From office to on-location... all in a days work

Hello everyone,

This post is a little out of sync because for some reason the draft did not save!
Today I wanted to talk about the days where I would work on-location and then return to the office to complete things of vice versa.

It's an interesting feeling arriving in city early, before everything is open and people have started moving.
On one occasion we were in Central Park for a conference on Homelessness Prevention Week. It was a morning convention and it meant setting up and providing morning tea for attendees (including Lord Major Lisa Scaffidi), laying out name tags, setting up flyers and banners and making sure there were microphones and other IT prepared and ready to go.
Once the conference was over we packed down and headed back to the office to de-brief and finish up tasks just like a normal day. It's disorientating when you go from a fast paced morning to a slow afternoon.
But I think this was one of my favourite things about working in events. It meant days got mixed up and changed around and not every day was the same.

Did anyone else have this experience?
Did you enjoy being on-location?

Bridgette

Important Lessons for Fundraising against Social Stigma

Before I started my internship I thought that fundraising was just asking publics for money and crossing my fingers that they were feeling generous that day. I had an expectation that 90% of people who I asked would donate $5 or $10, simply because it was 'the right thing to do'. 

I don’t think that anymore.

Through the weeks I’ve spent with Activ I have learnt that fundraising is much, much more than that. I’ve learnt that it’s an art, one that relies on meticulously sculpting the public’s opinion of your organisation so that they will validate the work you do with donations. I’ve learnt that fundraising is a lot like marketing; to be successful you need to research your target audience and sell your organisation to that group as effectively as possible. I’ve learnt that it’s the bread and butter for Activ – and all not-for-profits for that matter – and that successful fundraising isn’t just ideal, it’s crucial.

What about when the public already has opinions?

Although there have been great strides in disability rights, there is still a stigma surrounding those living with disabilities. The general public has detached themselves from the disabled community and has little desire to connect with the issues they face, let alone an organisation such as Activ. As you can imagine, this makes fundraising with the wider community difficult; akin to shouting at a pair of deaf ears.

So how does Activ encourage the public to listen?

Rather than attempting to bridge the entire gap between the wider community and the disabled community, Activ endeavours to bond the wider community to a particular client by telling their unique story and how the organisation has helped them. By honing in on a particular issue, it is easier for the general public to understand what it's truly like for people living with disabilities and see the real impact Activ has on their lives. By connecting with the client, and comprehending exactly what Activ does for them, the general public becomes more inclined to donate to the organisation because they know exactly what (or whom) their money is supporting. 

 James is an Activ client who was the focal point of the organisations 2014 Christmas appeal. The communication department published the story of him and his Grandmother in magazines and in newspapers, as well as online. 

The advantages of storytelling was an important lesson about connecting public's with not-for-profit causes, particularly because many organisations are often fighting community stigmas in order to bring about social change and fight for their mission.

ReachOut.com uses videos to showcase the individual stories and struggles of people going through tough times to help break the stigma surrounding youth mental illnesses.

My top three social media tips

I’ve spent a lot of time on social media throughout my internship. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter… you name it, I probably did it! Here’s some tips I picked up that might help you execute a social media strategy. 

 

Be a consistent poster

Social media is not a static tool, it’s something you need to update regularly. I updated each platform once every two days to keep content fresh and different each time a person sees it. I also started a post series called “Pearl Tip Tuesday” and each Tuesday a new tip about pearls and their care is posted. I thought this would be a good way to get a sense of regularity and get people looking back through older posts. It’s been a good strategy so far, and will likely become a great tactic to keep in mind. 

 

A picture says a thousand words

Did you know that including a picture in a Facebook post increases engagement (likes, comments, shares) by 39 per cent*? I was lucky at my company to have a big bank of beautiful photos to use in social media. Almost all of my posts had a picture attached as well, which makes the social media profile much more interesting and varied. If a posts pops up in someone’s newsfeed as well they’re much more likely to look at it if there’s an interesting picture as well. 

 

Prepare in advance

Although social media has an advantage in being current and great for news updates, it’s really time consuming to post every day and it will often get pushed by the wayside when there’s other more pressing tasks. As such, I used Hootsuite to schedule posts to the company’s Twitter profile and Facebook’s scheduling feature to save time down the track. I ended up scheduling three months of posts in one sitting, which was a much more efficient way of doing things. We also posted more recent content from events and media as they happened, to make sure the page also had a sense of currency. It was a good strategy overall.

