Theory and practice – oh the difference!

Hello,

It is the end of my internship and time to start thinking about preparing for exams, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on how I feel I went overall during my internship and the key things I have learned. 

Challenges and Lessons:

•       Multitasking as definitely been a skill that I have refined over the past few months doing my final year of university and completing my internship. Trying to juggle all of these things at once has been a steep learning curve. A number of my usual activities were seriously moved down (or dropped off completely) from my to do list to make way for my increased workload.

•       Keeping the business in mind and having a ‘commercial view’ to my public relations was something that was new to me. I found that there is a big difference between theory and practise. In my university assignments where I had prepared PR plans I did not necessarily take the most business savvy approach. I have learnt that being business minded and considering the organisation as a whole is essential to an effective PR Plan or campaign.

•       Social media is not at easy as I thought it was. During university my PR assignments have always included a social media aspect. I assumed this was a fairly straightforward part of the plan and one that would be easily executed. What I learnt during my internship is just how much time social media management can take up and how it can really throw curve balls at you. Lesson: do not assume anything!

•       Working with other departments. Although the business that I interned at was small there were still different ‘departments’. My role required interaction with almost each one. For example, when it was time for a social media update about a specific house for sale I had to speak to the sales staff and find out the key information they wanted to use for the property. Managing these cross department relationships can be tricky but it was an important lesson. I couldn’t prioritise one over the other, I had to ensure that each was being considered and receiving my attention.

Rewards:

Experience!!! As I mentioned having a to apply my ideas in real life and keep the overall business in mind was a challenge, but it was also a reward because I have learnt so much. Practical experience is something that I am so glad to have on my CV for when I graduate and seek employment.

That’s all from me! I hope you have all enjoyed your internship experience as much as me.

Good luck for the future!

- Sarah

Final reflection and to a bright future!

I finished my placement! Now... What did I learn?

Firstly I feel a lot more confident in my ability to work in public relations. In particular I found the following areas have drastically improved:

• Professional social media management
• Communication skills (especially on the phone and to other professionals)
• Ability to write 
• Creativity 

But something that I didn't foresee to improve was my ability to identify problems and to create strategic and well thought out recommendations. For example, my placement drastically needs to improve their evaluation procedures. In particular, I recommended that they use tools such as Google Analytics to measure user interactivity with their website and social media platforms (primary Facebook).

Traditionally they would wait to see actual comments to measure how well they have done at an event. But using a free software could really give them a better insight about how to benefit the most from post timing, when users are active and other information.

My placement will also often stick to its strengths and despite desire to engage other stakeholders (e.g. University Students) they only saw a challenge in generating awareness. However, I believe creating a specialised event for University Students such as a quiz night or a collaborative event with local universities would be more effective than simply distributing general flyers or brochures.

Despite my eagerness to contribute towards innovative change I can understand their hesitation to take my suggestions onboard. I am after all just an intern. However, I really do hope that they put aside their resistance to change and implement my recommendations. However, I feel that this experience regardless of the outcome has given me an opportunity to communicate to future employers that I have demonstrated an interest in innovation and strive for better public relations practice. I may help to improve their competitive advantage!

Has anyone else struggled to have their opinions truly recognised due to their position as an unpaid intern? Please comment below

Good luck in the future with all your ambitions!

Jared

How Do You Evaluate Public Relations ROI?

5th September 2014

I’m sure that many of you are Public Relations students like me and assignments must be piling up in the coming week! Well, if you are looking through the unit outline of what is expected of a PR Plan, I’m sure you will see the aspect of measurement and evaluation.

This section in any assignment always brings a cringe – I’m confident that I’m speaking for everyone that the usual standard answer for every assignment that addresses this aspect is that ‘we aim to have high social and traditional media coverage amongst media outlets…’ Theoretically, that sounds like a perfect measurement and evaluation tool for success of a PR plan – a dream come to realization! But realistically, how do PR firms measure the success of a PR activity or plan that is being put in place.

Let me just draw a simple example for you. It is in our human nature to know what benefits/drawbacks we gain with every decision made. We can akin the analogy of investing your hard earned money into a bank for investment purposes – How much interest will this bring me and what financial benefits will I attain from this investment?

I’m not an accountant or a banker but what I can share with you is that the analogy above works similarly in a context of a PR consultancy firm. PR consultancies work on the basis of business development and maintaining the relationships with clients by offering them the best value in PR activities. But like all investments, clients wish to know what is their Return of Investment (ROI) in terms of Public Relations activities engaged. They wish to know if it was beneficial for their brand, dollar for dollar and if it helped to elevate their brand identity or reputation within the marketplace.

My first week at Devahasdin started off with the Account Manager asking me the simple question of how I would evaluate the success of a PR campaign. I answered with a simple, ‘I would assume that if the campaign has a high take up rate, it would be deemed successful.’ The next question came – ‘But how do you evaluate this in terms of dollars and cents?’

I was stumped. She further probed with the question of ‘Let’s say if the client invests with a budget of $50,000; how would you report to them on the benefits of the $50,000 invested?’ I couldn’t answer.

That’s where she shared the amazing measurement tool  of measuring public relations effectiveness – the Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) model. To be honest, I have never heard of this methodology before.

Quoting from my colleagues at Devashasdin, there is an increasing shift noticed in the marketing world – the effectiveness of advertising to consumers is dwindling and the rise of public relations is phenomenal. This can only boil down to the reason that consumers perceive public relations as more reliable than advertising for the essence of PR is getting someone to say and endorse your message for you. 

Imagine this, if you place an advertisement in the papers, consumers might think that you are propagating your product/service but as compared to if your product/service was reviewed or endorsed by an editor/writer – there is a large element of credibility there experienced by consumers and it is free! 

So how does the AVE work? The AVE works on a basis that due to the fact that public relations is perceived as more credible than advertising – it is valued at 5 times (yes, you read it right. FIVE TIMES), more effective than placing an advertisement.

Armed with this mini tutorial, my first task was to create an AVE table listing all the different media outlets in Western Australia and the PR Dollars ($) associated with each article. How I worked this out was firstly, I had to determine the advertising value of a particular newspaper – if I were to place an advertisement in the newspaper, how much would it cost me according to the size and specifications. From there, I had to work on the PR value that it is 5 x higher due to the fact that it is free and more credible. Do look at an excerpt of the table that I was tasked to create below for an example;

I must admit. This is something new for me. I see my colleagues writing their monthly PR highlights for clients where the PR value is way high and it clearly shows that the investment into Public Relations activities is way more effective than that of advertising. Advertising has a diminishing effect on consumers but Public Relations and communications leaves a lasting effect.

So armed with this newfound knowledge, it has certainly helped me because we, as aspiring public relations practitioners, need to communicate to potential clients on the rise and power of public relations as opposed to advertising. The AVE model is certainly a good way to highlight this increase and convince clients that they are definitely getting more than their money’s worth with every dollar invested – meaning that the ROI for a campaign will be high. Now, isn’t that what all clients wish to achieve?

So I hope that by shedding light on the AVE model, it has helped you like it has helped me. You can use this in assignments too! Never blatantly write ‘high media coverage etc.’ anymore! It’s time to show everyone what the benefits and costs are in dollars and cents!

Nicholas Cross