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/

Last few days... offered a job!

Super excited about this being my last post, I can now start writing this huge report! I honestly don’t know how in a few thousand words I can describe what I’ve learnt and explain what I’ve done it doesn’t seem to serve the experience justice. To say the least I have done way more than I thought I would or could do and I’m so stocked with the whole time at my prac place Gymnastics WA.

During my time over the semester I have designed and written a sponsorship package, written many media releases and liaised with many local media personal, organised photo shoots and liaised with some well-known journalists and set up a webpage and produced a heap a news bulletins, just to name a bit.

The coolest stuff i've done laterly has been organising media. I've been the Media Officer at GWA since the start of term and have built great contacts, the event I'm involved with is recieving coverage from The West Australian and Not Another Footy Show, and I'm in talks with Foxtel and Channel 7!

What I have learnt has been through doing and its pushed me out of my comfort zone which has challenged me. Working at GWA where they don’t have a public relations person meant I had to jump right into the deep end and apply my knowledge of the skills I had learnt at uni in theory into practice.

The hardest thing for me to overcome was learning through doing and the mistakes I made because I prefer to learn by watching first. This meant I learnt through my failures and by the things that weren’t great, which was a reality check for me, in that in the real world you won’t be told what you’re doing well necessarily only by the things that need improving.

The greatest improvement for me has been my writing, I honestly struggled to write a media release at the beginning of my Prac, now I can write one in 5 minutes no problem. I knew before my work experience that I was well spoken in person but I found this hard to translate into text, this has been something that I’ve defiantly improved with.

I have seen firsthand a well-run organisation that doesn’t utilise the benefits of public relations and have seen how quickly it has benefited from someone implementing public relations techniques. Through my experience I have learnt so much (cliché I know) and have surprised myself. I surprised the event partner too, he offered me a job!

So goodbye blog and good luck to everyone with their reports

Peace out trouts

A Rewarding Experience

Hi all,

I have now finished my placement at Inhouse Group, a business development/design/marketing company located in Mandurah. I can now safely say that this work experience opportunity has been the most helpful thing with regard to improving my skills in the hope of getting my degree.

On my final day, my supervisor asked me to put all my documents (press releases, articles, marketing documents etc) on a USB for him in case they ever need to use them again. While looking through my documents to give to him, i came across the first press release i wrote for them, on my first day. It was then i realised how much i really have improved in my writing since then, and how quickly this improvement can happen when placed in a real life environment.

I talked to the managing director of the company after this and he even said he saw how much i improved, and i understood much better the best way to write for external publications. I really feel that this opportunity has been invaluable in developing my writing skills, and as i discussed with the boss, seeing my work published in the paper or online is more rewarding than any good mark - I'm sure many of you will agree it's a great feeling to see your work in a public domain for real life purposes instead of on a sheet of paper in your workbook!

Though there were days during my internship where i was really bored and really badly wanted to go home, im sure that happens in any job and upon leaving i almost felt sad! Even though i was only there two days a week i did get used to it and it's kind of weird having left now!

My supervisor Jesse as well as the managing director Clinton both said i was welcome back there any time and Jesse even suggested i come back even for one day a week and work on some marketing projects with the graphic designers - in my last few days i explored the process of making print advertisements, which included lengthy brainstorming sessions with the graphic designers and working out what kind of writing and pictures would be best to target the appropriate market. Our creations will be for Harvey Norman Commercial in the Sunday Times TV Guide in the coming months so I will be keeping an eye out! Anyway Jesse said i was welcome to come back weekly and work on similar projects which i really enjoyed so depending on how i go getting a job etc i may well take him up on that! Since Inhouse group are a small company and have only been around a couple of years they do not yet have the capacity to hire a specific PR/Marketing person but i would value the further experience all the same!

Another thing I explored and learned more about during my placement was the difference between PR and marketing. The topic has been discussed in recent blogs below and it just goes to show how working in a real environment can be really helpful in discovering the similarities and differences between the two concepts, and learning which area i enjoy more - surprisingly at uni i have always enjoyed marketing more but since my placement I have really warmed to PR!

Now to focus on uni for the final 2 weeks of classes EVER! (provided i pass all my units...) but luckily i began my final report at the start of my placement 10 weeks ago and have now pretty much finished it so I am really glad i dont have that to worry about!

Anyway as I wrap up my final blog entry for PR 393 I just want to share how you can really see how much you've improved in all relevant skills by the end of your placement, and it may not be until then that you do but it is a very rewarding experience. Hope you're all still enjoying yours :)

Eva Buckley - Bentley

14271599

Daffodil Day

Hey Everyone!

It's been a few weeks since my last post - I'm sure you've all been as busy with Uni and your internships as I have!

I'll pickup where I left off - which was lecturing on about my realization of the importance of true organisation. What a mystery solved!

Within my internship at Curtin I then had Daffodil Day and when it arrived it was supremely hectic, but really exciting as well. I had to try and juggle volunteers pulling out, arrangements for the flowers and preorders to be prepared. This was also while doing little odds and ends like music and merchandise setup that popped up along the way - it really made me open my eyes and mind to relax and solve any issues that came up. All in all it was a very successful day and well worth it for the Cancer Council.

We raised $3600 - which was an improvement off the total of last year and was more than our target aim. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and loved being able to work in an environment that was so people friendly and included community involvement. I think working in this internship has shown me that I really do have a passion for community and charity work, particularly in the PR field.

Thats all for me - I'll probably write another blog up at the end of this week with some details of the John Curtin Weekend!

Cheers,

Bec

Bentley Campus