Hi fellow PR393 bloggers!
After getting advice from older
friends, who recently entered the ‘real’ working world, I fixed my resume and
casually searched on Google for ‘PR companies Perth’. I have to admit that I
had only heard of PPR
and Linc and I was surprised to see quite a
few others that I had never heard of.
University has taught me that any
experience is good experience and therefore it didn’t really matter where my
placement was going to be. Therefore, I continued searching with an open mind.
However, as I fielded through the different company sites I realised I wanted
to complete my placement in an organisation that dealt with both not-for-profit
and for-profit work. If this didn’t work out for me (of course doubt comes with
every first timer) I was more than happy to take any experience and put in my
best effort no matter what.
Looking at my resume I wished I had
taken a university break to complete some other PR or Journalism related
experience. I started to lose confidence in my abilities and worthiness to
apply at any of the companies I was looking at. However, this was the
opportunity to do exactly what I had never had the time or confidence to do.
Since I am doing Journalism as well I
learnt that the best way to make a phone call is to be prepared with exactly
what you’re going to say to avoid any umm’s and ahh’s or ‘likes!’ I phoned up
each of the companies I was interested in and all of them asked me to send
through my CV.
I finally got a call from 32 Degrees South (32dsg) and I was asked to
come in for an interview. What to expect! No matter what, this was a great time
to learn what its like to go for an interview. At university we learn to tell
the truth about everything we have done and can offer. Therefore my approach to
it was to say:
I haven’t had much out-of-university
PR experience, probably because of my total commitment to university work and
my casual job. However I can offer you what I have learnt so far and hopefully
learn from you and everyone else who works at 32 Degrees South if given the
opportunity.
I also prepared answers to questions
that they may ask me such as:
Q. Why did you choose 32 Degrees
south as the place to complete your work experience?
Q. Why do you think we should choose
you to complete your work placement at 32 degrees south?
Q. What do you think is your biggest
flaw as a person or as a worker?
Q. Why did you choose journalism and
PR?
Q. What skills have you learnt in PR
that you could bring with you to 32 degrees south?
A. (Media
releases, events planning, Social Media strategies, Strategic consulting plans,
Website design, Sponsorship understanding, Issue analysis. Journalism
background (interview techniques, current affairs, writing articles)
Q. What does PR mean to you or how
would you define it?
A. PR
is the relationship and communication between an organisation and its publics
whether internal or external. How a company communicates its vision and
mission to its publics and ultimately achieves its goals. And that’s
where we come in to show them how to do this in the most effective way.
I was way too over prepared!
Nevertheless, I like to feel that way before going into anything I do because
then you feel like you can deal with anything that comes your way. As well as
the fact that no matter what happens you know you did the ‘best that you could
of possibly done’.
I got the placement! And have just
completed my first week at 32dsg! (3 days a week Wed, Thurs and Fri)
32dsg is an events management and
communication-consulting firm in Shenton Park consisting of three main
employees. While a small company their goal is to grow even bigger, using the
digital world to their full advantage. The idea they had for me was to be
involved in getting their company name out there. They have a lot of clients
including oZAPPs (previously WApps), Emergence,
Feeding WA, Six Senses and Ngala and therefore do not have time to
focus on themselves as a company.
I have therefore come at a good time
to create for them a Public Relations Plan for their own company to map out
where they need and want to go as a consultancy firm and what are the best
methods of getting there.
Working with the Social Media Coordinator I
will also be helping out with monitoring, content creating and moving them onto
different social media platforms to allow for wider exposure.
This was all daunting to me but I did
not let this show! Because of University units throughout my degree I have a
Blogger account and a Twitter account (and of course a Facebook account) however
I never go on Blogger or Twitter. I went to a friend and she taught me
everything there was to know about twitter so I could come into ‘work’ the next
week no longer a ‘twitter dummy’.
What I’ve been up to:
Day 1, I worked mainly on researching
prominent bloggers and tweeters, developing a database of those who had
potential for us to approach them to come and feature blog for 32DSG. I
collected and collated them into an excel document (linked below) according to
which clients they would suit as well as documenting how many followers they
had on twitter. It was quite difficult to find bloggers that suited 32dsg’s
client base.
Blogging seems to be such a woman
dominated platform (very fashion orientated, and emotional- which makes sense
because as you can see from what I have written so far, we cant stop talking or
thinking!) I was looking for bloggers who spoke about technology, charity,
parenting or adventure. I managed to find at least 12 that were worthy of
looking into and by then it was 5pm! Days seem to go so fast here (must be
because I’m enjoying it!)
Day 2, I was asked to write an
article about the launch of the oZAPPS awards, using my journalism skills to
add to the news page on 32dsg’s website. This was the first time I really saw
why journalism and PR people don’t get on! PR people do all the work for
journalists! All the quotes were available in media releases written by 32dsg
employees and all the information on the event and prominent organisers were on
the websites. The trickiest part was making the article sound professional, not
let it sound like a media release (had to have something newsworthy in it) and
make sure it does not sound like a blog! I managed to turn a media release into
a journalistic article.
I sent it through to the Social Media
Coordinator and the Director and
both were extremely happy with it. After a few touch ups it should be going
onto their news page on their website! Day 2 and I already start to feel
worthwhile and confident in my work. While this was more journalism then PR, I
truly saw how they work together and how important they are to each other in
order promote a company.
Day 3 and I have begun looking into
writing a PR plan for 32dsg. This is a HUGE task since in university we have
always worked in groups to produce a plan. However I do have a lot of time here
and this is the experience we hope for. I don’t necessarily have to finish it
by the end of my placement but I will be putting in my over all best effort!
I am truly enjoying my experience so
far at 32dsg and love the relaxed yet busy lifestyle every employee leads.
Gosh, from starting off with thinking
‘what am I going to say’, I have truly over done this blogg! I hope I have not
bored any of you to tears!
Until next week!
Enjoy everyone, no matter what were
all doing, it’s an experience!!!
Martine xxx
(Collection of bloggers)