Do you have any social media secrets? Please feel free to share in the comments.

*7 Powerful Facebook Statistics You Should Know About: http://www.fastcompany.com/3022301/work-smart/7-powerful-facebook-statistics-you-should-know-about

The importance of corporate partnerships

Hi All,

This is my third week interning at the Breast Cancer Research Centre WA and I'm really enjoying it!

Being a small charity, the number of staff 'employed' is also quite small. Needless to say, there is no PR department per se, and thus being the only PR person there is quite scary!

The organisation is relatively new and are looking to develop relationships with potential corporate sponsors. This has been my first task to undertake and it is proving more difficult than I first anticipated.

BCRC-WA are hosting an event in October (which I am in charge of) to which these potential partners will be invited, and the guest list is set to include CEO's of large West Australian corporations, such as Fortescue Metals Group, Wesfarmers and Monadelphous to name a few. Getting in touch with the CEOs of these huge corporations is extremely intimidating to say the least, and is also proving quite difficult. There are so many gatekeepers in place to filter the amount of calls received by executives, so making sure your call gets through is obviously important and also timely.

Similarly, the time it takes to determine whether an organisation is likely to partner with BCRC-WA is also lengthy - I never realised there were so many rules and regulations in place for corporate partnerships! For instance, banks will only become involved if they are the only financial institution included; most mining corporations only partner with environmental or outback/indigenous community initiatives, etc.

This said though, I am still loving my internship. The workload is a lot more intensive than I originally anticipated and the responsibility placed on me is far greater than any other internships I've previously undertaken, and it's great. The general manager of BCRC-WA (to whom I am answerable) sees me as a 'real' PR person, given that I am only five weeks away from completing my degree (which still frightens me beyond belief) and it's providing me with so much valuable knowledge and insights into the PR industry.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Ashni

Media Pitch - Scored!

This should most probably be my last post on this blog.

To end it off, I'm gonna post my best (by far) working experience at Ogilvy PR.

I was kind of rambling on about my love-hate relationship with media calls in my previous post. This time round, I got to do a little more than media call downs.

This week, half of my team were on leave. With that, my supervisor and I had to take on some of their job scope, one of which includes media pitching for a client. Although they may sound the same, the difference between media call downs and media pitching was quite big for me. When I did media call downs, all I had to do was to confirm if the media had received the email sent to them earlier.

My supervisor gave me the task to draft the email pitch for the media. Just when I thought the pitch was over, she told me to do the pitch calls for media. You could say I turned blue in the face almost immediately. I think at that point of time, only thing that was running through my head was, "What if I screwed this up?" It was a really important pitch.

So, practice makes perfect. My supervisor got me to draft out what I would say to the media on the phone and had me practice the pitch with her quite a number of times. With much encouragement and practice, I dare say I delivered the media pitching quite well.

Then came the email from a television broadcast station saying they were interesting in interviewing our client for their news program. Boy was I elated!

Okay, to cut the long story short, I became the media liaison between the client and the broadcast station, which was quite an experience for me.

Where does school comes into place in this situation? Media relations 250 definitely!

Apart from learning the importance of maintaining a relationship with the media, what else came in handy was the lessons from the interview assignment where we had to prepare an interview brief for the client as well as the "Do's and Don'ts" during an interview.

The client was invited to do a live television interview and my supervisor had to prepare the briefing documents for him and was asking around for some "Do's and Don'ts". Luckily for her,  I still had some notes from the lesson and could share it with her.

The 4 key things to note during an interview are:




1. Make the Point you want to make
2. Back that point up with a Reason
3. Provide an Example to illustrate your point
4. Restate your main Point again to make it really clear

A very great reminder!

And with that, this post marks the last entry of my PR393 Reflective Blog for internship at Ogilvy PR. The past two months has been eventful, and I hope the blog posts has been insightful and helpful to all of you!

Have an awesome internship everyone!

Media call downs - a love-hate relationship

This is how I feel when someone rude picks up my call.

One of the things I've done as an intern is media call downs. What is that? It's basically making follow up calls to the respective media from the client's media list, checking whether they have received a media invite/release and if they are interested in covering it. The media list usually consists of publications, trade publications, broadcast, online publications and bloggers.

