2012 Spring TLI Toastmasters Training VPPR from Forfeng Designs
Handouts:
20 Blogging Ideas for Toastmasters http://cromwelltoastmasters.blogspot.com/2011/11/20-blogging-ideas-for-toastmasters.html
10 Social Media Insights for Toastmasters http://cromwelltoastmasters.blogspot.com/2011/10/10-social-media-insights-for.html
Handouts:
20 Blogging Ideas for Toastmasters http://cromwelltoastmasters.blogspot.com/2011/11/20-blogging-ideas-for-toastmasters.html
10 Social Media Insights for Toastmasters http://cromwelltoastmasters.blogspot.com/2011/10/10-social-media-insights-for.html
VICE PRESIDENT PUBLIC RELATIONS DUTIES
- You are the club’s link to the outside world, the person in charge of notifying the
public about the club’s existence.
You are webmaster, social media specialist, and
brand manager for the club. It’s
your job to notify the media whenever your club does something newsworthy.
- As vice president public relations, you’ll find yourself writing news releases,
creating and distributing fliers,
and maintaining the club’s presence at various key
places on the Web.
- Stay current on all new developments via the Leader Letter and the announcements published on the Toastmasters website.
- The vice president public relations is the fourth ranking club officer and is responsible for developing and directing a publicity program that informs individual members and the general public about Toastmasters International. The vice president public relations chairs the public relations committee.
Responsibilities
- Link to Outside World
- You publish club meeting times and location.
- Maintain club presence in the local newspaper’s events calendar.
- Publish the club newsletter featuring important news, upcoming events, and
- members’ award accomplishments.
- Create and update the club’s site on Facebook, Meetup, and other social media sites
Webmaster
- You maintain the club website
- Update the site as necessary to include upcoming events, membership contest
- results, speech contests, and so on.
- Use the website to recognize achievement, such as education awards, speech
- contest winners, and Distinguished Club Program goals met.
Brand Manager
- You protect the Toastmasters brand
- Make sure to use Toastmasters logos, emblems, and trademarks appropriately.
Use the Virtual Brand
Portal (www.toastmasters.org/vbp) as a reference.
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Useful Online Links and Applications
Free photo editors
– lets you edit all your photos online, from one easy place. If you don’t have
a desktop photo editor these are great.
Image editing
(advanced) these are downloadable programs that are opensource
CutePDF (create
PDFs from any type of document or file) – FREE
http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/Writer.asp Make sure you download both
the file and the converter. The converter will show up as a Gray G on your
desktop; make sure you install it first, or the program may not run properly.
Print Friendly-
turn any webpage into a PDF- FREE http://www.printfriendly.com/
PDF to Word Converter
(Free) http://www.pdftoword.com/
Teach Parents Tech:
http://www.teachparentstech.org/- FREE
The folks at Google put this together to help their parents, but I have
found the tutorials are great for any age!
WorkFlowy -
Organize your brain: https://workflowy.com/ – FREE
A way to organize your to do list online
Nutshell Mail:
http://nutshellmail.com/- FREE
NutshellMail from Constant Contact tracks your brand’s
social media activity and delivers a summary to your email inbox on your
schedule. A terrific tool for keeping track of your social media.
EverNote:
http://www.evernote.com/ -the free version does quite a bit.
“Remember everything, capture anything, access anywhere,
find things fast.” Very useful if you come across interesting things on the
internet and want to keep searchable track of it, as well as other uses as
well.
Faststone Photo
Resizer: http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm – FREE
A great application for mass resizing photos, works quicken
then Photoshop, and you can also custom watermark them as well as add borders.
