Tiffany's Mastery Journal

I'm a mom, educator, student, but most importantly I'm Tiffany. I'm constantly learning about new things about myself and I always look for ways to inspire others.

[tiffanyhudson]

The Finish Line

We have reached the end of the road. I am completing the end of my Public Relations Master of Arts degree at Full Sail University. This has been a tremendous journey of learning all about the public relations field as well as learning about my personal strengths. This coursework has been challenging yet rewarding. Going back to school while working full time and being a single parent has been a test of my organization, time management, and ability to balance work and life. This final class has been the culmination of all of the work learned in this program. We focused on revising and editing the thesis paper I wrote a few classes ago. I have been working with lifestyle clothing brand Public Nudity for my final project and it has been a challenge. The brand is new, so there have been challenges that the brand experienced that has impacted the public relations campaign. Working with this client has been a valuable lesson about working with a developing brand. While the brand has had some issues, I have enjoyed working with a growing brand and helping to establish their public relations policies. The goal moving forward is to continue to work with Public Nudity and continue to develop their public relations plan. As my time at Full Sail is coming to a close, I took a final look at my Mastery Journey goals. The goals I established for this course included building a website, seeking career guidance, and to build my networking skills. I have accomplished all of these goals. I have successfully built and are maintaining www.hudsonpublicrelations.com. With the information that I have learned throughout my coursework, I have made changes to my website that have drawn more visitors and I have begun to get communication from potential clients. I am averaging almost 300 site visitors a week. I have begun searching for a job. I have taken advantage of the Career Services at Full Sail and have submitted my resume for review. I have gotten some valuable feedback on how to improve my resume to attract potential employers. Finally, I have been working on my networking skills. I have been attending events where I can get out and meet people in the industry along with potential clients. I have also been reading books on networking. Currently I am reading Networking No Knows by David Shands. This book provides practical information when attending networking events. The last 12 months have a tremendous time of growth for me. When I began this program I never imagined getting to this point. I want to take what I have learned and apply it to my new employment opportunities. I have begun looking for positions in public relations while also working part time on developing my own business. I am going to continue to work on myself and my mastery journey.

[tiffanyhudson]

With the end of another wonderful course, I am one step closer to earning my degree in Public Relations. The latest course was Online Media Room. This course will very instrumental in teaching me about creating news rooms for journalists and other visitors to your site. With each client that I will work with, having this one stop place where people can come and learn about my client and their products and accomplishments will be imperative to stakeholders to connect to the brand. Online media rooms use a plethora of blog posts, press releases, multimedia, and other pieces of information that will help tell a client’s story. The newsroom is not just a static place, but forever evolving and changing as the brand evolves and grows. 

For my client, Public Nudity, I was able to put together an online media room that included pictures, video, press releases, infographics and a shorthand article on the brand. 

With my client’s brand launching on March 18th, this online media room is an important page to help get my client the exposure and press that she needs to grow her brand. Click here to check out the online media room for clothing brand Public Nudity 

In reviewing my mastery goals, I had the goals of securing an internship, finding a mentor in the public relations industry, and to work on building my personal brand. Last summer I was able to get a short-term internship with event planning company E-Chixx. It was a great way for me to get first-hand experience in public relations. I am currently looking for internships that I can secure once I graduate from Full Sail. Since this program is online, I want to gain as much experience as possible to add to my resume. I am also still searching for a mentor. I have been proactive in attending various networking event for public relations professions, so I have been able to connect with other professionals. I have laid the foundation for long term relationships and possible career opportunities in the future. Also, as I am learning about branding and how to grow my client’s brand, I have been using the same tools for my personal social media pages. 

As I am entering my final course in my program, I will continue to network, work on my final capstone project, and work on securing a position with a public relations firm while working to build my personal PR firm. I’m looking forward to this last month. 

[tiffanyhudson]

Reputation Management Strategies

Today marks the end of another class on my journey to my Public Relations Master of Art degree from Fullsail University. I just completed the course in Reputation Management. Of all the courses, this is probably one of my favorite courses. When you think of public relations, you tend to think of reputation management. This course focused on identifying crisis, and distinguishing crisis management  and crisis communication. This course provided me with several important takeaways that I will utilize in my future public relations profession. The most important thing I learned was creating a crisis communication plan for my capstone client. In taking this course I learned that it is important to have a crisis communication plan PRIOR to a crisis occurring. As I am beginning my career in PR, I will work  with my clients to develop a crisis communication plan and put a crisis communication team together. Another important thing I learned about the Air Force Web Posting Response Assessment. As brands encounter a crisis, there will be people that post all types of comments and it is impossible to respond to all of them. The Air Force develop a flowchart that explains how they respond to various posts and comments. Based on the type of comment determines if and how they post. I think that this assessment is beneficial to both personal and companies as they come across various comments on social media or websites. I want to use their model and create an assessment to utilize for my future public relations company and those of my clients.

