Internship: Same same but different

----posted on behalf of Gwenda Tan --------

Hi all! I hope everyone is having fun with their internships. This post is a little late because we only just got access to the blog, but do bear with me and hopefully I will be able to share some of my humble insights.

Firstly, there is a common association with an internship as doing mundane odd jobs at a very low pay. Being introduced to Public Relations, we have been instilled with the idea of doing regular media monitoring, and that IS the case in the whole PR field. Every morning, we were told to skim through every newspaper and online sites available and to clip articles with regards to our client. But that shouldn’t be all that interns do!

Though the task of media monitoring is easy, the process of scanning and preparing media clips is time consuming and over time it can become a taxing, tedious routine. These clippings are collaterals for the client, as well as contribute to the company’s key performance index (KPI). As we know, the company’s KPI is a measure of how successful the agency has done its job for the client.

Perhaps one way to make media monitoring and (an intern’s task) more fulfilling is for directors to share the purpose of the clippings, such as what it will be used for, what exact search criteria is needed. Also, the directors should provide insights on how these clippings will contribute to the company’s KPI. For example, say the client was in an automobile industry and focuses on Lamborghini cars, it will not make sense to clip an article about a man who wears a Lamborghini cap. It is not what the client expects to see as coverage of their products or brand, nor is it an accurate measure of the agency’s KPI.

Also, more effective and efficient search engines should be used to flag out articles specific to cars and not just the term “Lamborghini”. This will help reduce the total of articles that we have to look through every morning and save time and effort. And in PR, one can only wonder how much can be done with time!

Gwenda

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