Foxit Reader:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader/- a quicker PDF reader- FREE
Ping.fm: update over 40 social networks with one click
including twitter, Facebook, your blog etc. http://ping.fm/
Hellotxt: update
over 50 social networks with one click including twitter, Facebook, your blog
etc. http://hellotxt.com/
Social Media Publishing Feeds:
Twitterfeed: http://twitterfeed.com/ feed your blog into twitter and Facebook
Networked Blogs: https://www.facebook.com/networkedblogs
Blog to Facebook
RSS Graffiti: https://www.facebook.com/RSS.Graffiti Blog to Facebook
Facebook to twitter: https://www.facebook.com/twitter/
Twitter to Facebook: https://apps.facebook.com/twitter/
Twitter
http://twitter.com/
Twitter Specific Links
Twitterfeed:
feed your blog into twitter and Facebook
http://twitterfeed.com/
Twitter search and advanced
twitter search: http://search.twitter.com/ and
http://search.twitter.com/advanced
Tweetdeck:
http://www.tweetdeck.com/
Hootsuite:
update multiple twitter accounts and pre-schedule tweets http://hootsuite.com/
SocialOomph:
pre-schedule tweets, set up keyword alerts by email, the pro version has more
options for scheduling posts to other networks as well http://www.socialoomph.com/
Friend or Follow: An easy way of finding out who is following you, and who you are
following who is not following you back http://friendorfollow.com
Twellow: a
good twitter person/business directory
http://www.twellow.com/
Buffer:
http://bufferapp.com/ a tweet scheduler, up to 10 scheduled tweets free at a
time, there is paid version as well.
Locafollow
http://www.locafollow.com/ find tweeters by location or bio
Google+ For Personal https://plus.google.com/
Google+ For Brands
(or groups and associations) https://plus.google.com/pages/create
Google+ Banner
Profile Picture Splitters:
Video
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/
Youtube video editor http://www.youtube.com/create_detail/YouTubeVideoEditor
Blogging Specific
Links (Free)
Blogger http://www.blogger.com/
WordPress
http://www.wordpress.com, (there is an installed version at
http://www.wordpress.org that can replace a website as well but requires
hosting)
Tumblr http://www.tumblr.com/
Posterous http://posterous.com/
How to text to
WordPress.com: In your dashboard go to “Settings” then “Text Messaging” and
it will send a code to your mobile phone.
How to email to
WordPress.com: In your dashboard go to “Your Blogs” and then you will see a
button to the right that says enable Email to post, Clicking this will create
an address to email to. The Subject Line of your email with become the post
title and the email content will become the post content.
How to email/text to
Blogger.com: In your dashboard, go to the “settings” tab and then to Mobile
and Email, this will give you the ability to add a mobile device as well as
create a unique email address to email posts to. The Subject Line of your email
with become the post title and the email content will become the post content.
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The Components of a Press Release
Title / Headline
The title of your press
release should be informative, intriguing and optimized for search engines. The
goal is to get the point of the story across in a manner that attracts readers
(and potential members and visitors) and adequately conveys keywords to search
engines. In pitching to a journalist,
you want to get their attention with the title.
For online press releases,
the headline is not only the title of the text, it's the title tag of the web
page. That means it will be crawled by search engines and used to index it in
search engine result pages. Take the time to write a factual press release
title that also incorporates significant keywords browsers can use to locate
it.
(Try to start with a attention getting
headline, but not over the top) Also include if applicable: If there is a Photo
opportunity: (What it is, where it is, when it is and contact details)
Sub-Title / Sub-Header
Subtitles aren't always
required, (but maybe for certain online press release sites) but take advantage
of the opportunity to incorporate more relevant keywords in an that area of
your press release.
Introduction / Lead
In the introductory
paragraph, quickly but effectively incorporate the who, what, when, where, why, how content you outlined in
the title. This paragraph is, in many ways, the most important but also must be
the most straightforward and to the point. Its purpose is to give readers the
essential information while encouraging them to continue reading.
Summarize the story, who, what, where,
when and why. All key information needs to be in this paragraph
Body / Content
Once you've explained the essentials
of the press release, you can use the body of the press release as a place to
elaborate on the who, what, when, where, why and how of the story. If possible,
integrate quotations from persons involved in the story, in the case of a club,
use members, guests and officers. These help add authenticity to the press
release and zip up the content.
Put in more details to flesh out the
story you have outlined in the first paragraph
Company Bio (in this case Toastmasters club bio)
Ideally, your press release
should not exceed ¾ of a page in single-spaced font. This leaves enough room
for a brief club bio to conclude the copy. If you're writing the press release
about your club, you may use this space to write a short paragraph about who
you are and what your club does. It doesn’t hurt to include any awards your
club or club members have received.
Ending
The traditional mark used to
indicate a press release is finished is a series of three pound signs, or, ###.
At the bottom and centered.
Contact Information
Include your contact
information at the end of your press release so that members of the media or
potential customers know how to get in touch with you (and your club).
Traditionally, you're encouraged to include your name, website, company or
association (in this case Toastmasters club) name, address, email address,
phone number, fax number, toll free number, and any other relevant contact
information.
