Sifting Through the Rubbish

On a daily basis we are exposed to millions of adverts, stories and information about the world and ourselves via a range of mediums. I don’t think that it has been until now that I realise the effort and work put into constructing this information for the world to see. We almost become oblivious to it, like it’s apart of everyday life. We wake up and the paper is in your mailbox. You don’t think about the people who have created it, or those who has crafted their images and writing to suit their clients needs and wants. This is a very selective process, one which takes times and effort. During my first week I learnt about this process and the skills needed to ensure that work is crafted to the highest standard, in order to give the client the best possible chance of receiving coverage. Some might ask how? It’s simply, or rather complex. You learn to sift through the rubbish.

On my second day I was asked to write a press release for a client who is opening a new gymnasium. In order to do this the steps are as followed

1. Research about the client and the new gym.
2. Produce ‘word vomit’ as my mentor likes to say.
3. Now its time to refine your writing skills.
4. Repeat step 3 multiple times until you believe all the refining is done.
5. Produce press release to the client
6. Repeat step 3, again until given the ok.

Something I thought would be a quick process, soon turned into a process that consumed half of my day. You see in step 1 its all about sifting through the rubbish and realising what is the essence of your story. This process is very much a form of art, because this information will form your story and your title.

Step 2 has to be my favourite. Now you must regurgitate that information and vomit it up onto the page. Hopefully following a pyramid structure. When I look back on my first go at writing the press release for the gym opening, it was all over the place and some key elements of the story were being lost. This is where Step 3 came in.

Step 3 is where you start shaving away at parts of the apple so to speak. Removing bits from here and changing words from there. This is where writing really becomes an art form. You learn to hone your writing skills. And this does take time. I’ve learnt that only practice will make me a better writer and maybe this is why I’ve been asked everyday this week to write a media release for a client, after all writing is a core foundation to PR.

Step 4. Yes, this step can be monotonous and tedious at times, but its essential to ensure the best possible coverage. It can be the simplest of thing during this process that can make the world of difference, to whether your story gets coverage or not. For example the title “Harper Family to Open New Gymnasium at St. Fredrick's Grammar” is far less appeal than “WA Premier to Open New Gymnasium”. No ordinary citizen would know who the Harper family is, but EVERYONE knows who the WA Premier is. Instantly your story has newsworthiness and coverage. And you now have a happy client.

So for us as PR students I encourage you all to practice your ‘sifting through the rubbish’, your writing and your refining, after all it is these skills that along with appealing and captivate photos that engage people and hopefully bring your client coverage.  But for now, what do you guys think is the most important skill in PR?

Georgia

Learning How to Socialise

Wednesday 12^th August 2015

Hello, it’s time again to reflect upon my learning at Clarity Communications. The past few days of my internship have largely involved social media, an area that I have been looking forward to learning more about.

I was given the opportunity to have a go at social media content creation and scheduling. This was a great insight into how brands and businesses plan out their social media posts across all platforms to be published over a given time frame. In this case I was scheduling posts for the months of August and September for Celebrate WA, a not-for-profit celebrating the people, places and past of WA.  

I wrote the content for the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts in an Excel spreadsheet document. Content was driven by the direction of the client with some additional suggestions such as events and articles that could be included. A screenshot of the content schedule template can be seen below.

 

A screenshot of the social media content schedule used to plan posts

After the client approved the schedules I was allowed to log into the various social media management tools online to schedule the posts for the months ahead. Facebook posts were planned on Facebook, while Hootsuite was used for Twitter and Postso was used for Instagram. Prior to doing this task I was naïve to the fact you could schedule Instagram posts, which in hindsight seems a little silly as there seems to be an online tool to help businesses complete every task possible!

A 'conversational' Facebook post for Celebrate WA

Through being involved in the scheduling of posts I also learnt to plan posts for times when social media platforms are their busiest: early morning as people wake up and leave for work, mid-day when people are on their lunch break and late afternoon/evening when people are settling in for the night.  Therefore, posts were scheduled at times such as 7am, 8am, 12.30pm and 7pm.

The challenges of social media content creation, for me, were finding a suitable image for each post (using sites such as Iconosquare) and developing content that was interesting and relevant to followers. It is so important to make the effort to discover what types of people are interacting with your social media channels in order to curate content that engages them time and time again. For the purpose of Celebrate WA’s social media pages content is created to interest people living in WA and who share an interest in WA events, people, news, special interest pieces and places.

Getting involved in the social media for clients at Clarity has been one of my favourite tasks so far.  I have discovered so many new tools and resources, so I am really looking forward to seeing what else I can learn during my internship!

