First Week of Being a 'Socialite'

From the moment, I stepped into the office, the sound of me opening the door echoed the whole office; which made everyone turned around and looked at me. Walking into a new environment for an organisation is always daunting. However, any fears I’ve had and thought about of what Anthony Robbins has said about fears, I felt completely at ease as soon as I met Julian Amistad, the campaign manager. Julian had me set up with a desk sitting along with him and other campaign managers. Also, I had to set up new work e-mail along with my second Facebook account in order for me to look after the Socialite Media’s clients. 

The first task Julian has asked me to do was to know and understand the different clients that are partnering with Socialite Media. He mentioned to me that each clients experience services from Socialite Media under one of the following areas; social media advice, brand campaign management, training and education or short tern campaign management, and crisis management.

One of the client’s I had to learn was from a mining industry to Photography agency to Car Sales Company to restaurants, accommodations, and job consulting; which I felt exhausted, overwhelmed and challenging. Not only did I had to learn each of the client’s backgrounds, but I also had to know who are their stakeholders, who are their competitors, and opportunities that Socialite Media can provide for their business strategy plan for each of the clients.

However, I didn’t feel discourage and I told myself that it’s only the first week and it does get better. Someone once told me that if you feel under pressure and overwhelmed on the first week that you are on the verge of insomnia is a good sign, because it means you are actually learning from the organisation and learning what is like to be an employer’s shoes.

Lastly, I had to find various content for different clients and as well for the Socialite Media Facebook Page. One of the challenges I faced was tailoring content specifically to the page’s target market, as well as finding content that “likers” of the page responded well to and engaged with. Doing for one client at a time it’s easy, but doing for three to four clients in two hours max felt overwhelming in the beginning, but Julian has taught me that in by few weeks or few months depend how quickly I will learn will get much easier.

To sum it up, the first week was a challenging week; which made me grow and learn as a person and learn the areas of what I can do to improve myself for Socialite Media and what I can do for their clients. 

Blog References:  

• Diago Franco, E. (Photographer). (2013, January 29). My work Desk [Print Photo]. Retrieved from http://instagram.com/p/VJQq2NJmpD/

"Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride."

Hi everyone! As this is my first blog entry I thought it would be best to introduce myself. My name is Bianca and I am a 4^th year  Public Relations and Professional Writing student at Curtin University in Bentley, Perth.  

 

Now you’re probably wondering why I chose the title above for this post. Well, on my way to my very first day at Professional Public Relations (PPR), nerves running wild and stuck in the usual heinous morning traffic of the Mitchell Freeway, I found myself behind a car with those very words plastered to its rear window.  Now I’m not usually one to subscribe to bumper-sticker words of wisdom but that day I took a leap of faith and I did.

 

This past week at PPR has certainly been a ride to say the least, as from my very first day I was thrown straight into the hustle and bustle of the busy PR consultancy by driving around Perth dropping off Valentines Day cupcakes to the media on behalf of a client.  Instead of spending the whole task stressing about a) completing the drop in a reasonable timeframe and b) making sure each cupcake did not melt in transit – I made the conscious decision to embrace and actually enjoy the opportunity that I was given which thankfully turned out to be a great success. Besides giving me a much needed confidence boost on my first day, I also found the task to be as informative as it was exciting which has since given me a good sense of where the media is located across our city. In my opinion, this knowledge of who’s who and where in the Perth media is invaluable and something which will continue to benefit me throughout the duration of my internship as well as my career.  

 

Back in the office, I spent the rest of the week undertaking a combination of administrational and public relations related activities.  Some of these activities included media monitoring – a task that is done everyday, where local and state papers are scanned and any coverage of clients is documented in what are known as ‘media clippings.’ I was surprised to find that the layout of these media clippings actually resemble the layout which we used in a journaling assignment for PR Media 250. This familiarity was really welcoming and certainly helped take the edge off what was otherwise a new and unfamiliar task.

 

Finally one of my major tasks this week was to conduct phone interviews with successful recipients of a grant given by one of PPR’s clients.  The aim of these interviews is to source as many potential news stories (or leads as they are called) as possible. As I am a student from a professional writing background, I have had very little experience with interviewing throughout my degree apart from a Q&A assignment in PR Media 250.  As you can therefore imagine, I was absolutely terrified at the prospect of putting on my journalist’s cap and digging for a good community-news story! However despite starting off a bit shaky and unsure, I now feel very confident conducting phone interviews and have already managed to uncover some very poignant and potential news stories. Amongst the skills of interviewing and transcribing which I have learnt from this task, another very valuable insight I have taken away with me is the overlap that I can now see exists between the Public Relations and Journalism profession. Though my classes at Uni have touched on this in the past, it is definitely one thing to learn about this overlap theoretically and another to experience it in a real working environment. Needless to say, I have enjoyed the challenge that these interviews have presented and will continue to embrace the opportunity to grow and refine these new skills throughout remainder of my time at PPR.

 

I apologize for the very long entry but as you can see I have had a very busy week and can’t wait to see what my second week holds in store for me!

 

Until next time…