3 months later.. How things have changed

From Day 1 of my internship to now, I feel like a completely different person! I went from a university student two and a half years into my degree, feeling nervous and unprepared for what may be thrown at me. Even in the first few days of my internship, I was very nervous to show anyone what I had written or prepared. 

Now, I have just about finished my degree, (with just a couple of exams to go - yay!), and am confident in my ability to complete any task I am asked to do. Although only a semester different, I feel like I have learned more over the last three months than I have in my entire degree! Or maybe I realised I knew more than I thought I did. 

Either way, I have gained confidence in my ability, and feel proud of what I have achieved in terms of developing my PR skills. It's also nice to know that others are also confident in my ability - I have been hired to stay on past my internship! It is an incredible feeling knowing that my hard work throughout my internship and the rest of my degree have paid off, allowing me to contribute and provide something of value, which someone is willing to pay for!

I know there is still a lot to learn, but without this internship experience I think I would still be feeling unprepared to enter the real world. How 

I am excited to continue on with this job - I would have been extremely sad to leave! After showing my supervisor my report, she is keen for me to implement and work on some of the recommendations I provided! That's exciting for me, as it means they value my opinion and contribution. 

I hope everyone else has enjoyed their internship experience as much as I have!

Using unexpected skills!

Design Practice 172. Any Event Management students remember that unit? I know people that even took it as an 'elective' because it was considered a 'fun' unit. 

At the time I also considered it relatively fun for a compulsory unit, however I didn't really think about how I would be using it in the future!

Little did I know, the skills I learnt would become invaluable in my PR internship! My PR supervisor was formerly a product designer and therefore has amazing graphic design abilities! 

She has been great with allowing me to develop my skills in this area. She will allow me to work on design projects, and after allowing me to play around and figure out things on my own, she will help me by showing me quicker and easier ways to do things. 

It has deepened my understanding of the different tasks a PR Officer may have to undertake, especially in such a small department (in my case only one person!). In a school there is so much more going on than I expected, and almost everything needs something designed in some form or another. Doing this in-house instead of outsourcing this service produces much faster turnaround times, yet is still high quality because of the programs and skills available in-house. 

What skills have you had to use in your internship that you thought you wouldn't have to? 

Are you the new photographer?

This is a question I have been asked countless times throughout my internship from various teachers and other staff, despite being introduced from the start as the Public Relations Intern. This has contributed to my awareness of the general lack of understanding of the important role of PR. 

In some cases, a lack of understanding of the importance of PR and its contribution to the College mission affected the time and effort people were willing to put into tasks we required of them. It seems that most people don't understand that even though they may be doing great things within their learning area, if it is not being communicated, it is hard to maximize the benefits. However it is difficult to portray this, when it is not their area of work and they are focused on things they view as more important. 

Therefore I have been learning to frame tasks in a way that helps the person to understand the purpose of the task and how it will be beneficial to the College, in order to motivate the person to contribute according to the purpose of the task. I am hoping that the effort I put into this will make a small difference in the understanding of the important role of PR, as well as the reliance we have on staff to be able to to conduct effective PR activities. It is also the hope that people will understand we are more than just photographers!

PR in schools - they do more than you think!

Upon arrival on my first day, I had teacher after executive after teacher making jokes about how "Linda (my supervisor) doesn't do anything all day" and that "she has so much time on her hands". Linda had already informed me that she was extremely busy at the moment, but these comments made me realise that she wasn't just busy. She was REALLY busy, and everyone knew it. Apparently I couldn't have come at a better time. 

I thought to myself, "how busy can a one-person PR department at a school really be? Maybe everyone is over reacting". Oh how wrong I was. It turns out the role of a public relations professional in a school encompasses so much more than the traditional role of PR we had spent so much time learning about at uni.  

With only one person working in PR, Linda is the photographer, the graphic designer, the event manager, the liaison, you name it - it's her job. There is no team of people for tasks to be delegated between. It is just her, and now me. 

Open Day is the biggest event of the year, and I was right in time to help plan and execute their annual event that showcases everything the school has to offer. There is huge pressure to communicate the right messages, as the school is only three years old and the brand is still being established. 

I'm hopeful that through helping me learn and grow in my PR skills, I will also be able to provide a valuable contribution and actually be helpful!

