MaraEarp @maraearp8-blog - Tumblr Blog

and so it ends...

This has been a journey. A journey that I never thought I was going to start let alone finish and yet here I am. The past year has made a total and complete mess of my life and could not be more grateful for the mess. I started this journey because I was bored with my job. I wanted more. I NEEDED more than what I was doing. In the span of only a year I have achieved more than I ever thought that I could educationally, I switched my career, I moved my entire family halfway across the country for that new career, and here I am, standing at the finish line and seeing a really bright future.

I owe it all to Full Sail, the instructors who have taught me more than they could ever know, and the students who were at my side on this journey the whole time.

This last month has been especially eye-opening for me. Not only have I had to go back and review everything I have learned so that I could compile my thesis but I have had to rethink past decisions and choices that were made at the beginning of this program. I think that is one of the most beneficial aspects of this course. Looking back and realizing how much you have grown and had the knowledge and the guts to go back and make changes knowing that the world changes and so do you.

When I first wrote up my goals and tactics for what I thought this course was going to be, all the way back in the first month of the program, I had NO idea what I was talking about. I am delivering my thesis successfully, however, the tactic that I listed was to watch Define your Brand Personality on Lynda.com. I should have watched that a long time ago. It certainly would have been beneficial much earlier on.

Overall I think that this course has really prepared me to walk out in the Public Relations world with confidence in myself and in my skills. This program has helped me to define where I want to be in life whereas before this program I was letting life lead me.

Thank you again Full Sail. You have made me a world changer.

#graduation #thesis #journey #master degree #andsoitends

The Online Media Room

I have to admit that I really did not think much of this course when I read about it in the program overview. I remember thinking to myself “it’s the second to last class, so it won’t be much.” I also remember having a very clear idea of what this course was going to be when I went into it. I assumed I would learn to recognize the media rooms of a company’s page, how to give my client a better online presence, and how to tie a client’s social media to their website. I didn’t sound all that exciting.

I am VERY pleased to talk about just how wrong I was. I think out of all of the courses I have has in the Public Relations program with Full Sail this has been my favorite thus far. I have expended my knowledge base in such a strong way this month and every bit of it has been practical. I think it was all the hands-on experience you get with your own website that kept me so interested. For me, everything seems so hypothetical, or has in past courses, but with this one everything was here and now. I have created a media page on my own Mara Earp PR website that I can put onto a resume and be proud to show it off to a future client or employer. Of course, everything that is on that site is a culmination of every other course I have taken but I really feel like this is the month that it all came together for me.

I am fairly certain this is also the month that I was the most frustrated with things. I was, and still am, learning how to make a website do what I want it to. I had to search through at least ten different programs before I was able to find one that would allow me to create an aggregated content story that would meet all of the requirements for the assignment. While that drive me a bit crazy, I can honestly say I have never been so proud of something in my life. I also now know a major area when I need to focus some self-learning in my career field.

Overall, I give this course a BIG A+ and I cannot wait to see what I have learned here brings me in the real world.

Reputation Management Strategies

I must start off by saying that I had an idea of what this course was going to teach me in my head and it turned out to be very wrong. This is not necessarily a bad thing because I did learn a lot more than I thought I was going to, but for me, it was a bit disappointing. When I read the title of the class I pictured one of the people on CNN or MSNBC who comes on air and defends whomever they are paid to represent. I thought I was going to learn to be one of the Kellyanne Conway’s of the world (this is a horrible example because I despise her, she is a good representation of what I see as a reputation management specialist). This course was, for me anyway, basically online reputation management and crisis event planning, which is not something I am all that interested in pursuing professionally. I do, however, have a very firm understanding of why this knowledge is important for any PR professional and I am positive I will be using every bit of my new-found knowledge in the subject in my career.

Originally, when reading the class description, the three goals I planned were: 1) learn to translate collected data into decision making, 2) Learn strategies for defending and repairing my client’s reputation, and 3) discover how to protect my own professional reputation. I think back to making those goals and I know what I learned is RMS was not what I had planned but at the same time I did achieve the original goals in a sense.

I assumed with goal one that I would learn to look at figures from polls or a company’s website and translate those numbers into decisions about how to act. What I actually learned was that nothing is that black and white. I can look at information from online monitoring and measure engagement and how to proceed according to the type of response my client is receiving.

Goal two, learning strategies to defend my client and repairing reputation, was the biggest deviation from goal to course learning for me. I imagined this was where I was going to learn to be a mouthpiece for my client. What I have actually taken out of this, is that with a proactive crisis communication plan you, hopefully, won’t need a large mouthpiece. I also learned that it takes a team, not just a spokesperson, to effectively manage your client’s reputation.