What has been your favourite learning experience so far? Let me know in the comments.

Candice

Research and Writing: Two Pillars of PR

Friday, July 10^th 2015

I am back on the blog after 7 days of interning at Clarity and I am really enjoying it!  The first few days I was busy researching various opportunities for the firm, including a ‘reverse brief’ to be delivered to a property client who was looking to repurpose their CBD office building. For those who are unaware of what this is, as I was until it was explained to me, a reverse brief is when external agencies are asked to provide the client with an indication of their understanding and interpretation of the brief.  One of Clarity’s campaign strategists had suggested the prospect of co-working space, so my research involved compiling a document detailing the opportunities for co-working spaces in Perth, existing spaces and creative ideas to be given to the client.

My other tasks involved assisting members of the strategy team in researching topics such as niche foodie publications for a food truck event, the battery industry for an energy firm entering the Australian market and Scottish social media communities and publications in Perth for a potential event job. I was also invited to provide my own creative ideas for some client work, such as putting together itinerary suggestions for Celebrate WA’s WA Girl Abroad trip in which a girl from Perth had won a trip to London to represent the state as part of their #WADay campaign earlier this year. You can see what Celebrate WA’s WA Girl Abroad got up to on her trip here.

Through interning at Clarity I have developed a greater appreciation for research, as I have seen first hand how vital it is to the work of a communications consultancy. Research provides consultants with a strong understanding of each client’s business, competitors, customers, opportunities and threats, thus ensuring the services delivered are of value and relevance to the client.  So, although some may find research a little dull, I felt that my work was providing valuable insight to the strategy team and provided information that could be used in the development of strategies and pitches to clients.

I also got the chance to do some writing, an area that is of particular interest to me. I was asked to shadow the writing of two media releases for Kentz, an international engineering solutions firm. This was an exciting task for me, as I was able to compare my writing to that of an experienced public relations advisor. The subject of both briefs was technical, but I enjoyed the challenge and the feedback provided to me upon completing the two media releases was invaluable.

To top it all off I got invited to write a blog post about a topic of my choosing to be published on the Clarity blog, A Moment of Clarity. This was a fantastic chance for me to showcase my writing style and creativity to my supervisor. I also knew that my blog post would not only be reflecting upon myself, but also the firm, so I put a lot of effort into writing a piece that I was proud of. Hopefully I will be able to share the link to my post on this blog before the end of semester!

And that was the end of a busy first week at Clarity! I can’t wait to see what the next week brings. How was your first week of interning? Tell me about it in the comments below.

Candice

Finding Clarity

Monday, 6^th July 2015

Hello, welcome to my blog! I am Candice Stevens, and this is where I will be reflecting on my experiences throughout my internship at Clarity Communications. First, let’s start off with how I got to where I am today: an intern at Clarity.

When completing the PR Consultancy unit in semester 1, my interest in public relations consultancy was piqued.  Initially, the concept of consultancy was unbeknown to me. I had obviously heard of companies that provides communications services to other companies, however had never really stopped to consider what a career in consulting work could entail. There was a lot of discussion throughout the semester over the pros and cons of in-house vs. consultancy. So, I decided that I wanted to apply for an internship position within a public relations consultancy so that I could decide for myself if consulting work was for me, or whether I would be better suited to working in-house.

Having done some research into the consultancies that were in Perth, I decided to call Clarity Communications. A meeting was organised and not long after that I was preparing for my first day in the Clarity office.

Clarity Communications is a boutique communications agency in Perth offering a full suite of services to organisations such as Mirvac, Celebrate WA, Wesfarmers and City of Armadale. The firm is divided into Strategy, Creative and Digital teams, with consultants working together to deliver public relations, graphic design, and digital and social media expertise to clients. The firm is well known within the industry and services a wide range of clients, so I was excited to have been given the opportunity to learn from their experiences. 

I was feeling a little nervous by the prospect of my first day in a professional office, however I was thrown into it from the moment I arrived so there was no time to get overwhelmed!

I was welcomed into a meeting with the strategy team, who were in discussions over their activities for the coming week. It was in this meeting that I met the public relations consultants I would be working alongside and was given my tasks for the day. 1) To find the Twitter handles for each contact on Clarity’s extensive media list (100s upon 100s of local, national and international journalists and publications) and 2) to compile research to be used in the development of a proposal for a potential client in the property industry.

Finding the Twitter handles was an arduous but necessary task, so although it was eye-straining work, I knew my efforts would be appreciated. While the research I conducted for the strategy proposal was interesting and introduced me to the diversity of work a public relations consultancy is involved in.  So all in all the first day was a valuable learning experience and a sign that I was embarking on an internship that would deliver exciting challenges, opportunities and insights.