From 367 pairs of jeans to a 630am start full of raw treats...never a dull moment!

A BTS photo taken by myself of the raw goodies made for the Channel 9 segment

I have now officially been at my internship with Detail for 6 weeks. Not too sure where the time has gone but I am happy to say that it has been a wonderful experience thus far. I am assigned to one project, the Garage Sale Trail. A fantastic, not-for-profit event that occurs simultaneously across Australia. The aim of Garage Sale Trail is to encourage reuse, recycling while having fun, socialising and meeting the neighbours. This year, the event occurs on Saturday 24th October and the Detail team are assigned as the WA PR Team as well as overseeing all other state PR's and looking after media and PR opportunities on a national scale.

I have been assisting with a variety of public relations strategies and tools for the Garage Sale Trail event, and we recently worked on a pitch to the Community Newspaper Group in relation to a story on factoids about reusing and recycling. The factoid related to the recycling of jeans, being: if people recycled 367 pairs of jeans rather than throwing them out, it would effectively save enough water to fill an Olympic swimming pool. My Account Manager had the idea of creating a story around the factoid, involving a Garage Sale Trail ambassador, the Waste Authority WA Chairman, an Olympic sized swimming pool and 367 pairs of jeans. Community Newspaper loved the idea and we were set to run the story. We had locked in Beatty Park for the use of their swimming pool, as well as the Waste Authority Chairman and our ambassador, however the challenge was in sourcing 367 pairs of jeans for the photo opportunity. We approached a variety of op-shops in Fremantle, all who were willing to help but did not have a large enough capacity of jeans to assist us. 5pm the day before the shoot, we managed to get Good Sammy's head office on board. It was then my task to go to Good Sammy's the following morning, bag up 367 pairs of jeans, fit said jeans into my Yaris and transport them to the shoot at Beatty Park. Safe to say that was my exercise for the day! We had a beautiful day and the shot ended up looking great, definitely proving it is worth the extra effort and persistence to make for a great story and piece of publicity for the client. To view the final article, click the link below:

http://www.communitynews.com.au/news/Garage-Sale-Trail-open-for-business/7673885

Two days later, we had a media opportunity for a client with the Today Show for Perth Channel 9. This involved being at the location at 6:30am for a 7am live filming start. The client was re-branding and also launching a new product - a Vitamix. Our story involved a lady by the name of Chriswho runs her own raw, health food company 'RawbyChris'. Chris uses the vitamix to make delicious raw treats, so she was the perfect ambassador for the launch of the new Vitamix. While it was an early start, I managed to snap a great pic for Instagram and had way too many raw treats for breakfast (albeit healthy so it makes it okay)! Getting a first hand encounter of behind the scenes of a live TV cross was a fantastic experience and certainly gave me an insight into the many different hats a PR practitioner is required to wear!

LAST DAY FUN DAY

Hello everyone!

I've been so busy trying to catch up with my assignments right after my internship ended that I didn't have enough time to even update on how it went! So here's me just giving an account of it. 

My last day was honestly the most enjoyable time I've had during the entire span of my internship at Identitywa! Not because it was finally time I packed and leave (I was actually quite sad and almost teared - I'm very emotional, no joke), but because I was involved in the Carer's High Tea event. 

So it was held in celebration for Carer's Week. I've been writing so many articles and media releases regarding this upcoming (at that time) event, but I've never imagined myself attending it. Until my communications officer asked if I would like to help on that day, I was more than pleased. I was quite nervous because I didn't know what sort of task I would be given - or what can I even do for the event. I've been writing media releases this entire time during my internship, and when it came to me getting out there, I felt completely useless. 

So the event was held at the Como Bowling Club, and our task as staffs at Identitywa was to serve the carers tea. I was in charge of taking photographs during the entire event, and engaging with the carers. 

How could I NOT be tempted to stuff my face with these?!

Door gifts and prizes for the raffle.

This event made me realise one reason why I love working in Identitywa so much: they are really warm to be around with because they put in effort to make me feel comfortable. During the event, they not only gave me a lot of encouragement, they also included me in whenever they wanted to secretly gorge down sausage rolls, scones and sandwiches.

