Say goodbye to one month internship

After spending one month time in Fleishman Hillard, now is the time to say goodbye. I'm so happy to leave Kuala Lumpur and back to my hometown, Miri. Yet, I'm feeling sad to leave my lovely colleagues.

Throughout this one month internship, I learnt a lot and now I'm pretty sure where I want to go after I graduate. Yes, I want to work in a PR firm! It is because I can learn many different things everyday and this is what I want in the future: LEARN NEW THINGS.

So, what have I learnt? Well, I learnt to do competitiveness analysis properly which is needed by my supervisor to come up with new ideas for the clients. Researches need to be concise and precise on what the competitors do online and on ground. When the activities are carried out, what are the activities, how to participate and etc.

Besides that, I learnt to update blogger lists. There are different bloggers in different field of interest. It can be in beauty, fashion, lifestyle, technology and so on. I did research to find out whether the bloggers in the list are still active and whether there are new bloggers who are not in the list. With the updated list, company can contact the bloggers easily.

Lastly, I learnt to answer the calls. It was nervous when I first time answer the call. After several times, I'm get used to it and I can answer the call even better. For me, I don't think it is an easy task as we need to be polite to everyone who is calling to the office. If we don't, Fleishman Hillard will be regarded as a rude company. Also, we need to note down their names and where are they from before direct the calls to the person they are looking for. So, always prepare a pen and a piece of paper in front of you!

It is a fruitful experience for me before I graduate in a few more months. I have found my direction in the future, have you?

All the best to all of you!

Thien Ching Mei
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Are you an order taker or a consultant?

Hello!!! How is your internship? I hope everyone is doing fine.

In this post, I would like to share about the training session that I attended last Thursday given by the top management of the company that I'm interning with. It's about "PR Consultant".

From the lecture we learnt, we know that a PR consultant is a person who engage in dialogue with a client organisation and develop recommendations through his/her expertise. He/she is basically working for the client and fulfill the client's needs.

But, is it a consultant must follow and listen all what the client wants? 

Now, here is the difference between order taker and consultant. Order takers will simply accept and say yes to everything what the client wants. They are ‘yes person’. On the other hand, consultants accept what client wants and at the same time give a point of view. They are ‘yes but person’. The speaker emphasised the importance of a consultant to have a point of view. 

For instance, a client prepared a list of positive comments approved by the CEO of client organisation and asked you to post all of them on its Facebook. What would you do?

Basically, as a consultant, you must say yes to the client. But, you can have a point of view like asking the purpose of doing it, suggest reading through the comments first and edit the comments if necessary before posting them. 

Throughout this training, I learnt that consultants must have a point of view in every task they are working at, either in giving recommendations on accounts or in responding to the request of clients.

To all the future PR consultants out there, remember we are not ‘yes person’, we are ‘yes but person’!

Cheers,

Ching Mei 

Brand, for product or human?

Hi!

This is my second post and I would like to talk about one of the topics we learnt, 'brand'. Why all of the sudden I want to discuss this topic? It is because on last Friday, there was a training session in the company which was about 'brand'.

Brand basically is the design or symbol that differentiate one item from another. A product brand can be a logo and it delivers message to the people. Now, let's see some examples of hidden meanings in some logos.

First, FedEx logo. Can you notice something? Well, there is something in the white space between the letter E and X. Yes, it is an arrow! The arrow indicates FedEx's fast and proficiency services provided to its customers.

Second, a very familiar electronic commerce company, Amazon. What's so special about this logo and what is the message the logo is trying to communicate? The yellow line actually indicates a smile. Besides that, it begins from a to z which means that Amazon's products cover everything from a to z.

Lastly, The Bronx Zoo logo. For those who do not know about the zoo, The Bronx Zoo is a zoo located in the middle of New York City. If you can get the hidden meaning of the logo, you can actually know the zoo is located in the middle of the city. Why? Can you see the buildings in the white space?

It is so fun when my college shared those logos with us. Everyone in the training was so eager to tell the hidden meanings. There are a lot more but in this blog I only share three of these logos.

From this training session, I learnt that a brand is not only for products, it's for human too! It's about branding YOURSELF!!
Why is it so important? Because a brand can tell the others about yourself which influence how they look at us. So, we must always brand ourselves through several ways. It can be build through attitude and attire.

In a nutshell, branding is not solely for products, it's for human too! So, always brand yourself to tell the others who you are!

Till next time,
Ching Mei

Nervous? Excited? Or both?

Hi everyone!

This is my first time to do my internship and I'm glad that I'm able to work in an international PR firm located at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This is only my first week of my internship and I would like to share my experience.

Well, I guess everyone was having the same feeling as me on the first day of internship. I'm nervous to work in a new environment yet excited to meet all the new people in the new place. Luckily, my working environment is so nice because the office and my colleagues are very nice!

On my first day of internship, the office manager gave me a briefing about the Do's and Don'ts in the office. Also, i was told that I have my own email and required to create a signature for my own email. Moreover, I need to read the office policies and do three tests about the policies. I finished on the first day as my supervisor was outstation that day. So now I have my own email and email signature. That's really cool as I feel like I'm really a PR professional now!

I met my supervisor on the second day of my internship. He was really busy so we can only meet up after lunch time and he briefed me about my job scopes. And finally I started to do my first task which is searching for bloggers' information.

On my third day of internship, besides doing the blogger list, I was asked by other department to proof read the Chinese version media release as I'm the only intern who can read Chinese. So, I tried my best to correct the grammar and the flow of the media release.

Fourth day of my internship was really exciting as I was asked to help out in an event! It was an event held in the town of Kuala Lumpur to promote the client's products. It was really a good experience for me as I learnt how to deal with the media and the roles of PR practitioners in an event. The event finished at 8.30pm. Due to the privacy policy, I can't upload the photos that I took. So sorry I can't share the photos that I took of the event!

Friday, which is the casual day, everyone in the company is allowed to wear casual! And it is the day where everyone needs to submit the time entry and claims form. I don't learn how to do the time entry yet as my supervisor didn't teach me and I have another project need to do, a competitors analysis of a client.

That's all for my first week of my internship! More to come next week! :)