participate in three ways.

First, participate by signing a pledge and seeking tips and tricks on cosmopolitan.com. Then, on November 4^th announce your success on Twitter using the hashtag #CosmoDontFakeItDay. Lastly, tell your friends on Facebook by posting the official Cosmo’s International Don’t Fake It Day badge to your profile.

Talk about PR Power.

My only gripe with Cosmo is that further information is extremely inaccessible. I found nothing about the event on the homepage of their site or their Facebook page. I had to employ some serious searching skills to find the badge and have yet to find the pledge.

This has the potential to be great, but imagine the publicity it would generate if they increased outreach efforts. But then again, that is the PR girl in me talking.