Don't get me wrong. I actually do enjoy doing media call downs, because it means talking on the phone, and having the chance to get better each time. But there are the times when you face nasty people who snap and hang up the moment you mention where you are from.

I do most media call down for the same clients, as such, I would always make calls to the same few media. I think there might come a point where they start taking note of the number I used to call, and even my name. To this point, I realise that this comes under part of "forming a relationship" with the media. Yes, despite the nasty media I faced, there are a few media that I love speaking to and approaching. And when they hear my name, you could almost hear and "Oooh, hi it's you again" in their voice.

Having said all these, there are a few learn tips that I've got out from my media call sessions.

1. Be a goldfish

Don't take the nastiness from the media too much at heart. It builds a wall when you have to make a call to them again. So what I've learn is to have a goldfish memory towards their nastiness and pretend nothing happened the next time I have to call them again. However, this does not apply to remembering what some of the media requirements, which brings me to my next point.

2. Having a relevant media list
After many years of doing media lists for multiple school projects, I finally understood the importance of having a relevant media list. As PR officers, we love to have as many media cover our press releases/events. But the best way to get the most coverage is to pitch it to the most relevant media who might have the highest chance of saying yes. And this is to remember and noting down what preference the media has mentioned during the calls. By pitching it to the relevant media, not only does it save the media's time, it also saves our time and effort to reach out to media who would most probably say no.

3. Knowing what you're pitching
I remember when I first started doing my call down duties, I just called to check with the media if they had received the email sent. And that's it. It was only later a senior colleague came over to tell me that I had to sound more excited to excite the media, and also to explain details of the press release/email sent out to help the media because some of them might not have the time to look at it. I think it was then when I realised it was important to understand the content of the releases before starting a media call down. By knowing the content, I could better explain the event and direct more information to the media if they needed any.

This concludes my love-hate relationship with media call downs. Stay tuned for more updates! :)

All about my team - Impact

Right before starting PR393, I had taken the module PR Corporate 360. I have to say I never saw the relevance of that module until I started interning under my team - Impact. 

Here's just a brief overview of what the PR department at Ogilvy looks like. Ogivly PR consists of 8 teams: Engage, Pulse, Brand Marketing, Technology, Common Health, Social@Ogilvy, Corporate & Finance, and Impact. 

Each team handles a different aspect of PR.

Engage - motivate and assist consumers and other stakeholders adopt socially-beneficial behaviors that are good for individuals, good for society, and good for business.

Pulse - Consumer goods

Technology - migrates online, tech pages in major business media outlets are shrinking and new influencers are being recognized in bloggers and podcasters.

Brand marketing - connect with brands that engage through authenticit, purpose, relevance and a bit of fun!

CommonHealth - pharmaceutical and biotech arena

Social - integrated social solutions that combine deep disciplines like CRM, public relations and shopper marketing and rooted in what drives behavior.

Corporate & Finance - helps corporate clients achieve their business goals 

Impact - employee engagement and change management

My team is the smallest team in the PR department. Other than myself, there are three other people - Michelle, the team's director, Valerie, my supervisor, and Vanessa. 

So, what gave the 'Euraka' moment of relevance of the module taught in school? I've always thought PR was very much limited to media relations, B2B and B2C strategic planning. One of the topic taught during class was 'Change Management'. It pretty much talked about how leaders' role are important in Merger and Acquisitions (M&A), and the impact they have on corporate reputation and corporate culture. To that end, I just brushed it off as any other topics that have been taught in any other PR classes. 

Little did I realised how the knowledge would be relevant to what Impact does. While most PR practices focus on external communications, Impact handles a lot of internal communication towards corporations' employees especially during M&As. 

Unlike most strategic planning, the clients undergoing M&A require a lot of in-depth primary research work that include blueprint workshops, focus groups, online surveys, one-to-one interviews with key leaders.

I had the privilege of putting together survey findings and transcribing some interviews for a client who is undergoing merger. Honestly, listening to an hour-half recording can get really dry, but after awhile, I could hear some repeating issues and messages from the recordings. Some of the key takeaways I had were:

• Leadership has to be aligned during M&A to reduce uncertainty and distrust of employees
• Leadership of the various department do not necessary have the same feelings towards corporate issues
• Consistency of communications can become limited by technology
• Different hierarchy of employees have different point of view of what a corporate brand is
• Combination of different corporate culture can be a challenging task
• Mergers do not happen over night; it could take many years to change the mindset of employees and keep them aligned
• Employees look up to the action of their leaders and expect leaders to walk-the-talk

I have to say it is really cool to see how what has been taught in school become a "real" experience during internship. It does prove that as redundant as a topic may seem in school, you never know when it might jump back at you and become helpful.  

