Letting the Creative juices flow!

Hi Everyone!

It's Chloe again, just popping in to let you guys know how my internship with Shelan Creatives is going. I'm almost at the end of my internship, I can't believe how fast this semester has flown by!

This is my last semester and then I will be a Curtin graduate, which is not only exciting but terrifying at the same time. There has been some serious thinking going on about where I want my degree to take me and at this point I'm still uncertain but I definitely know that I would love to continue working within a creative field/company. Shelan Creatives is the kind of place where you can let your imagination come to life and working in that kind of atmosphere has seeped into my own work for not only the company but my everyday life as well.

After the recent success of the Telestra Perth Fashion Festival, Shelan Creatives have been busy creating and adding new prints/products to its online store as well forging new connections with other retailers. As mentioned in my previous blog post we are now being stocked in Hello Parry which was incredibly exciting for us and with the help of social media we have started to make relationships with other local businesses looking to stock Shelan Creatives as well! We have now developed new relationships with several local boutiques in the Perth region and over the upcoming weeks/months Shelan Creatives will have products available for purchase not just on our website but in store as well. This wonderful new chapter is the next step for Shelan Creatives moving forward as we continue to work towards the goal of increasing our brand awareness.

Social media is Shelan Creatives main tool to keep in contact with their customers and when used well as been an effective way to build new relationships with both customers and businesses. Some of my tasks for Shelan Creatives involves their social media pages, ie Facebook and Instagram, monitoring the content that is being uploaded, the comments that are received and replying to inquiries. To ensure that we are utilizing our social media pages to the best of our ability, I have now begun analyzing our page views of the website before and after a new post to both Facebook and Instagram.

This is to gain an understanding of how successful our posts are in directing customers to the website, as well as being able to define what content is more successful in comparison to other posts, what time of day are more people seeing the posts and whether or not these posts are leading to new sales. Through gathering this information we are hoping to be able to use our social media more effectively in gaining not only more brand awareness but also more sales.

I'm really excited about the work I'm currently doing and I can't wait to share with you all about how it goes in my next post. But until then I better I keep writing my PR Internship report while this is all fresh in my head!

I hope everyone is enjoying their final weeks of the semester,

Chloe Walton.

We are ready to RAMBLE… in one week!!

Hi all,

i am so excited to announce Perth ramble will be commencing next Sunday!
This means that this will be my last blog.

I have had a wonderful time working for Perth Ramble 2014. There have been many challenges such as: rejections from people to do promotional stalls, rejections from students to even listen to what the event is about, push backs from corporate businesses and a few set backs. However, we have had our successful moments such as: getting people to organise partnership prizes and some great responses on social media gaining a lot of followers and a lot of new likes for our Facebook page.

unfortunately i won't be able to attend the Perth Ramble on Sunday as i will be in Melbourne but i have no doubt it will be an amazing day for everyone, lets hope the weather stays sunny for the event.

I really enjoyed PR internship i really learnt a lot about social media and dealing with the public in a lot of different ways. I enjoyed working with the other intern Rhian, we worked together nicely and feel i have gained a friend.

Future things that i would have liked to see is more people getting involved in charities any way that they can, it is so important to contribute what we can to help charities. Working for one has really opened my eyes and now i see things differently.

In conclusion i feel very privileged that i had the opportunity to be involved in Perth Ramble 2014, i hope to help where i can next year as well!

Thank you all for taking the time to read my  blogs, i wish you all the best with your future studies.

Gina Soumelidis
15612898

Ready Set…. RAMBLE!

I am very excited to be starting at my internship with a non for profit organisation called the 'Rotary club' who every year do a fundraiser called 'Ramble'. Ramble is a charity that is run every year in October, with a mix of the amazing race and treasure hunt, teams are formed and the aim of the game is to answer questions while trying to find clues around Perth CBD. The fundraiser goes to telethon and other very meaningful charities.

Yesterday i Had the pleasure of meeting some of the people from the Ramble organisation. Myself and Rhian who is also doing the internship with me, got to sit and discuses how we were going make ramble more appealing to students at Curtin University and the general public. It was such a great feeling as i felt like i was part of the team, throwing ideas and answering questions, it made me have a fresh air of motivation to help this organisation really shine to its full potential.

The meeting duration went for 1 and a half hours, within that time Rhian and I gathered some great ideas and suggestions to start working on. We will be meeting tomorrow (30th August) to come up with a timeline and start planing how and what we are going to do to create awareness around Curtin students.

Next week we will be going to another meeting where we will be meeting other people that are also involved with Ramble. We will also be presenting what we have discussed and what moves we are going to do for the Ramble.

Stay tuned, very exciting stuff are coming up!

-Gina Soumelidis
15612898

My last week offered me a foot in the door!