I've never believed my photography skills was something to brag about, because to be honest, it's self taught (besides the photography units I took which I never had good grades for) and pretty much mediocre I would say. But during the course of the event, the staffs constantly gave me a lot of encouragement by saying how grateful they are to have me to take photos for them, and how much they liked it. The Engagement Leader, who was in charge of handling the event, even thanked me personally. 

The amount of acknowledgement given to the very small task given to me made me feel important in the organisation. I didn't feel useless because I didn't carry out tasks like hosting the event, etc. And this is definitely something I don't see in organisations a lot, and the staffs at Identitywa are trying their best to practice this. 

Although these things may sound small, it meant the most to me. And I doubt I'll ever forget such an organisation - not because it's my first ever official work experience, but because they're honestly the warmest I've ever known. ☺

Thank you, Identitywa for giving me an amazing learning journey and experience! ♥

Denissa Goh
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Big achievement unlocked!

Hello again!

Work has been extremely tiring especially when we're heading towards the end of semester where all our assignments are starting to pile up. 8 hours of sleep doesn't seem to be enough anymore! There were days when I was just fighting to stay awake in front of the screen. Nevertheless, majority of my days at work were productive ones - no doubt, it involved consuming at least 2 cups of coffee. 

Last week I was occupied with compiling survey results and tabulating the data into pie charts. I also held a mini photography class for my colleagues since Identitywa just bought a new camera. Besides those, it's all writing, writing and writing. I had media releases to do, drafting posts for social media content, and even coming up with taglines for the organisation's proposal for car bumper stickers. That's probably the job of a copyrighter, but my communications officer was nice enough to brainstorm together with me. 

I also came up with a proposal to use Twitter hashtags as a strategy to engage with the community, and since my communications officer did not understand how it worked, I wrote up a strategy/proposal document for her. It basically felt like writing a PR plan, except just the strategy section. She was really impressed because she didn't ask me to write one up for her, but because I've been studying this field for 3 years, I felt the need to put information down neatly into a document. It's also more professional. She really liked the idea as she has always wanted to find a way to get the community to engage and communicate with us, and she said she would forward the document to the CEO. And that was honestly a big achievement for me - not just being there to lend a hand with her work, but to also come up with useful and practical ideas that could contribute to the organisation's growth. ☻

Anyway, next week is finally the last week that I'll be interning at Identitywa. I hope I can learn as much as I can during the last few days, and my sleep deprivation won't get in the way of it! Good luck to everyone else!

Denissa Goh

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6 Tips for Getting the Most out of Your Internship

During my two internships there are things I did that worked to my advantage and things I wish I had done differently. Below are my tips to ensuring you get the most out of your internship.

1.   Triple check your work

No matter how small or insignificant the task may seem, always take the time to ensure you have completed the task correctly. Check your grammar is correct and that you have finalized the task to the standard requested.

When you are doing the same task over and over it is easy to slip up and make a typo. It might not seem like a big deal. However if you pass this work to your boss who picks up the mistake (or worse, the client) you are unlikely to be trusted with jobs with bigger tasks.

At the end of the day the work you output is a reflection of you and your professional standards.

2.   Complete the small tasks with a good attitude

I am not going to lie, there were times during my internships where I was completing a task thinking ‘three years of my life and $30,000 on a degree has lead to me spending half a day scanning documents’. It is frustrating, but at the end of the day you are an intern. You are going to be given the tasks that no one else wants to do.

My advice is to try and learn as much as you can from that task. Even if it is just scanning, get to know the documents you’re scanning, learn from them. Do these tasks fast and to a high standard. Only then will you be trusted to take on jobs that require more responsibility. No one is going to let the intern who can’t even scan a document strait write a media release.

3.   The answer is yes

You might just be lucky enough to be given a task that is challenging or even scary, that think you are incapable of completing. Never decline such an offer. You have been allocated the task because your supervisor believes in you. You should too. 

Don’t think about the worst that could happen. It is more than likely that you will do a fantastic job and impress everyone, including yourself.

4.   Dress for the job you want not the job you have

You might be surprised at the opportunities that can present them self if you are dressed like a corporate professional. If you have read my previous blogs you will know I attended a press conference during my internship. My job was media registration. With the knowledge that I would be meeting the client I dressed as professionally as my wardrobe would allow me. 