Goal three, discovering how to protect my own professional reputation, wasn’t something that I “learned” exactly. Rather than learning to protect myself I learned how to create a crisis communication plan. That may seem like an unachieved goal, but it is not. In learning to create this plan I learned to be the best that I can be as a PR professional. What is the best way to protect my professional reputation? To be damn good at what I do and not have a need to protect myself. It is also a fairly simple task to make myself a client if needed and this course has given me all the material I could ever need to protect my client’s (even when that client is me) reputation.

#reputation #mouthpiece #imlearning #watchmegrow

Putting it Together! aka Events Marketing and Production

Another month has flown by so fast my head is spinning. Only three more classes and graduation day is coming!

I knew from the moment that I read the Public Relations description before I even made the call to enrollment that I was going to love this class and I was NOT disappointed. I have always been a lover of events. In another life, I am sure I was a wedding planner and I can guarantee that I was loving that life. I had been looking forward to Events Marketing and Production since January for several reasons. First of all, as you can already tell, I love events. I also assumed I was going to breeze through this class without a hitch because I was positive I knew everything there was to know about events. This is where I was wrong. While I may be an event lover and event planner in another life; there is a reason I am not one in this life yet. I had no idea the amount of effort that goes into an event before the real planning even begins. I also had no idea at the sheer number of events that there are. Weddings are a given, of course, but there is much MUCH more to event production that a wedding.

For starters, I had never attended a webinar before. I had heard of them, usually advertised on Facebook or Instagram, but I never clicked on them. Well, I sure have now! I have attended almost 10 in about a week just to try and understand the dynamics of them and to see how vastly different they can be. I was also given the opportunity to host my own webinar. I don’t think I have had that much fun in a long time.

When I started the program I initially thought that I was going to learn how to create buzz about a digital event in this course. I was going to learn how to publicize an event. And I do! But I know so much more than that now. Now I am fully capable of not only publicizing and creating buzz but I can run the show. I can now officially call myself a Jill of all trades after planning a real physical event for my client (which I did not HAVE to show them but I did and they LOVE it) but also after creating and hosting my own webinar that I have gotten some amazing feedback from.

The best part about this course? I recently got my first job in the PR field and I was able to use the skills that I have learned in this course and directly relate them to planning an event at work which went off so successfully that I was asked to chair our next company-wide event at Christmas. I can easily say that this is the exact type of course you want if you are looking to correlate class time to real-world application.

It’s been a whirlwind and I am loving every moment of it. Come on Reputation Management Strategies!

#realworldexperience #PR #Public Relations #ImLearning #Lovingit

Media Relations

When I first wrote my mastery timeline I had a much different idea about what this class was going to be. I thought that is was going to be a bit more interactive but I was totally new to the program as a whole and online learning was brand new to me. Going back now a looking over the expectations I had when I first looked over the class description I think I attained some of what I was expecting.

I think the most important thing that I wanted to take from this class was the knowledge and ability to be able to engage my local media in whatever project I was going to be doing. This media relations course has more than prepare me on how to get exactly that done. I now have a media list available to me that I can resource any time that contains any key information that I am going to need when contacting someone from the media in the Newton, NC area.

This course has also prepared me to feel confident, another expectation from reading the course description, when reaching out to members of the media. I have the ability to create a press kit that is going to give me an advantage when reaching out to the media. While I have a current press kit available for my client at the moment I also have the knowledge to create an amazing press kit for any other client that I am going to have in the future. The skills I have learned in this course are invaluable and have made me more marketable to clients as well as to potential employers for a larger corporation.

I think with the digital revolution I have been uniquely luck to have taken this course when I did and in the format that I did. The online learning environment is exactly what is needed to create a digitally diverse PR professional and I feel as though I am becoming exactly that.

#gradschool #adulting #media #publicrelations

I think I can, I think I can...I did!

What I think I noticed the most about this course is that for the first time since I started the program, I have actually met 95% of goals that I had for it according to my original mastery timeline. My goals were to learn to identify what type of market is needed or a specific project, to become efficient in using the tools required to compile demographic information, and to learn how to match the proper tools to ensure an organizational objective. While the tactics that I planned to use are not the tactics that I ended up using I would call this a win!

Though I created my goals based on a course description I think this course was the one that left me scratching my head a bit when looking only at the course description. Going into this I had no clue what market and consumer research was, the analysis part seemed self-explanatory, or why it would even be a subject that needed to be touched on for a Public Relations degree. I assumed that there was always a separate team for this kind of thing like a marketing team. Surely this couldn’t REALLY have anything to do with me and where I wanted to end up professionally. Obviously, I was wrong and I am very happy to have been wrong.