Inspiring & embarrassing moments at work!

In my last post, I mentioned about letting my Communications Officer know that I would be working for five days during the tuition free week.

It barely felt like I even a chance to rest during that week! It was hectic and obviously I suffered a lack of sleep, making it almost seem like it was already the end of semester where all students experience sleep deprivation because that's when all major assignments are due. 

Can't say I regretted working for the entire week even though I struggled on Saturday and Sunday to complete three assignments due the coming Monday when the semester continues. There were days when I had to drag my feet to work - not to mention the weather during that week was TERRIBLE - and 4.30pm felt so far away. But honestly without all those, I would probably still be inexperienced... and spoilt.

I can say I've managed to look past those and learn to suck it up. And I probably deserve a clap for that. ☻

Moving on to what I actually did during that week. Of course, there were more articles, considering the deadline to publish the in-house newsletter was getting closer. I was given the task to research, construct articles, and arrange them in Campaign Monitor. I had to also update the organisation's website, Facebook and Twitter page. 

My biggest nightmare was to contact the house seniors of the organisation's respite houses to get interesting stories for the in-house newsletter and the annual report. I get REALLY uncomfortable and tend to stutter whenever I was given that task. I managed to pull through, of course, after making a fool out of myself... several times in fact. 

Phone conversation example: 

Receiver: Hi, this is <respite house name>. Who's on the line? 

Me: Hi, it's Identitywa, and I'd like to find out if there's anything particularly interesting that the residents are doing so I could include it in the Identikite.  

Receiver: Sorry, who's on the line?  

Me: Identitywa... 

Receiver: I meant your name, the houses are under Identitywa, so obviously you have to be from Identitywa to be calling.

That was one of the most embarrassing one for me. But there's a saying that goes, "you have to fall in order to learn". 

The most insightful experience while working there so far, was on Friday where my Communications Officer brought me along to the airport to interview a man with intellectual disability. She told me instead of her conducting the interview and me taking pictures, she wanted the roles to be reversed. 

She gave me a brief background information of the man; he has a deep passion and thorough understanding in aviation, and is striving to get a job at the airport where he once used to work at. She was also kind enough to brief me on what questions she wanted me to ask and what information she planned to get out of the interview for the article. 

When we met him and his friend (a support worker), and considering how it was my first time doing a face-to-face interview with a person with disability, I just went blank. My Communications Officer saved me, and took over the role of interviewing. I felt so lost for the first half an hour because I found it really difficult to understand what the man was saying as he had a mild speech impediment. But after a while, I started to get the flow of the way he spoke and learned to interpret it in my own understanding much faster, I managed to do a few questionings. 

My Communications Officer said told me she had a bit of trouble trying to understand him at first, but managed to pick it up. I believe it comes with experience. 

We spent a fair bit of time walking around the airport, taking pictures of him looking at the planes, and just talking to him - which I found very enjoyable. It was a great way to end the week, and it left us feeling very inspired by the man's strong passion to pursue his dream. 

I managed to take down a lot of notes for my Communications Officer to write the article, and just maybe I'd offer to write the article instead. ☻

More work coming up next week! Hopefully they don't consist of me having to make phone calls again!! Is anyone else experiencing embarrassing things at work, or is it only me?!

Denissa Goh
15652315

What's next? - Remaining Useful and Relevant

So it's almost the end of the internship, and really enriching journey. I must say that I have learnt a lot through this experience and definitely am looking forward to learn even more, where ever my next stage of life brings me. That being said, I think I feel very proud to be a Curtin PR student. Being matched up with PR students from other educational institutes, I feel that Curtin really prepares its students well.

One of the biggest takeaways I feel that gained through this is the importance of remaining useful a relevant. Specifically in my generation, there seems to be a change in mindset for people entering the workforce - the main difference being "What I can do for the company" vs. "What can the company do for me". From the number of days of leaves, to extra benefits, to break times and quality of pantries, it really seemed very much like a selfish decision as to why they choose to work in a company. The former mindset, however, is really about how one, as a person, can add value to the organisation he or she is working for.