I ended up being asked to MC the press conference. I spoke to 30 media from Malaysia’s most successful media outlets. I have no doubt that I would not have been asked to MC if I was not dressed corporate.

See my blog post ‘From intern to press conference MC’ for more information on this story.

5.   It’s not what you know, it’s who you know

Networking has been absolutely hammered into us throughout university. Yet still I just cannot stress how important simply knowing the right person can be. Meeting one individual can change the way your career progresses.

When I start a new job, particularly an internship, I do my best to talk to everyone. Better yet, make a good impression on them. Chat to the person in front of you in the down stairs café, strike up a conversation with the lady heating up her lunch in the kitchen, pick up the pen the guy dropped because his hands were full of files. You just never know where that conversation might lead you.

6.   Talk to your supervisor about what you want to experience

A simple conversation might be the difference between you getting little out of your internship and getting the rewarding experience you want. Tell your supervisor what you want to be exposed to during the internship. Whether it is writing a media release, a story for the intranet, organising an event or interviewing people. At the end of the day if you don’t tell them they won’t know. 

Communication with your supervisor is just an important as any other form of communication, and I know you are great at communication, after all you are about to get a degree in it.

My internships at GO Communications and the Public Transport Authority have taught me a lot about Public Relations in the real word. I even learnt a thing or two about myself. 

Good luck to you all.

Whitney

Inspiring & embarrassing moments at work!

In my last post, I mentioned about letting my Communications Officer know that I would be working for five days during the tuition free week.

It barely felt like I even a chance to rest during that week! It was hectic and obviously I suffered a lack of sleep, making it almost seem like it was already the end of semester where all students experience sleep deprivation because that's when all major assignments are due. 

Can't say I regretted working for the entire week even though I struggled on Saturday and Sunday to complete three assignments due the coming Monday when the semester continues. There were days when I had to drag my feet to work - not to mention the weather during that week was TERRIBLE - and 4.30pm felt so far away. But honestly without all those, I would probably still be inexperienced... and spoilt.

I can say I've managed to look past those and learn to suck it up. And I probably deserve a clap for that. ☻

Moving on to what I actually did during that week. Of course, there were more articles, considering the deadline to publish the in-house newsletter was getting closer. I was given the task to research, construct articles, and arrange them in Campaign Monitor. I had to also update the organisation's website, Facebook and Twitter page. 

My biggest nightmare was to contact the house seniors of the organisation's respite houses to get interesting stories for the in-house newsletter and the annual report. I get REALLY uncomfortable and tend to stutter whenever I was given that task. I managed to pull through, of course, after making a fool out of myself... several times in fact. 

Phone conversation example: 

Receiver: Hi, this is <respite house name>. Who's on the line? 

Me: Hi, it's Identitywa, and I'd like to find out if there's anything particularly interesting that the residents are doing so I could include it in the Identikite.  

Receiver: Sorry, who's on the line?  

Me: Identitywa... 

Receiver: I meant your name, the houses are under Identitywa, so obviously you have to be from Identitywa to be calling.

That was one of the most embarrassing one for me. But there's a saying that goes, "you have to fall in order to learn". 

The most insightful experience while working there so far, was on Friday where my Communications Officer brought me along to the airport to interview a man with intellectual disability. She told me instead of her conducting the interview and me taking pictures, she wanted the roles to be reversed. 

She gave me a brief background information of the man; he has a deep passion and thorough understanding in aviation, and is striving to get a job at the airport where he once used to work at. She was also kind enough to brief me on what questions she wanted me to ask and what information she planned to get out of the interview for the article. 

When we met him and his friend (a support worker), and considering how it was my first time doing a face-to-face interview with a person with disability, I just went blank. My Communications Officer saved me, and took over the role of interviewing. I felt so lost for the first half an hour because I found it really difficult to understand what the man was saying as he had a mild speech impediment. But after a while, I started to get the flow of the way he spoke and learned to interpret it in my own understanding much faster, I managed to do a few questionings. 

My Communications Officer said told me she had a bit of trouble trying to understand him at first, but managed to pick it up. I believe it comes with experience. 

We spent a fair bit of time walking around the airport, taking pictures of him looking at the planes, and just talking to him - which I found very enjoyable. It was a great way to end the week, and it left us feeling very inspired by the man's strong passion to pursue his dream. 