As far as my Mastery Journey goals, I was able to meet 2 of the 3 goals. My first goal was become more knowledgeable about various crises going on in the world. I met this goal by continuing to read the news as well as reading professional publications like PR News and PR Week. This allowed me to stay on top of issues and work on identifying possible crisis that may occur based on what is going on. The other goal that I met was gaining knowledge of my own reputation. I was able to set up Google Alerts for my name and my brand. This will allow me to stay up to date on those that are searching for me or things that come up about me on the internet. As I continue in the PR profession, I want to continuously be aware of personal and professional reputation as they will help me gain more clients. I didn’t meet the goal of taking a tutorial course, but this is still something that I want to accomplish in the near future.

I am beginning to wrap up my course work at Fullsail and I am looking forward to the next chapter once I graduate. I want to take advantage of the opportunities and continue to build my reputation in the PR industry. I’m looking forward to the next course and continuing on my Mastery Journey.

[tiffanyhudson]

Event Management and Production

I am continuing with my Mastery Journey and I am at the conclusion of my Event Marketing and Productions course. Of all of the courses that I have experienced at Full Sail University, this course I have found to be my favorite course so far. I feel that this class provided me with information and skills that I can immediately translate into my new career path. During this course I created an event proposal for my Capstone client Latojia Dawkins. She is launching a new brand and the event I created was a popup shop and brand launch. Completing the proposal made me aware of all of the moving parts that goes into planning an event. Although we aren’t actually hosting the event, it was great to have the experience of planning an event. In continuing my Mastery Journey goals, I have been able to connect with event planners and I spent part of my summer interning with a local business, E-Chixx. They are an event planning business that focuses on business related and networking events. I truly enjoyed getting some first-hand experience by working events and managing the social media accounts for the business. While I have some time off from work and in between classes I plan on completing courses on Lynda.com. These courses will allow me to gain more knowledge and skills for my resume. With a few courses left, I am excited to extend my knowledge and continue to work with my Capstone client as she is working to build her brand. By working with her I am also building my brand as a future Public Relations professional. I’m looking forward to continuing my journey.

[tiffanyhudson]

Media Relations

I just completed another course at Fullsail. This course was all about media relations. As a future PR professional, making connections to media is an essential I ingredient to getting your clients the press they need for their events or product. Overall, I wish that this course was longer because I felt that we only scratched the surface of what it takes to connect to the media. The week 1 assignment was probably one of the most beneficial that I have had at Fullsail. We had to come up with a list of media contacts. While researching various media outlets, it really taught me the importance of knowing your client and their target audience. Knowing this information is key to finding the right media outlets. I also learned that an area of growth for me is writing pitches. Writing isn't my strongest area, so I know this will be an area where I will need ongoing practice. As far as my mastery timeline, I really focused on making connections with other PR and media professionals. I joined a Facebook group for publicists and I am beginning to make real connections. I next want to reach out to the media professionals I found to introduce myself. This will begin the relationship process for my Capstone client.

[tiffanyhudson]

Marketing and Consumer Analysis

I have completed another step in my Mastery Journey. I have reached the end of my Marketing and Consumer Analysis course and this course was very beneficial. This class was the first one that really focused on my final thesis project of working with the brand Public Nudity. As I have stated in other courses, my writing has always been an area of growth for me, so I truly appreciated that we completed our thesis paper in parts. My professor was very helpful and provided great feedback that made me reevaluate certain parts of my paper and made my thesis paper stronger. I enjoyed researching the target market for my client’s brand and I started to make this connection to how I will use this information in the future. 

In looking at my goals for this course, I am happy to report that I did enhance my research skills. In writing my thesis paper, I spent a lot of time on EBSCOHost and was able to utilize different tools to find sources for my paper. I also wanted to work on my public speaking skills. This is a goal that I want to roll over to my next course. While I speak often at work, I want to become more comfortable speaking to larger crowds and on camera. This journey has not been an easy one, but I am looking forward to what my next course has to offer.