To wrap up, I have devised three questions coming into this experience that I will hopefully be able to answer upon completing my internship in a few months time. These are:

1.     Am I suited to consultancy work?

2.     What attributes do I value in a workplace?

3.     What skills and knowledge do I still need to work on?

Now I’ll throw it you: what questions do you hope to have answered by the end of your internship experience? Let me know in the comments below.

Candice

Media Relations: An Malaysian Perspective

Media relations looks to be a whole different ball game here in Malaysia.

At GO Communications in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, it appears to be common practice to mass distribute press-releases to a huge host of daily newspapers, magazines and online publications. Even for broadcast media, it is assumed they will show up to an invited event because it is their job to do so, without having to play a certain angle or convince them of the newsworthiness of your story. Amazingly enough, it seems to work!

Through my experience running public events with the Curtin University PR Student Chapter and from discussions with current journalists, I can tell you it is NOT that easy to pull media coverage in a small city like Perth. Even our lecturers teach that it is a struggle to pique the interest of journalists and editors; and that presenting a customized press release or proposal to every publication or broadcaster is a necessity.

The distinctive difference I've noticed between Perth and Kuala Lumpur is a big one: the number of media outlets is vastly higher. While WA has only 2 prominent newspapers (The West Australian and The Sunday Times), Kuala Lumpur has 4x as many large-scale newspapers, published in 4 languages - English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil.  

See the links below for full lists:

Malaysia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Malaysia

Western Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_published_in_Western_Australia

When you are one of a limited number of outlets, you don’t have to try too hard to produce original content. You can sit back and take your pick from the variety of stories sent your way. Multiply that number of media by 4x and suddenly you are willing to take on just about anything to give yourself an edge over your competitors.

But don’t despair Australia! There is another important aspect to consider.

While it may be a lot easier to get your story in the media in Malaysia, the variety of publications available means that the circulation rate of each is going to be lower. Less choice means more people getting their news from the same outlet. Just because you increase the choice by 10x, it doesn’t mean readers are going to buy 10x more magazines and newspapers.

This example proves how important it is to selectively target media outlets who talk specifically to your target audience using a tailored pitch, whether it be in Australia or Malaysia.

Do you agree with my suppositions about media relations across countries? How would you approach media relations for an international PR project - with your own countries methods or anthers? Let me know in the comments below.

You Can’t Rush a Rush Job

So it’s 4pm and you’ve still got one hour of mind-dulling media research to go before you switch of your screen and head home. You’ve just settled your brain into stand-by mode for the next 55 minutes, when out of the blue, your supervisor realizes that no-one has been on the job of scripting speaking points for the Global GM and National GM of an international company, who are in the middle of an acquisition. Suddenly your up and you have two (yes TWO) high-profile speeches due by next morning.

For the next 45 minutes you’re struggle to kick-start your creativity writing into gear, but it seems to have run out of mileage an hour too early.

6pm is ticking closer and now you have to make the critical decision: Stay late or smash it out in the 2 hours you have before its due tomorrow morning. 

You suddenly get the feeling like your back in university, making the all-important choice between watching one more episode of Orange is the New Black or breaking out that assignment you have due in the next 24hrs. Now that you’re actually working for a client and representing your company, the pressure is higher than ever and you have to truly weigh up the quality of work you can produce in limited time. Dusting your assignment with colour-coded graphs or intelligent articulations isn't going to impress your boss or your client, as it may have done your 2nd year professors.

When it comes down to it you can’t rush an important task, even when your client only gives it to you last-minute. Even as an unpaid intern you have a responsibility to produce quality work, especially when you’re handed a job that would otherwise be completed by an account manager. You need to show up and deliver, on time. 

As much as you try, you can’t always stick to your perfectly scripted timeline, because clients don’t really like to be bossed around by someone they are employing (i.e. you, the PR consultancy).

 For a career in PR, be prepared to arrive early, work late, and even put in hours on the weekends if you’re running events. 

Let’s be real, it’s not going to 7am-10pm every day, but PR work usually comes in ebbs and flows so there are definitely going to be days where you’ll have to put in the extra effort, and you probably won’t be paid for it. It is a sacrifice we make to do we work we love.

Don’t believe me? Have a look at these facts from the Bureau of Labour Statistics, USA:

 http://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/public-relations-specialists.htm

How has your experience with PR been so far? Is there the same expectation to work over-time doing in-house PR vs. Consultancy? Do you think this expectation fits into Australia's Gen. Y ideal of the work-life balance? Let's discuss in the comments.