I managed to take down a lot of notes for my Communications Officer to write the article, and just maybe I'd offer to write the article instead. ☻

More work coming up next week! Hopefully they don't consist of me having to make phone calls again!! Is anyone else experiencing embarrassing things at work, or is it only me?!

Denissa Goh
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From intern to press conference MC

This morning started like any other day as a GO Communications (GO) intern. I read the paper for an hour or so, identifying and recording articles relevant to our client.

I had a bit of a spring in my step, as this afternoon I was to assist with a press conference being held for Product of the Year (POY) Malaysia. POY has been running for 26 years around the world, but this year is the first time it has run in Malaysia.

Click here for more information on Product of the Year Malaysia

My assignment for the afternoon was media registration. The media arrive, I take their card, ask them to sign in and give them a media pack. Simple enough, but I was just happy to be a part of the event and see how a press conference works.

The media arrived and I began to register them and direct them to the conference room. With the conference due to commence in 20 minutes, the Chief Operating Office of GO, Peter de Krester walked out of the conference room directly towards me and said;

“Whitney you are going to be the MC for this press conference”.

My automatic reaction was to reply “okay”. Soon after it sunk in that I would be pronouncing names completely foreign to me in front of media from Malaysia’s top newspapers, magazines and TV stations. In addition I had the added hurdle of my Australian accent. I would need to speak slowly, clearly and with as little accent as possible. I try to take every challenge and opportunity that comes my way. I think the best things happen when you're out of your comfort zone.

I began madly jotting down my script as it was dictated to me by Peter. With little time to practice, the next thing I knew I was in front of a microphone and 30 odd media and camera crew. I introduced the nights esteemed guests, explained the history of POY and managed media questions.

What an experience! As terrifying as it was, I am glad I was able to rise to the challenge, and very pleased I didn’t make any major mistakes.

During my PR career I am sure there will be many times I will need to think on my feet and make quick decisions. I guess this was a taster.

Whitney

Writing with Mr Malkovic and whats 'Left of Central'

The three weeks of ‘Left of Central’ have been very busy for me and the Central marketing team. Since the Launch party there have been activities, music, food and events on almost everyday that need to be coordinated by the marketing team.

I have been spending a lot of my time at helping out Leanne the events coordinator, anyway I can with setting up, packing up and any job in between to try and make each day run as smoothly as possible. I have found this part of my work experience fun, rewarding and hard work. The best part of being involved in the events was physically seeing the work you do transform a space into something people really enjoy. Often I found at the end of a day I would watch people use the space or be entertained by an event and think I helped make that happen.

During the ‘Left of Central’ I was also I was given the title of ‘Night Supervisor’ which basically meant packing up the street each day or after each event was finished. Apart from the heavy lifting I really enjoyed this opportunity and the responsibility given to me. It gave me the opportunity to use leadership and organisational skills. I has head of a team of people who packed up the street each evening and I directed them as to what needed to be done and the best way to go about it. I think I did a good job managing this task because the pack up became more and more efficient throughout the three weeks developed a rapport with the people I worked with.

The only time my patience was tested was packing up after the movie night on a Friday. A group of drunks walked through where we were packing up and jumped on all the bean bags, ran off with one of our trolleys and were generally an all around nuisance. I was very irritated by this but soon came to realise this is probably part and parcel of working in events and tried to busy myself in other areas while the drunks got bored and left.

to see what Left of Central was all about click here

It was easy to forget that even though ‘Left of Central’ was on there were still other things for the marketing team to do. In the last week of ‘Left of Central’ the marketing team and I were invited to take part in a writing workshop with former 730 Report journalist Tony Malkovic. I was pretty intimidated going into the workshop; I didn't know what the expectations were for writing and feared I wasn't up to scratch. I was soon put at ease though because the workshop was very inclusive and ended up being probably the best learning experience for writing I have ever done. I was practical, concise and didn’t get caught up in the ‘rules’ of grammar or punctuation but rather focused on ensuring that Central has a consistent style and we communicate as concisely and effectively as possible. The two main things I took out of the workshop were to try and use an active voice and avoid using to many adjectives, instead find a good verb. Although this may sound dry and dull it has helped me to make my writing far more engaging and easy to understand.