I have learned to be more self-reliant because of this course. Since I assumed that there was always an outside team or staff for the research part of a company I assumed I would always deal with other people’s work in those respects. Now not only do I have a more varied skill set but I know that I can do my PR work based on my own research. I am also going to be able to look at another person’s work if in fact there is research handed to me, and do my own analysis. I will be able to interpret and make my own decisions about what I am looking at. I will have the confidence to hand work back to others when I don’t think the research is correct or done in the way that it is needed.

To top the entire experience of this course off the instructor was quite possibly the most encouraging person I have had teaching me. This month was extremely difficult for me in a personal aspect because of a lot of factors including a huge move half way across the country with my entire family for a new job. Not once did she allow me to get discouraged or work myself to death which meant giving less than my best work. THANK YOU, Ms. Palmisano! You are the best.

#research #indurance #marketing #good class #master degree

Building Blocks and Challenges or Social Media Metrics and ROI

To say this class was challenging would be the biggest understatement I have made to this point in my life. I thought this was going to a class that I was going to fly through and understand at a glance. Boy, was I wrong. I feel that the reason that I found this class so challenging is because generally, I find it easier to tap into my creative side to get through things and this while allowing for creativity, it a bit more information driven. You can be creative with numbers and how you choose to use them and what type of influence you are giving them in relation to you and the company you are seeing those numbers for but it is much more black and white than I was expecting.

In my original goals for this class, I wanted to gain an understanding of how metric worked and to make myself employable as a social media manager for a company. I think I have achieved that understanding and more. Though I believe originally, I was hoping to leave this class with a bit more of an in-depth knowledge of ROI and Metrics I know that I have the building blocks to become marketable in the field. I also believe that the building blocks I have learned are going to be expanded on for the rest of the program and extremely necessary.

I think that my favorite part of the class has been realizing how personalized the analytic side of metrics can be. Nothing is written in stone and you can decide what and how you need to measure your goals and track them. It is so surprising, given the prevalence and dominance of social media right now, how many brands are not utilizing and solid social media strategy and measurements. Since I am not looking to go into business for myself but rather to work for an already established brand, this class has provided me with an amazing tool set to add to my public relations play book that I can bring to my future employers.

#roi #pr #social media metrics #numbers #SSm

Innovative Public Relations

I am almost at the half way point and it just seems to get move challenging. I enjoy challenging! IPR has opened my eyes to an array of new things. While I had planned, from my first class on Mastery, to be stretching my knowledge of social media and mass media marketing I am walking away with much more.

I was under the impression going into this class that I knew how social media worked. I’ve had a Facebook page since months after its creation so naturally, I assumed I am an expert in how to use it. WRONG. So very wrong. Not only have I learned that there is a whole new world to something as standard, social media-wise, as Facebook I have started to scratch the surface on how to make it a tool. Facebook, Instagram, Snap Chat, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube have all changed from simple ways to have my voice heard to tools that I cannot work without having in my social media playbook.

I have also learned that no matter how many classes or tutorials or networking sessions you have the most important thing in becoming a public relations specialist is that you will forever be a student. There is nothing more consistent in the PR world than change. There will never be a time where you can sit back and go with the norm. The moment something becomes the “norm” there is always a new mind there to create the newest channel to your audience. If you want to be successful in this industry you need to know the basics and realize that while the world and how we consume information is constantly changing there is always a use for the old standards. It is also key to be able to adapt to and be constantly on the look for the “next big thing”. If you are being innovative with your approaches to your content and your audience then you are going to have staying power.

#inovations #pr #public relations #stayastudent

Legal Aspect of Media

I must admit that since starting this program things only seem to be getting better and better. Thus far, Legal Aspects of Media has been my favorite course. I was looking forward to delving into this subject and it hasn’t disappointed me at all. I think my favorite assignment was in week one with the intrusion case. It was an amazing jumping off point to the course and really got me attuned to the subject and where we would be going with the class. It got me thinking in new and interesting ways. I think the most significant thing that assignment did for me was to open my eyes to how often I criticize the press and jump to defend anyone aside from them. Given the career path I am pursuing, that might be a mindset I really need to think about and focus on rethinking, or at least work on not jumping to conclusions right away.

Of the topic covered this month, I think the one that will be the most helpful is going to week all of week three…copyright. I had no idea how easy it is to infringe on a copyright without ever thinking about it. I can’t imagine how many times I have done that on my own personal social media outlets. I very much plan to look into the subject more and try to become as much of an expert as I can on the topic before I take a step into the real world of Public Relations.