[tiffanyhudson]

Social Media Metrics and ROI

With the end of the month comes the end of another course. I am one step closer towards earning my degree in Public Relations.  In the Public Relations industry, it is more than just getting the word about brands. Businesses want to know that the work of a Public Relations professional is related to their bottom line. Social Media Metric and ROI taught me that various social media indicators that I can utilize to provide value to the brands that I will work with. Most businesses focus solely on the money generated, but with my new understanding of social media metrics, I can show how social media can lead to their specific end goals. As with each class, I took time to look back at my goals when I began my mastery journey. I will admit that this course was challenging for me. In my personal life, my job has been back in full gear, so I found it difficult to give it my all. I didn’t complete all of my goals as originally intended. My first goal was to learn more about service metrics via a Lynda.com. Through this course, I was able to view many tutorials on Lynda that I feel will be very beneficial to my future. The videos appealed to my learning style so that I was able to keep up. My next goal was to gain more knowledge in technology by making connections outside of class. During my class, I connected with other Public Relations professionals and I was able to ask questions as it related to my coursework. It was a great opportunity to see how the information that I am learning relates to the real world. Finally, my final goal was to join a campus group. I didn’t meet this goal. I haven’t spent much time with the extracurricular opportunities at Full Sail. This is something that I want to improve upon as I prepare for my next class. As I am moving forward in my journey, I am taking each class as a stepping stone to learning more about myself. I didn’t do as well as I could this course, but I want to improve this attitude moving forward. I want to gain as much as possible from my time at Full Sail.

[tiffanyhudson]

Mastery Update

I have just completed my next class towards my degree in Public Relations. Innovative Public Relations Tools and Resources was all about using social media tools and other online resources that are needed in PR. I enjoyed this course because it gave me a deeper understanding of the tools I can use to build brands. I have been using different social media platforms for over a decade and I consider myself very knowledgeable in social media. I am always advising friends and other entrepreneurs that I meet the importance of social media. Social media is going to be around for a long time and it is critical to building your brand. This class helped me to gain a better understanding and I am looking forward to future courses. 

In regards to my timeline goals, I was more active in classroom discussions. Usually, when someone replies to my post I just read it and move on. This class, I tried to engage more by responding to those that replied to me. I want to gain as much as possible from my classmates and I want to make meaningful connections. In an effort to gain more information on social media marketing, I have been doing outside research and learn more about social media marketing. I have signed up for a webinar on how to grow social media. My last goal was to make more contacts on social media. I have grown my PR Instagram page to 122 followers (I have less than 90 followers before this class), and I have grown my LinkedIn page to 37 connections (I had around 25 at the beginning of the class). Having to post consistently through this class I am starting to make a social media presence for my brand. 

[tiffanyhudson]

Want to learn more about Hudson Public Relations? Check out our first video explaining who we are and the inspiration behind the brand.

[tiffanyhudson]

Legal Aspects of Media Reflection

As I conclude Legal Aspects in the Media, I have learned a lot of beneficial information. I came into this course apprehensive about this course as I don’t have a legal background. I didn’t think that I would successful in understanding the information. As each week went by, I gained a better understanding of law topics as it relates to working in Public Relations. Having an understanding of media-related legal issues is essential to be successful. I would never want to put my clients or my company in jeopardy due to my lack of knowledge.

My favorite assignment for this course was the copyright registration process. I know that copyright protection is very important, so I appreciated learning about the process of registering a piece of my work for copyright protection. This will be beneficial for future clients as well as myself when I create original material.

The topics that will be the most helpful to me were copyright and deceptive advertising. Working in PR and creating unique campaigns and posts on social media, it can become easy to violate copyright laws without knowing. It’s important to understand copyright laws and where you can find music and other media with a creative commons license. Another topic that stood out to me was during week 4 and discussing deceptive advertising. In reviewing the Federal Trade Commissions and what is considered deceptive advertising. I was surprised to learn the consequences if you are found guilty of deceptive advertising. As a publicist, I have a responsibility to make sure that any information that my clients want me to include in their campaign is accurate because if I create ads and campaigns that are inaccurate I could face penalties as well.

Taking all of the information that I learned is this course is very important as I move forward in Public Relations. Lack of knowledge in the law is not an excuse. This course was a great launchpad in building my legal knowledge when it comes to Public Relations. I plan on staying up to date on legal topics related to communications and helping others understand the laws as well.

[tiffanyhudson]

Writing for Interactive Media

As I am wrapping up on my next course in my journey to attain my Public Relations degree, I will say that this course presented me with many challenges. Writing for Interactive Media made me nervous because I am not very confident in my writing skills. Writing has always been an area of growth for me, so I wasn’t sure how I would succeed in the class. As I progressed in the class, I noticed my growth when it comes to writing. Part of being successful in public relations is having strong written communication skills. My goals for this course included developing stronger writing skills, view online tutorials related to writing, and to develop my own voice. In order to build my writing skills, I utilized Fullsail writing resources like Purdue OWL website and other resources. As I was working on my stories, I would go to these websites to gain better clarity on my writing. When I got to my final paper, I felt more confident in my writing. I also viewed the online tutorial on Lyndia.com on how to write press releases. I know that press releases are a major tool in the public relations field and I want to be as prepared as possible so that once I enter the field I am equipped to write press releases for my business and my clients. My final goal for this course was to develop my voice. I previously had a personal blog that I would occasionally write posts. In building my writing skills, I want to continue what I learned, and I have decided to restart my blog and write on a weekly basis. This will allow me to continue to build my writing skills as well as develop my voice. This class I had some personal challenges and I felt at times that I wasn’t as connected as I was in the previous course. This course took more for me to really focus and put in the time in effort. Moving forward, I want to make sure that I am sticking with my study schedule and make sure that I am taking time for myself so that I am not feeling overwhelmed. I am looking forward to continuing my journey to becoming a public relations professional.