It saddens me that there is so few days left of my internship. I have been learning so much about what goes into a PR role and how to improve my skills I fear I'll end up forgetting some of it. I think the challenge now will be deciding what I enjoy most and trying to focus on that one thing. At the moment though I don't have a favorite part but enjoy doing a little bit of everything, from event preparation to writing press releases and blog stories.

Until my next and final Blog

Steaf

Trouble In Musical Paradise

Hello everyone!

I have been at Zaccaria Group for about 5 weeks now, completing my internship for two days a week. I have learnt so much since my first day about not only public relations but also marketing, advertising and maintaining important professional relationships.

Here at Zaccaria Group, we have recently been having a bit of "trouble in paradise", you might say. I have learned that things do not always run smoothly, as we would hope. What do you do when you are the promoter of a touring musician or act, you've expended your marketing and publicity budget, and tickets are just not selling? I had never considered before that tickets for a well-known show would not sell - as an avid concert-goer myself, I never really think about the logistics and workings behind actually selling a show. As members of the public, we just buy our tickets and attend, that's all there is to it. So I have had my first taste of crisis management in the music marketing industry. The artist at hand is Kate Ceberano - her regional WA shows are selling fantastically but Perth is just not buying it! We have promoted Kate over the past month on television (you can see the television advert in my previous post), radio, print articles and press releases, but still no cigar.

The last two marketing and finance meetings have revolved around strategising ways to improve sales - it has gotten to the point where it is vital to consider all other marketing avenues. The marketing budget has been completely spent, with only 30% of forecasted tickets sold. Not good. As the promoter of this tour, Zaccaria Group takes risks and must put on a show no matter what - cancelling the show is not an option. The worst-case scenario would be cancelling, and this is at the high probability of not only damaging our professional reputation, but also our relationships with the artist's management. Would they sign that deal with us again, knowing we cancelled on them last time? No, probably not. Instead, business would go to our competitors. Not only this, but the artist does not want to be playing a show to a half empty venue. Could you think of anything worse? I have learnt from this that maintaining relationships with important stakeholders is a key skill in public relations practice.

Our outlook in this situation is "SELL TICKETS NO MATTER WHAT!", we will proceed with the show at any cost, because nothing is worth sacrificing a reputation. Our strategy is to bring planned advertising forward a couple of weeks, so tickets start selling earlier rather than in a couple of weeks time. We have also arranged give aways with 96fm radio and changed advertising to different tv networks - we determined this by looking at shows which get the highest ratings, then liaise with that tv network to dedicate a 30 second spot during that prime time tv show. We can also tell that, for example, women over 30 are watching Channel 7 on a Sunday night because of a particular show being broadcast. This is all vital information which helps up strategise ways out of our "crisis".

We have also considered different ticketing strategies. Sometimes it comes into consideration to drop ticket prices so that sales take off, but at times this is not appropriate. Would it be beneficial to focus on selling a more expensive ticket package (such as a meet and greet after the show and a glass of champagne) to entice our audience? Tickets just might not be selling because people do not want to see a cheap show - they want an experience. Again, we need a good relationship with our artist and their talent management for this to occur - there will be no "meet and greet" if we have already hinted chance of cancelling the show.

So that is just one aspect of crisis management in the music PR industry that I have been faced with. I hope to report on my other tasks in my next blog, as I have just realised this has taken up far too much space already! Hope you found it interesting and please feel free to comment below. I also hope you are all enjoying your placements! It seems to be flying by, considering how daunting it seemed at the start!

Until next time,

Delta.

High Tea last weekend was success!!!

It was great to be involved in AAA high tea this year. It was the first time for me to see how the real event runs.  The event was attended by more than 200 animal’s lover in Perth, Western Australia. I am glad as I was a part of the event and a big success to AAA team for sure! We have raised $20.000 and the most important thing is we have raised some people’s awareness about AAA works and projects.  

I could say the high tea was running smooth .It was really enjoyable afternoon with lots of foods and drinks while at the same time we raised an amazing amount. The high tea started at 1 pm and AAA team were in the location before for setting up. The brief in regards of job description on each person have given a week before so everyone would know their responsibilities.  We were a bit nervous because things could go wrong on the day. 