I will have to admit that initially, going into an internship, I did have the previous mindset, thinking about how much money I could earn, and whether I could take leave (which obviously was not possible in an internship), and trying my best to find shortcuts to get a way with doing too much work. As I went through my internship, I realized that working, or in fact life itself, is never about yourself. It's about how useful you can be to others. After that realization, I felt like the entire world around me changed. It was pretty darn awesome.

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how relevant this post is to the internship, but what I know is that this is something that is meaningful to me. Just wondering, anyone out that share similar revelations?

Monthsary at Ogilvy - Corporate culture

I can't believe that I've almost been at Ogilvy PR for almost a month. The past few weeks has been a really interesting journey for myself. But today's blogpost will focus on one aspect of my internship - corporate culture.

Let me start right from the beginning to when I had my first interview.

In school, we've learnt many things about corporate culture, the importance it holds not only as a corporate brand but also to the employees - and that was what my first interview showed me. Unlike the previous interview I had, as soon as I step into the O&M's reception lobby, I was overwhelmed by the physical environment of the company - the design, layout and colours. While most PR agency would choose more serious colours like white and blue for their layout, the reception lobby of Ogilvy was red. The colours were an indication of a fun and creative environment. In addition to that, I was attended to by a really warm and friendly receptionist.

As I proceed with the first interview, I came to learn that the interview was a test of communication and attitude compatibility, whether or not I could fit well with their company culture. I was impressed with how Ogilvy places high importance of culture compatibility when employing people. It was important to them to create an environment where everyone can work well with one another.

My interviewer later told me that Ogilvy has an open culture as well, which was quite evident in the layout of the office tables. During the course of my first month, it became apparent that the structure at Ogilvy PR was flat. Superiors sit together with their team in the same area. No one had a personal room to themselves. Even during lunch time, there was not a clear distinction between the director and those in the lower hierarchy. Everyone just sits together to eat.

The second interview I had was with my "team-to-be". Despite their busy schedule, all the team members appeared. It was nice to see how everyone in my team was interested in knowing who their new intern.

There were still many other instances during that one month which had shown me the kind of corporate culture Ogilvy carries around through its employees and physical environment. In short, Ogilvy has an open, creative and fun culture. As a fellow colleague had mentioned during my first staff meeting, Ogilvy is like the "Google" of Communication agencies. While the company carries a fun and open culture, it also carries a good amount of workload and stress.

Looking forward to experiencing and learning more. Stay tuned for more updates of my life as an intern :)

How to make a good impression

Uni teaches you all about the technical skills involved in a PR role, but making a great impression is something you just have to learn from experience. Luckily, I had the ideal opportunity to learn all about it during my internship. 

I think making a good impression is a combination of being a helpful and friendly person, and following standard industry expectations (or exceeding them if you really want to make an impact). As being a good PR practitioner is dependent on building positive relationships, an excellent first impression saves a lot of hassle down the line. It establishes trust and rapport from the get go, and you’re more likely to achieve your organisation’s goals if you can find common professional ground.

As an intern, I’ve learnt several strategies for making a great impression, and I’ll share a few tips with you. 

Media Release Followup

Sending out a media release is always a gamble, but developing a good relationship with a journalist and making a good first impression certainly boosts success. After my supervisor distributed media releases to several newspapers and magazines I was asked to follow up with a phone call to make sure they had received it, and offer an interview with a senior staff member. I thought it was a great way to add value to the relationship between journalist and PR practitioner, as well as getting that media coverage.

Gift Bags

My company as a luxury cosmetics and jewellery brand often sponsors fashion and corporate events. This usually meant providing a goodie bag of samples and marketing material. Packaging took a surprisingly long time, but it was a great way to get in people’s homes and heads. Generous gift bags reflects well on the business, and ultimately sales.

Know your staff

Remembering little facts about everyone’s lives, especially staff can contribute to good relationships. It’s important to greet everyone in a room, no matter how important and to make an effort to get to know them. Having a good relationship with your fellow workers makes a great employee culture which will make an organisation more productive and make workers feel more invested.

