A challenge in a different country - PR in Asia

Hi all!

I am Jun and i started my internship at a new Automotive company called M&H Elegant Auto Care in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was a company founded by an entrepreneur and a business partner who had over 15 years of experience in the industry. The business was founded to provide the best auto care service like no other in an industry already dominated by hundreds of similar companies.

Being in Asia, the world of PR is vastly different than what we have learnt during the course of our education in Curtin. When i first started my first day i was quite excited and motivated to just get through this semester and internship with the best of my abilities. Little did i know that my enthusiasm and energy was not well accepted in such a hostile environment. From what i knew, my co-workers were quite shocked and taken aback to my forwardness and my interactions with them. I slowly learnt day by day that getting to know them took time and effort and being friendly doesn't guarentee their loyalty and friendship either. People in the company and also in the industry definitely needed time to get to know me and to show my abilities and what i can do for them before they accepted me as one of their own.

It was a culture shock and a lesson i learnt that was so essential when i was given the task to communicate and provide media releases to news corporations and events companies because if i were to approach them the way did on my first day, i do not believe i would achieved anything for my supervisor. The world of PR in malaysia is more conservative and strict compared to Australia and there are many guidelines to follow if one was to be a successful PR practioner in Malaysia.

My journey continues!

Jun
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We are living in an online world

Wow, its already week 3 of my internship… Time goes way too fast! I’m sure some people are wishing it were over however I am really enjoying it. It will be sad to leave. Yes, you have to wake up early to get there, and yes you have to sit in traffic on the way there, but the responsible feeling you get knowing that you have ‘work’ to get to is quite exciting. Half of the working world would be rolling their eyes at me right now, thinking ‘just give it a few years of full time work and you’ll see’.

Anyway, the one thing I love about this work is that there is never a day that’s the same. You can’t really plan exactly what tasks you have to do for the day, you only really know once you get there and see what needs to be done.

I have been writing quite a bit of content for their website and the best part about that is that you get to see it go up online. Unlike journalism, your name may be put as the directors or you may not get a by-line at all however it is nice to know that you wrote that and its up where anyone can view it. If you were a speechwriter, the person saying the speech gets the credit for his inspirational words. In a PR world you very much work as a team to develop content. Everyone has input, gives advise and feedback on how they would prefer to see something written. The feedback I get from my supervisor is really excellent. She comes from a writing background and therefore I appreciate everything she has to tell me in regards to my written work. I am very luck that she is so approachable and that I feel involved and included in everything.

It is too hard to describe everything I did so I wrote a list this week-

This week I:

-       Added events to the twitter timeline I am making (to keep their social media presence going)

-       I tweeted about 5 times on different things on the 32dsg twitter page. (I have been made an administrator of their Facebook page, twitter and one of their clients pages.  – I made Facebook comments on our page (Please like 32dsg page and NGALA, Emergence, oZAPP if you can!  

-       I wrote 2 blogs for their website in the blog section- One about Malcolm Bryce receiving the National Pearcey medal and one about AWARD school graduation. Check them out on http://32dsg.com/blog/

-       I worked with the Social Media Coordinator on a social media strategy for 32 dsg

-       I wrote up a list of companies similar to 32 dsg in WA to see what they are doing differently and where we could improve

-       I am preparing a few things that are coming up for us- there’s a few events that I will have to write some news pieces for and blogs (my to do list is getting bigger)

As you can see a lot of the things I do are social media based and website content based however everything these days goes online. Even our clients put our media releases up on their websites. It is nice to know that nothing we do in this business goes to waste. Everything gets used somewhere. For example I wrote an article that had more positives for one of our clients then 32 dsg so they said they would use it on their website instead.

Next week on Wednesday I will be going with the team to an event organised by 32 called Sharing Healthy Conversations which is a chance for carers and those with disabilities to share their thoughts on how they can better communicate. I have been given the job of being a scribe (writing down peoples answers to questions) but this is also a chance for me to understand how the event was organised and then carried out. It is also a chance for me to get all the information I need first hand for the news piece I will write for their website.

While doing all of this there is so much else to do in terms of the PR strategy I am trying to develop for them.

So much to do! But that’s exactly why it is such an interesting and enjoyable place to work. There isn’t a day where I’m holding out for 5pm so I can go home.

I hope your still enjoying your internships!

Thanks again for reading,

Martine.