How to get promoted

I came across this while reading Voice from the PR Maven, a blog written by Julie Rusciolli, president and founder of Toronto's Maverick Public Relations Inc. Great words of advice that still hold true more than 45 years after they were originally penned by Bill Marsteller of PR giant Burson-Marsteller.

The following is Marsteller's response to an employee who asked him how to get ahead in the company. Take note.

Date: April 25, 1963
TO: Everyone
From: Wm. A. Marsteller
SUBJECT: How to get promoted

Be loyal. Don’t just be loyal to me or to the company as a name, but to the people who make up the company.

Reserve your opinion of people, good, or bad, until you’ve observed them and lived with them long enough to be sure you’re right.

Quit worrying about your competition. The only real competitor you will ever have is yourself. Remember, I don’t pick our leaders; the followers do.

Look for the best in others and remember all of us have more weaknesses than we see in ourselves.

Be interested in the other person’s job. Make suggestions humbly. Ask advice. Build up your associates – to each other, to media reps and editors, to friends, neighbours, your family and visitors from our other offices.

Don’t waste your ability—write articles, make speeches. Stand out from the crowd or be lost in the crowd.

If you have problems, doubts or suggestions about the management of this business, go to the management with your comments, not the guy at the next desk. He can’t do anything about it.

Never quit creating. The world is run by creative people.

Other people like a compliment as much as you do.

Don’t get discouraged. Look back at your progress, account by account, job by job, person by person. Thousands of good novels were never written because the author got bored or discouraged after the first chapter.

Put a “Pride” file in your desk. This is a file of the jobs you have done that you’re really, really proud of. See how fast you can make it grow. Review it from time to time and to see if the oldest entries look ordinary to you. Great performers grow.

Never lose your sense of humour.

Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Hang on to your humility.

Remember, almost no one holds a confidence. It’s human nature to pass along stories. Be sure when you tell tales about someone else that you’re willing to have the subject get the story second-hand, credited to you.

You think you are able; I think you are able. When other people around you begin saying so, unsolicited, then you’re promotable.

PRNewswire webinar on social media

For the past several months, I've been wanting to explore social media in new ways. I was among the first to try Facebook in late 2006 (before most of my 30-something peers were on-board) and this week I've embraced Twitter, Digg and Delicious. Today, I participated in my first webinar on social media, presented by Claire Celsi (whom I'll be following on Twitter within the next few minutes.)

Among the reminders, Claire discussed the fact that like it or not social media is here and PR professionals like myself can either love it or lump it (my words, not hers.) You can either get on board or be left behind. A good social media presence can help to optimize a PR strategy by combining the new media channels with the traditional ones. It gives a PR practitioner a variety of relatively inexpensive tools that he or she can use to develop their public presence and one through which they can follow the opinions of their customers and tell their story in a transparent way.

In order to get good at this it's important to make socail media part of your day, bearing in mind that it mustn't take over your day. Slot in 45 minutes or so to bring yourself up to speed on the climate of the day's social media "opinion" and go from there.

Taking Claire's advice I plan to check out the following sites to learn more about effective blog writing and other issues pertaining to social media and public relations.

alltop.com
alexa.com
hubspot.com
theflack.blogspot.com
drewsmarketingminute.com
blog.holtz.com
chrisbrogan.com
microperstation.com

Best tip learned. To cut down a long and ugly URL (my gosh, I've seen some whoppers) go to linyurl.com and get a tiny URL, a condensed version of the URL and can be used online and in print. Long and ugly URLs be gone. Thank you Tiny URL!

Twitter jitters

Yesterday, I took the plunge and joined Twitter. After hearing so much about it and seeing Facebook status updates about twittering, I signed up to become part of a subculture in which life is lived one soundbite to the next.

In 140 typed characters or less, users tell other users what they're doing, thinking, philosophizing about at any given moment. It seems to be one of those things that could easy overtake you as you try to keep up with everything and everyone, while trying to maintain your position as an active, or overactive member. For now, I'm just another drop in the overflowing bucket of Twitter.

I did come across this link from designmeme, a user I "follow" and a person I know in the real-life world of actual real life. It's about social media, a concept I'm trying to embrace but not finding enough time to master. http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2008/12/its_fantastic_that_interest_in.html