Networking your way to success

As my time at Fremantle Press comes to a close it has become clear how valuable the contacts I have made through this job are. While I know the value of networking events I have never been a particularly big fan of how some people chose to go about it-handing out their business cards left right and centre and attempt to sell themselves to anyone and everyone. It is important to get out there, meet people and make a good impression as a PR professional, but I personally think it’s more effective to network in a relaxed, subtle and friendly way. In my experience people like a genuine approach, so taking the time to get to know people, have interesting conversations and build real relationships is very important.

On my last day at Fremantle Press I was invited to a farewell celebration for a long-serving staff member. I was able to meet the board, many of whom are well known in Perth’s arts and business communities. I used this as an opportunity to get to know them and make a good impression. Having taken the time and made an effort with these people I would feel very confident to call on them at a later date.

My approach to networking is a reflection of my personality and it has worked really well for me. I think everyone has to find their own style that works for them and I would be very interested to hear how others approach networking and any suggestions or tips you’ve got on how to get noticed and remembered. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Verity

For the love of football

From the very first day of my internship at GO Communications (GO) I have been assisting in preparing for an event for our client Zurich Insurance Malaysia Berhad.

Zurich is running a Corporate Social Responsibility campaign called ‘Love for Football’. The campaign is in conjunction with Little League Malaysia and involves going to schools and teaching children essential football skills. Zurich will also be donating money to each school to be put towards football related expenses.

GO Communications’ role is to ensure the event gets coverage in the media. Two and a half weeks before the event my team members and I delivered the invitations to the media in the form of a yellow card. The invitations were hand delivered to about 15 media and emailed to over 50. For more information on the delivery of the media invitations refer to my previous blog ‘same same but different’ posted on 13^th June 2014.

In the days leading up to the event it was my job to call the media to get their RSVP. Unfortunately for us, most media departments do not assign their reporters until 6pm the night before. This means we often have to wait until 7pm at night before we can call them for their RSVP. On some occasions I was told to call back at 10pm. Zurich however, want to know final media numbers by 3pm the day before, a somewhat impossible task.

Today was the day the event finally took place. I woke up at 5am to arrive at the Football stadium by 6am. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself having to wake up so early, until I got to the stadium and met the event crew who had arrived at 1am in order to set everything up in time.

The event was MC’d by two local Malaysia personalities. The event program included a speech from Zurich CEO, a speech from the King’s brother, a performance by the keepie uppies and a friendly indoor football match between a local school versing some football legends and Little League coaches. The football legends include Datuk Santokh Singh and Abbas Saad who use to play for Australia.

Wondering what a Keepie Uppie performance looks like? Watch the video below.

My job on the day was to register the media and ensure they were well catered for and comfortable. It was really good to be a part of an event and see how much preparation goes into it. We ran through the script with the MC’s at least five times.

My fellow intern Felicity and I with our 'event crew' passes.

It was interesting to see the things that went wrong that you could simply never predict. During this event the wind picked up and blowing the balloon arch over and ants infested the media desk. It made me realise no matter how much you prepare something can always go wrong on the day that you hadn’t thought of. I guess now I have experienced those things going wrong I can prepare for them at future events. Note to self, always bring extra string and fly spray to an event.

Whitney

A jack of all trades

PR professionals must be a jack of all trades. Working in the industry you are expected to learn new programs and stay on top of the latest developments in the industry. One day you’ll be organizing an event, the next designing a new website and the day after that hosting a press conference. You never know what a day will throw up at you in this profession, which is why you must be able to think on your feet, be creativity and be organised.

I came to Fremantle Press with a basic set of software skills. I could use word and powerpoint and I was a wiz at Facebook, but that was about it. But what I lacked in expertise, I made up for with a willingness to learn and the ability to pick up new skills quickly. So now I have mastered InDesign, Hootsuite, Campaign Monitor, Wordpress and even the company website.

Working in PR also means paying very close attention to detail. Sending out a press release with typos, grammatical  errors or the wrong information is a big no-no. This week my project was the monthly enewsletter and before it was sent to all our subscribers and posted on our website, it was proofed numerous times by different staff.

If you’re interested in reading a couple of my stories click the links.

Final call for Hungerford entries

Consultancy title raises money for Starlight

Working in PR is exciting and challenging because there is so much uncertainty about what each day will involve. But if you can handle the pressure, have a thick skin, a willingness to learn and a positive attitude, then this is the profession for you.

