Potential blog topics – the list that PR students won’t need after a month

For PR lecturers, asking students to blog is an effective way of assessing their engagement with social media, public relations theory, public relations practice, current media issues, etc., etc.  However, for students new to PR, the prospect of writing the dozen or so posts needed for a blogging assignment can seem a bit daunting: “What should I write about? I don’t know enough about PR!”      

 You do.   Here are some ideas.

1.  (If you’re on Twitter) Would any of today’s tweets be useful to media or PR students?  Why? (tip: follow @digicasity and @mediaguardian for useful ideas).
2. Find an article on a media-related theme in (for instance) The Guardian or on the BBC website.   What are your views?
3. Think about the last five films/gigs you saw.   How did you find out about them? (Poster? Newspaper/magazine advertisement?  Word of mouth?  Email newsletter?   Facebook fan page?  Via other social networks?   Trailer or clip emailed to you by a friend?)  Many media commentators have heralded the death of conventional advertising, but what’s your experience?
4. The five (or more) bloggers every PR student should follow … and why.
5. The five (or more) things I’ve done to secure a job in PR … and the five things I must do.
6. Review of any of your PR textbooks (without peeking at other reviews!) – if it was published in 2009, so much the better.
7. Interview with anyone who works in PR (no matter how junior or senior).  How did they get into PR?  What advice would they give to others?  What does their job involve?
8. Why I will/will not use Twitter/Posterous/FriendFeed/Typepad/(insert platform of your choice)  … and why.
9. Interview with a PR lecturer.  Well, why not? (first come first served on this one though!).
10.  How (unpopular sport star of your choice) is represented in the media.  What could they do to redeem their reputation?

 The beauty of this list is that #2, #6, #7 and #10 can be repeated frequently … you may even be able to turn #5 into two posts if you do enough jobhunting to merit an update.  Likewise, #8 can be repeated several times by discussing different platforms.  Suddenly you have a dozen or more posts for your blogging assignment.  But the beauty of blogging is that the more you do, the easier it gets – both in terms of the actual writing and thinking of things to write about.   So after a couple of weeks you probably won’t need this list any more.  I hope so.

 (I’m sure that others can add ideas for blog posts … contributions welcome!)

Comments

[Aaron Huckett]

Hi Liz

Thanks for the mention of @digicasity in the post! Much appreciated.

As for #7, if any of your students want a blog-interview with the fantastic moi! feel free to give them my email.

[Avelina]

Hi Llz

Thank you for such a nice article. I think interviewing is the best way to gather information correctly.

Avelina
www.dailytrader.com

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Twitter messages are too short to develop a interesting idea so I prefer to use blogger or typepad to develop a serious idea. Think about it, twitter doesn't fit students needs.

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i think that the media need to mind their own business and not pry into the sex lives and private lives of famous people. I am sure if they became famous they would not want that plasters everywhere for the world to see their private lives.

[Devremülk]

i like to read your posts. thanks for this one.

[Laura Toader]

Hi Liz,
Thank you for this great article.

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Nice post regarding students. This blog is great for anyone who wants to understand this subject more. This is great stuff.