When was the last time you watched something on a video cassette? 5 years ago, 10 years ago or maybe 15 years ago?

I can’t even remember when... Things change so rapidly; we manage to embrace new gadgets as soon as they come alive and forget about using the old ones or even about their existence.  Take for example the past few decades when we got to know the VHS, then the CD, then the DVD, then the USB etc.

Wonder what else happened? Well, have a look at Rackspace’s fascinating infographic below – it shows some interesting facts about the evolution of our technology world and how far we’ve come.

Last summer I served an 8-week internship in Social Media Marketing at Delta Agentur – Advertising and Communications Agency in Germany. I was part of their Social Media Team and it was certainly a very enlightening and fun experience too.

I am not going to write about everything I actually did that summer, but about the most relevant ones I believe are of importance for my future career in PR. So, among other things I was writing various blog posts (listed here) and copy for different websites and publicity materials that the agency was responsible for. I was also engaging with Facebook followers and supported the agency’s Twitter stream with content.

All this included a lot of research, monitoring and listening in various online channels and I must admit these activities very much helped me gain a deep understanding of social media networking.

As some of you may know, I am currently writing my dissertation about social media’s impact on PR (any PR pros reading this, how about you help me with my survey?).

For the past few weeks I’ve been ‘diving’ into a number of books and other sources to learn more about the profession and see how it has evolved over the years. Accidentally I even found a recent video, which highlights the history of Public Relations. I may not agree very much with the facts shown in the beginning, telling us that PR began way back in 49 BC. Maybe so, but rather unconsciously and not as a planned strategic tool; it wasn’t until the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century and the emergence of the media when PR came along as an ‘official’ discipline.  

Everyone is (still) talking about social media. The networks however are so many and so different: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Digg, Pinterest... Do you get confused sometimes and don’t know where to begin? If so, have a look at the Flowtown’s infographic below – it gives you the basic knowledge and first steps for your social media activities.