Verity

Making corporate social media more personal

Social media changes constantly. It’s a PR practitioner’s job to stay abreast of the latest trends and work out what online forums a company should be using and how it should be using them to best reach the target demographic. When doing my daily scroll through Facebook, something on the Curtin University page caught my attention and stood out as a great technique for social media. I noticed that any comment responses made by the Curtin PR team, always had the individual employee's name attributed to it. So instead of just being a response from Curtin University, it was now a response from Emily at Curtin University.

The simple idea of having an employee write their name next to their post is used by lots of corporations and I think it can have a really positive impact. Firstly it makes an online corporate profile a lot more personal, after all social media is intended to be social. People are more inclined to interact with an organisation via its social media if they feel they’re talking to one person rather than an entire corporation. I also think making corporate pages more personal could make people think twice before trolling. Many people use social media, particularly Facebook, to vent about their bad experiences with an organisation or its products. While there is no way of controlling this and people will still attack an organisation, I think people are generally less likely to do so if they felt they were attacking an individual.

Attributing the employee name to the comment also suggests it is that individual’s comment rather than an official company statement, which could also assist the company if that comment were to attract criticism. I think this is a great technique and I would definitely consider using it if I were responsible for the social media of a large corporation, particularly one that often receives customer feedback on online forums. So if you're like me and need a reason to justify your time on social media, start observing what tricks and techniques other corporations use to encourage social media interaction and perhaps you too will get some ideas that can be implemented in your work place. 

Verity

Same same but different

In comparison to Australia, working in Malaysia is different is so many wonderful ways. At the same time there are aspects I had not previously considered, that are worlds apart.

On the first day of my internship I arrived at the GO Communications (GO) office and was given a desk to call my own for the next month. The first major difference I noticed was my workstation. It was as if I had stepped back in time. It looked as though my computer was created before I was, and the phone, well let’s just say I don’t think they make them like that anymore. To add to the time warp the music playing throughout the office was reminiscent of my tweens.

Hardware and ambiance aside, GO is far from dated. GO staff think outside the box in order to service their clients in the most unique ways. Five days into my internship I have already had the opportunity to not only witness, but actually be involved in some of GO’s creative projects.

A day in the life of a GO Communications intern

There is no such thing as a standard day at GO. This is just one of the things I enjoy about working here. The day will generally begin with media monitoring. This entails going through that day’s paper and sourcing news relevant to each of GO’s clients. Although mundane at times, it is a great way to learn more about Malaysia and GO’s clients. I find it particularly interesting as a foreigner keen to be immersed in the Malay culture.

I have found news in Malaysia to be quite different to what I am used to being exposed to in Australia. I feel as though Malaysian news is more influenced by public relations (PR) efforts. This could be a result of the dense media competition in Malaysia. The country is home to over 20 daily national newspapers. When a journalist is stuck for ideas they often turn to PR for a story. On the other hand perhaps Australian journalists are just better at disguising the PR influence.

Yellow carded

On my second day I was given the opportunity to participate in media visits. The purpose of these visits was to deliver a media invitation to an event hosted by GO client, Zurich. The event was a football (soccer) friendly match with a high school versing ex-football players, as well as a member of the Malay royal family.

This was not just any plain old media drop. GO wanted this invitation to stand out from the hundred other invitations the editors would have received that week. Myself and three colleagues dressed in Zurich branded football jerseys alongside our referee who issued each editor a ‘yellow card’ which was their invitation to the event. The editors were informed that failure to attend the event would result in a red card.

My acting debut

Today is the fifth day of my internship at GO and I have been invited along to sit in on a media interview with Datuk Wira Jalilah Baba, the founder and chairman of Crewstone International. It was an honour to meet such a prominent Malaysian figure. The modest Datuk Wira Jalilah Baba is considered the top economist in Malaysia.

Click here for more information on Datuk Wira Jalilah Baba

Although I was unable to understand most of the interview as it was in Malay, it was a good opportunity for me to see how to set up an interview and how to best utilise the media’s time.

A lot of time was spent finding the right location for the interview, so lighting and branding could be maximised. The chosen setting was the boardroom in front of reception. Alas, Crewstone do not have a receptionist which made the background seem rather bare. Can you guess how this problem was solved?

Keep an eye on the Malay news over the next few days. There will be an interview with the chairman of Crewstone, with me writing this very blog in the background.

The things we do for PR!

Whitney