20 days is up and I am glad to announce I have been offered an opportunity to extend my placement! My supervisor, Aaron, at the Aaron McPolin Collective (creative studio) has gladly informed me that I can make commission from each new client I bring in. Typically, these will be clients who need fashion imagery.

Now that report is out of the way i'm unofficially graduated (wow) and I have already started working on further strategies to maximise client investment-- amazing what a little incentive can do, hey!

What I must remember is employee communication is key.  You see, I unfortunately experienced a PR embarrassment with  the editor of Western Suburbs Weekly.   The studio I'm currently placed at were holding an 'opening night' called Art Meets Fashion, an initiative by the in-house stylist to increase exposure.   Fashion bloggers and industry creatives alike were invited  to witness the workings behind the artists who occupy the space.  That aside,  I sent a media release to multiple publications and followed them up with a phone call.  To my surprise, The Western Suburbs wanted to run a story on the event.   I knew Aaron had been covered by a news outlet named My Community and this was his only news publication (opening of his gallery) . I had a suspicion the two newspapers were linked and my research failed to prove. I also asked Aaron who the journalist was that ran the story and if he knew what publication, at large it was linked to, however being the busy person he is, pre-occupied with post production, he could not verify the source. 

After what I thought was successful e-mailing between myself and the editor, she notified me with an email;
"Sorry, but after doing some research i noticed we have already run this story before"


I undertook what I thought would be adequate investigation.  When I notified Aaron of the failure he replied with "Yes, it has been published but it was a different news angle. We need to communicate more".
From this experience I refreshed the importance of direct communication with managers and employees alike, although my senior, not everybody is sure!  I'm mostly disappointed in the future relations I have ruined with the editor. 
While I continue my work placement and career in PR I am now cautious, so i shall remind readers, like we learned in PR consultancy; communication is vital to organisational successes.  
A problem solved. 

To finish of with colour.  This is world-class Coiffure (hair) imagery by Aaron McPolin. This is the niche market I will create strategies and tactics to gain recognition from.

Thank you, good bye.

Phoebe :)

The Butcher & The Crow

This week the main focus was on a launch produced by The Studio featuring a local designer Elisha Quinta, and her autumn/winter 2014 collection. Her label, The Butcher & The Crow embraces the resurgence of an appreciation for the hand made and its processes. The event was held at the Riverview Hotel on Mount St, and featured a runway showcasing her latest collection.

In the lead up to the event I was advised to research the guest list in order to familiarise myself with the many socialites, company representatives, media and models attending the event. In doing this I made a table with the names of the guests and noted down any information I could find from old articles and the help of social media!

My job for the night was to manage the media pit, this involved guiding a bunch of photographers through the runway routine, pointing out the best position in order to capture the models, and control when the media was allowed to take photographs back stage before the event. I also had to assist the media when taking pictures of the guests, as I was able to inform them who they were and point out guests that should be photographed.

Here a few backstage snaps of the models before the show, taken by stylevoyeur.com

After lots of preparation and planning, the night turned out to be a great success. I’m feeling much more confident in my tasks, and I'm learning new things every week! In the following couple of days I cut out several different articles regarding the event all of which were positive reviews!  

Welcome to the world of fashion!

The Studio is a PR, Events and Marketing company specializing in fashion, in which I was lucky enough to do my placement at.

Before I even arrived at the office I received a phone call from my manager briefing me on my first task. This involved printing of flyers regarding an upcoming STM Showcase and delivering them to stores and cafes as well as explaining to people what the showcase involved…well this was a shock, I was well unaware about the upcoming event and now I had to inform clients about it! It was within this first hour I realized there was absolutely no slacking off, this internship was definitely going to keep me on my feet. 

Nervous as anything, I madly researched the upcoming event that The Studio was organizing to ensure I wasn’t going to mislead anyone or give any false information as I was now representing the company.  It was also emphasized not to deliver the flyers to any retailers that the showcase was not featuring. Thank god for iPhones, I was able to research the designers involved and find which stores stocked their garments. 

After printing 200 flyers I entered the first store to approach the owner who rudely refused to have any kind of flyers presented in her shop. My thoughts on this intern were rapidly turning downhill, not to mention I’m not an overly confident person. After delivering to several more stores I decided to stick to small cafes, as the atmosphere was much more friendly and the owners were more than happy to accept my flyers.

Once I had finished this task I headed back to the office to meet with my two supervisors who I found out were actually much more friendly then anticipated. 

My second task involved updating information from a previous run sheet to suit the upcoming event, which was quickly approaching. After given my second task my nerves had settled and I was feeling more comfortable.

Well day one was a bit of a surprise, that’s for sure. It left me with several mixed emotion regarding the fashion and PR industry. Whilst it very daunting to be pushed out of my comfort zone it left me feeling more confident and I was eager to find out what was in store for me next.