[tiffanyhudson]

Public Relations in A Digital World

Public Relations in A Digital World has been a class that has gotten me closer to reaching my mastery goal. I came into this course looking to expand my knowledge of how to incorporate my existing digital knowledge into the area of public relations. I’m please to say that I have learned a lot about merging public relations and digital platforms. We live a more technological world and as this continues to grow, we have to learn how utilize the technology that we have to make our marks and build our brands and the brands of our clients or companies. In public relations, having a positive brand is essential to earn the trust of our clients and customers. We only get one opportunity to make a first impression and we must be mindful that  what we put out is often people’s first interaction of us, so having social media, websites, blogs, and other platforms that are aligned with our core message is important. My favorite assignment for the course has been creating the public service announcement. This assignment stretched my abilities in the areas of creative media. Before this course I had no prior knowledge of how to create a PSA and so I had to work diligently to make sure that I was creating the right message for the organization that I chose.  I decided to create a PSA for Autism Speaks because as a parent of a child with Autism, I wanted to point out that children with Autism may have challenges, but they are also talented and strong in so many ways. I can definitely see how creating a meaningful PSA like the one I created for Autism Speaks can encourage the public to gain a better understanding of Autism and follow the call to action. As far as the topics covered over the course, I found the information on branding and creating a social media plan were the most helpful as a future public relations professional. Coming into this program, I wanted to gain a better understanding of branding and how I can help as a public relations professional. Social media is a large digital medium that will help build successful brands. Social media can be a daunting task, but with a proper plan can be what separates an unsuccessful brand from a successful one. Creating my own social media plan will be added to my toolbox of skills for when I enter the public relations field. Overall, all of the information that I learn I feel a I can apply when I enter the public relations profession. Creating social media strategies, helping clients discover which social media will attract their audience, creating press releases, PSA, and developing proper branding strategies are all things that I have learned in this course that will help my future branding company a success. I know that each brand or company has a unique story and this course has helped to develop skills that I can take and help companies tell their story. Before beginning this course, I had three goals that I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to hone my time management skills, continue to expand my knowledge  of public relations, and to connect with others in my class. I’m happy to say that with this course, I created a study/assignment schedule where I set time aside each day to devote to reading assignments and course work. I want to continue this as I progress towards my mastery journey. I have also spent time researching and reading articles in the area of public relations as a way to connect the assignments and the things  I am learning in class to the real world. As I continue on this journey I would like to continue to expand my knowledge and begin to seek a mentor in my area that has real world experience that would be willing to work with me as I grow in the profession. Finally, as far as connecting with my classmates, I did this through our discussion interactions, but I would like to form more intimate bonds with my classmates in my classes. I want to be a resource to them, and them to become one to me. This is a goal that I would like to continue to carry into the remainder of my classes.

[tiffanyhudson]

As I am completing my first class in my graduate program, I am feeling overwhelmed but hopeful. I know that as I continue with my program I will have days where I am feeling unsure about myself and my abilities and I will feel like giving up. When I feel like this, I will remember one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies.  Source:A. (2016, May 18). Dory - Just Keep Swimming. Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/178244097731789375/

[tiffanyhudson]

My Mastery Timeline

[tiffanyhudson]

My Feedly Account. I want to focus on developing as an entrepreneur  working in public relations as well as look to other sources for inspiration as I continue my journey.

[tiffanyhudson]

papaly.com/tchudson

[tiffanyhudson]

The Top Skills Every Entrepreneur Needs

What does it take to be successful starting your own small business? Here are the 8 skills every successful entrepreneur has in common: Resiliency. The ability to weather the ups and downs of any business since it never goes exactly the way the business plan described it. This skill enables the [...]

In embarking on my personal Mastery journal, I love to read articles related to entrepreneurship. This articles discusses skills needed to become a successful entrepreneur. 

Source:Forbes.com

A. (2013, November 26). The Top Skills Every Entrepreneur Needs. Retrieved            April 19, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/aileron/2013/11/26/the-            top- skills-every-entrepreneur-needs/#7f77ad0776e3