It is important to remember before running an event as each person need to give a clear explanation about their roles on the day so everyone will know what they are doing and what organisation is expected.  It is also better to make sure the skills, interest, and experience of each person in order to know what position would be best for them. I also suggest that it is better to make everyone understand something could go wrong and how to avoid those things. There are some possibilities that could happen on the event. This was why everyone was given a brief a week before to make sure they understand what actions need to be taken to anticipate the negatives impact when it occur.

I had responsibility to make sure everything was going good. My job was to set up the market stall and AAA stall before the high tea started. After that, I need to make sure others stall already set up. We finished setting up everything before 1. Some of the guest already arrived as well and they had a lot of time to look around by visiting our stalls. The team was expected to be on board by welcoming the guest, helping the guest to find the seats, serving the guest when they wanted to buy something from the stalls, and etc.

 Janet Thomas as the founder of AAA started the high tea by giving a bit of speech and presentation.  The presentation was about AAA projects and what AAA has done so far in supporting working animals. After giving presentation, guests were served with very nice foods and drinks while they were enjoying their time with family or friends.  After that, we run the live auction which I found very interested. After 5 most of the guest already left and we started to pack up some of the stuffs.  

I just want to say a big huge thank you for everyone. I am glad I was part of the team for such a good course.

PR and Social Media

In my previous blog before, I have mentioned that I am working with non-profit organization, Animal Aid Abroad (AAA). There a lot of things that I learnt during working with AAA and this time, I want to share how social media is really important for PR especially when you have to work with very limited budget for your campaign. These days, public relation tends to use social media to communicate with their target public, to answer questions, to share any information about the new campaign or event.

For AAA, social media plays an important role as I have found they mostly share any information about their projects and events through social media. I have been using social media myself, however before I had no idea how social media would work for organization in real life. I always remember in my PR class I learned about how PR use social media as part of their strategies and tactics. I am glad that I could see and practice how to use it.

So, as part of AAA strategic and tactic in order to reach their goals and objectives, why did they use social media? These what I have found:

1. As non-profit organisation, AAA has very limited budget to spend. Social media is perfect to use as it does cost a little to no money at all.
2. Social media will help AAA to send out their message in order to get people who share the same thoughts together for a common cause. It is because social media will enlarge a message by connecting groups of people together.
3. AAA target public is around 18- 55 years old. Most of those target public are using social media to share things and communicate.
4. There are a lot of potential volunteers and donors for AAA projects who are using social media. AAA target public is not in Australia as the projects are worldwide. Everyone has a chance to support. There are millions of people around the world are using social media and there are always a chance to for them to be potential volunteers and donors for AAA projects.
5. It essential for AAA to keep their target public especially their memberships inform and social media is valuable tool. A lot of people have donated their money/time to support AAA projects and social media will help the donors to keep inform about their contribution into AAA projects.
6. Social media helps AAA to share any events, information and or anything that is happening within organization. It is a perfect way to raise people’ awareness about the issues because it is easy and quick. The goal to use social media is to get people’s thought about the issue and then to make them supporting the issue through AAA. .
7. Social media provide two ways conversation. It means, it is not only AAA who can share the information but people can also share their thoughts. People are freely to ask question to AAA through social media.
8. Social media allows AAA to monitor how people’ satisfaction of their works.

Social media is a valuable tool for PR; however as PR practitioner it is important to always make sure to use it right.

These are few things that you should always remember:

1. The first thing to know before posting online is the target public. Knowing your target audience is essential to avoid any misleading/wrong information. For AAA, PR practitioner has to keep in mind that AAA target public is not only in Australia but worldwide.
2. Second, to always make sure what your goal is.
3. Be honest by showing your audiences what is exactly happening within organization. As I mentioned before, a lot of people already supported AAA by donating into AAA projects. It is important to let them know what has been done with their money.
4. To communicate and update regularly so audience will always keep inform. It is important to update social media pages with the new content daily.
5. Act professionally. If you find out any negative comments about organisation in social media, response it wisely.

The use of social media is not only for non-profit such as AAA, but also for profit organisation. There is no limit whose can use it or not. Everyone can use it. This time, I just want to share what I have learnt during my internship about social media. It is such a great experience for me to see how the real organisations run. J See you guys in the next blog