I think that this course overall gave me a good jumping off point to be able to handle potential legal issues in the communications industry. It opened my eyes to issues I never would have considered when going into a job in the field. Had I not been aware of these legal issues I can only imagine I was walking into a lawsuit. Obviously, this course is not a course in full blown law but it has certainly sparked a real interest in me. I will be doing a lot more learning on my own about the topics that were covered and perhaps even seek out some additional courses that I can take just to advance my knowledge base more.

Writing for Interactive Media (WIM) or How I learned witting is hard!

Writing for Interactive Media was quite possibly the hardest and most educational class I have had to date, undergrad included. I have learned a lot about myself while struggling through this class. I don’t mean to make it sound as though I am struggling in an academic way, quite the opposite in fact with an instructor who clearly puts in more time than most would to help me along and encourage me. The struggle is with me and writing. I have never been amazing with the functional side of the English language. Spelling, grammar, and formal style have never quite seeped into my mind the way I wish it had. I prefer reading things that seem more conversational which I suppose makes me write more conversationally. What I have learned in my WIM class is that grammar and spelling are key and there is no way I am getting around that so I REALLY need to pay closer attention to that or seek out help before publishing anything. Of course, that is not the only thing that I have taken away from this class. I have learned that writing is, in fact, hard and that is okay. I am allowed to take my time, to take breaks, to be frustrated and rewrite something over and over before finding even a few sentences I like strung together.

In my first month, I was tasked with setting expectations for each class that I was going to take in the program. I met a few of those expectations such as learning new forms of storytelling and reaching out to fellow classmates for inspiration and new ideas; however, I assumed that I would seek help from the writing center, something I SHOULD have done, and I very much did not.

Overall I would say that my experience in WIM has elevated my approach to writing and my planning processes. I am sure that my instructor sighs and groans her way through my errors but her feedback is 100% invaluable!!

The End of Month Two and the Beginning of a Public Relations Master

I believe that my favorite assignment in my Public Relations in a Digital World course was creating my own PSA. This was by far the most fun I have had in a while. Naturally, my theater and film education came right to the surface while I was writing the script and filming but I think I had more fun being on the other side of it. I was able to see how and why a PSA is such an amazing tool to be used by a non-profit. How even 30 seconds can hold so much hope in terms of influence and persuasion.

Of the course topics covered this month, I think that the most helpful is going to be the last lessons we learned; creating online relationships and developing an influencer strategy. Going forward in the public relations world I don’t think there can be anything more important than building online relationships. Without them, you and your brand have nowhere to go. It can be immensely important in simple things like looking for an internship all the way to turning your million-dollar idea into cold, hard cash.

I think the knowledge that I have learned this month is going to help me in fostering a network base I can rely on to help my further my brand. It will also help me to foster, what I hope will be, lasting relationships in the industry which will allow me to achieve the success I am looking for. I now have the know-how of influence and persuasion; how to look for it in even the most every day of things such as a billboard or a flyer. I am now thinking about to tap into that influence and make it my own.

A PSA I created for my Public Relations in the Digital World course. I had a blast doing it! I think it is a really important subject and I hope that while totally unofficial it might be seen and help to inspire someone to DO SOMETHING. A big shout out to my husband for being my Angry Man in the background.

I really hope you like it!

Music -

"The Nymphaeum part V" Exzel Music Publishing (freemusicpublicdomain.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

#this has been a psa #school project #awarness #do something #ncadv

My Mastery Journey Timeline

A link to my Mastery Journey Timeline that is posted on SlideShare.com at http://www.slideshare.net/maraearp/mastery-timeline-72582938

(via 51 Inspirational Quotes To Live By)

Every day I wake up and go to a job I hate because I have a family that I have to help support. Three beautiful children who depend on me and my husband to love, protect, and provide for them. I look at friends from school, high school and college, and they seem to have it all together. To have the career they want or are at least comfortable in. That is when I think of this. I’m not lost. I am simply on my own journey.

51 Inspirational Quotes To Live By. (2016, October 31). Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://quotationsquotes.com/2016/10/31/51-inspirational-quotes-to-live-by/

For those moments when you feel like you need a little extra motivation. There are many times that I feel like I am getting in my own way. Listening to Mel Robbins reminds me how to get out of that state and to get myself motivated again.

#motivationmonday

Building bridges, that is what I am all about. What I want to do with my life.I want to be the bridge! The person between a client and the public.

Rather than looking up articles to keep myself informed of anything I could want to know about, there is Feedly.com. I can easily access Huffington Post or Variety or more specialized topics like public relations. I love having it all in one place. One easy way website to give me everything I am going to need.

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