A little sidenote-- This event was occuring during SXSW so I was a little concerned about parking (but then again, when in Austin are you not?) I had looked on the website at hotel parking prices and they were running at about ohh.. $18.00 per day. Panicking that I would spend close to about $60.00 dollars just on parking that weekend, I decided to call the Hyatt Regency. I was a little frustrated to be put on hold a few times, but that was really the least of my worries. I asked the concierge if there were any special parking permits that were available to students attending the PRSSA event this weekend.. and the answer was unfortunately a big fat "No."
I was pretty determined not to pay $60.00 so I turned to an alternate method of communication (drum roll please...) SOCIAL MEDIA! I logged on my Twitter account and found the account for the Austin Regency Downtown. I was already live tweeting with the National Assembly hashtag, #prssana, so I decided to tweet the Hyatt about their parking. I asked them, once again, about special parking prices for our event and was instantly retweeted by a few other students who also were concerned. A little less than 20 minutes later, I spotted the Hyatt's reply to my question and it was good news, FINALLY! They made parking only $5.00 for the weekend for us! YES.
I was pretty please that social media saved the day.
