Ok, I have been putting this off for way too long!

Since starting at Thornley Fallis, I’ve wanted to participate in the PR Girlz blog. I had never done any sort of blogging before, so I thought I would give myself maybe 2 months to settle in and then go to it.
But I kept putting it off because I was too nervous or too busy, but then my 6 month mark rolled around and the new year had come and gone and I decided (with a friendly nudge from my colleague Dave Fleet) to actually do this.

So I’m going to give Kerri a little help reviving the PR Girlz blog and attempt to become a regular contributor on here!

I guess I should start by introducing myself. My name is Janna Guberman, I am an Account Coordinator at Thornley Fallis, and have been working here, as I said, for about 6 months.
For the last 4 years I attended McGill University in Montreal and for 3 of those years I studied Psychology and Behavioral Science. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be a Psychologist. However, after re-evaluating some things in my last year at McGill, I decided to change directions. I took on a Marketing minor and decided that what I really wanted was to work in the Communications field. Fast forward a year and here I am at Thornley Fallis!

When I started at TFC, I was totally new to social media. But now, I’ve written my first blog entry, edited and produced quite a number of podcasts and vidcasts, subscribed to my fair share of blogs and even have my own Twitter account. I’m still discovering so many new things, but I think it’s pretty neat what I’ve learned in 6 short months.

I’m really looking forward to sharing my thoughts on the PR Girlz blog. But more importantly, as a new person in the workforce, the PR world and specifically in the blogsphere, I really want to know what other people would like to hear from me. I’m still finding my way here and I would welcome your insight, but I promise I will get the hang of this!

For now though, what would you like to hear from me as a newcomer to the world of PR?

If you’re not up to speed on the whole ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ dealio, here’s a brief synopsis:

Last week Burger King launched a Facebook application called the Whopper Sacrifice. Basically, if you downloaded the app, you would be asked to delete 10 Facebook friends and in return receive a free Whopper. (It was apparently only valid in the US though).

I first saw mention of this on Twitter. I thought this pretty creative, so I re-tweeted it (for non-Twitter users, this is the term used when you repeat what someone else wrote, and give them credit). When my colleague Dave Fleet saw it, he re-tweeted me and in return, I provided the link to a National Post story about it.

Fast forward to today. I again, noticed a Tweet about the Whopper Sacrifice, but this time saying that Facebook had pulled the application. According to this AdAge story, over 23, 400 people followed through with deleting 10 friends each. In addition, the application actually sent notifications to all of the dumped friends’ networks, telling everyone they had been deleted for a burger. Apparently that’s not really in the spirit of Facebook.

So again, I re-tweeted the information, with a link to the story. An hour later, I received notice that BK Lounge is following me on Twitter. Awesome.

As much as I actually hate Whoppers, I love that companies are effectively using social media to engage with the public – and in a timely manner. I’ve got to say, they do it well. This is another one of their campaigns I came across last summer, and I still think it’s hilarious.

On the other hand, BK Lounge also just tweeted “I am the King of Burgers and the King of Social Media” – now that’s a bit extreme.