A media drop for Nederburg Wines!

Hello everyone!

Time flies and 12 weeks have passed so quickly, it is already the end of my internship. I had my appraisal done two days back, and I'm feeling happy that I've gotten over and done with this phase! :)

Well, so on the last week of my internship I had the opportunity to attend client meetings, attend events with my boss and because we have Hotel Clover as one of our clients, I manage to experience how media tours are being carried out. It was a super packed but fun-filled week!

But for my entry today, I'm going to talk about 'Media Drop' for Nederburg Wines. Initially, I wasn't familiar with this term, but after talking to my colleagues, media drop is basically delivering media kits to various media outlets. We would usually do a media drop, if there are products that require the journalist or editor to 'try' or 'experience'.

In our media kit, we included two bottles of wine from Nederburg and a folder consisting of press releases. By doing a media drop, journalist or editors of various publications would be able to personally taste the wines and publish a better story for us. It is also a lot more sincere and effective as compared to just sending them the press release via email. 

Hence, the process of shortlisting the publications to do a media drop has to be done strategically. We would target bigger and more established titles, because putting our client's interest at stake, we definitely want them to be featured in big titles.

I assisted in packing the media kits and labeling, ensuring it looks professional! It was a lot of fun packing the media kits because for a moment, I felt like santa claus delivering gifts to people. I thought I would be able to meet the journalists in person, but I had to leave the media kits at the reception and they would have staff to deliver the media kits.

It would be great if I could meet the journalist personally, because that would mean I'll be able to pitch story ideas to him/her, increasing the likelihood of getting coverage for our client. It was still a great experience overall.
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So after this 12 weeks, I guess the big question is 'Is Public Relations for me?' At this moment in time, I would say - Yes! I do enjoy myself quite a bit during this 12 weeks, though there are ups and downs, but I have indeed learnt a lot and it does trigger my curiosity to find out more!!

As I'm still considered new in this industry, I would love to explore further and learn along the way. I hope everyone who is also doing their internship would feel this way as well! If it's otherwise, I'm pretty sure everyone have also gained many valuable experiences throughout this 12 weeks! Well, I would like to wish everyone all the best in their future endeavours, despite of which industry we are intending to venture! :)

Thanks for reading!

Day and life in Craft!

Hello Everyone! I'm Sherrill and this is my first blog entry ever since I started my internship with Craft Communications in Singapore. I have been with Craft for close to two months, and if I have to use a word to describe how I'm feeling, it would be 'Fulfilling'.

Craft Communications is a boutique public relations, marketing and social media consultancy that specializes in travel, hospitality, food and luxury lifestyle. Craft also specializes in reaching out to the China media market as well (Source: http://www.craftc.com/)

Here is where we are located, we occupy one of the offices inside! 

As seen by the door, with the label "Craft Communications". A cozy little environment we have there! 

• Liaising with overseas media

This also brings me to my point that I'm also mainly involved in communicating with the China media. I started out translating English press documents into Chinese language, before proceeding to phone pitching to the China media and trying to interest them in our stories. I had to suggest them with new story angles that they would be interested in featuring our client in their magazines, newspapers or various publications. I mainly liaised with Bei Jing and Shang Hai media, initially, it was very difficult and challenging trying to phrase my sentences in the Chinese language because I'm unsure of certain terms. I was afraid that I would give the wrong information and causing further confusion! But after guidance from my boss and colleagues, I manage to get the hang of it and got used to it eventually.

• Drafting Social Media Entries

Besides working with overseas media, I was also incharge of drafting Social Media entries for the two of the accounts I'm currently handling. I have to upload them on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Weibo (China's version of Twitter). It was very tedious drafting out such posts weekly, because I always have to generate new content to interest our followers. Previously, I felt that uploading social media posts are one of the easiest task, but when I have to handle them, it could take me an entire day trying to draft out 12 entries.

• Follow ups, media clippings, etc...

Occasionally I would have to do follow-up calls with the local media after we have sent them a press release, checking if they are interested in running a story. Also, I would clip the coverage that features our client, calculate the media value and PDF it nicely before sending it out to the client. I figured that most of these task have to be done meticulously and neatly, there are no rooms for mistakes!

I'm thankful and happy to be part of the Craft team, I do hope to learn a lot more in the subsequent months and to see more positive results! Till my next entry! :)