Public relations professionals became the students at the Social Media Reverse Mentoring Event held Wednesday night.

This was the first reverse mentoring night held by BYU's chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America. PRSSA regularly hosts speed networking activities where students have the opportunity to learn more about the PR field from local professionals.

Wednesday night's event was structured to be like speed networking in reverse, said Rachel Call, president of PRSSA and a senior from Roscoe, Ill., studying public relations.

The event was set up with four rotations where PRSSA students taught professionals how to use social media tools such as Twitter, Blogger, wikis, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google.

Emily Smith, a senior from Scottsdale, Ariz., studying public relations, answered professionals' questions on how to use blogs and wikis in their practice.

"It was fun to work with professionals to collaborate ideas on how they can start a blog or get their company name or company image out in the community," Smith said.

The PR professionals with social media experience shared how they implement social media into their practice.

"I think it ended up going both ways," Call said. "Students learned that the stuff they use for personal reasons really can be beneficial when they graduate and have a job."

The students and professionals were so engaged in their conversations on social media that they continued to talk well after the event officially ended.

"I had trouble getting people to rotate," Call said. "I think it's a sign of a good event when people don't want to leave."

John Pilmer, president of PilmerPR, said that PR professionals need to come up to speed on social media.

"I think that, in general, younger people know more than older people about social networking and the new world of online media," Pilmer said. "This is the PR world of the future."

Copyright Brigham Young University 19 Feb 2009