Bread & Butter of PR

I spent a lot of time writing during this internship such as writing media releases and a SMS blast but what interests me more was preparing posts for the hotel Sina Weibo account. For your information, Sina Weibo is a popular Chinese microblogging website.

Quick fact: The China tourists market compromises 40% of Sabah tourism which explains the setting of Sina Weibo account.

Hyatt Regency Kinabalu official Weibo. Even though this account is established around 2 months ago but it garnered a very positive number of fans. 

Statuses or posts updated introducing about Sabah attraction, hotel's promotion and/or hotel's selling point.

What I have to do is: 

1. Write 3 English posts either about the hotel’s selling point, Sabah’s attraction and activities in the hotel, outside or around the hotel. 
2. Proof read of posts by my supervisor and Director of Sales and Marketing.
3. Translate the posts into Chinese. 

I was bit thrilled by this task because it really tests my language capability. At that time, I was glad that I did my Chinese language education since elementary school till O-Level. 

I tried my best in doing the translation such as choosing the right words and terms to convey the right feeling, thinking in a tourist’s perspective do I feel interested to visit Sabah and stay at the hotel and I edited it for several times. In fact, I do Google a lot in finding more adjectives and idioms on Chinese websites!

Although it’s just 3 sentences or posts to be translated, but because of the diverse expressions that can be used by the language itself, and to meet up 140 characters limitation, it is hard! Furthermore, it is impossible to translate every English word to Chinese.  

The art of Chinese language is deeper than you thought (or perhaps any other language as well!). 

Thank God that my translation was edited and refined again by a international China associate who is working in the hotel as well (I couldn't bear to see my writing being posted with my not-so-top Chinese translation!).

It is always an advantage to master one or more languages because who knows it might help your company in marketing communications to different market group of different language. In this context, since the company targets the China market, hence it is important to learn Chinese in use of conversing with tourists and also issuing official communication notice in Chinese such as room notice or announcement.

As writing is the bread and butter of PR, language should be also considered as one and in my opinion, it is the life and art of PR because whether the reader feels interested or not, it depends on how you write it. 

Chung Yee Vun Elaine

16091427

Not Stated in the Job Scope? Definitely Not An Excuse

Time flies as though we were in a time machine. Who else agrees with me? In a blink of an eye, it’s already the third week of July which also means that I've been working as a PR professional for two weeks.

Media monitoring has been my daily task now. The first thing I do every morning after I arrive in the office - switch on the computer, open the hotel’s Facebook page, check and reply the inbox messages and comments. This isn't boring as the inquiries I get are always different. What kind of bores me is reading several copies of newspaper every day. I have to search for the news that is related to or about the hotel. Cut, paste and file it (if there’s any). Other than the news of Dynasty Hotel, I also have to do a competitor analysis - look for news about other hotels in Miri to analyse what they have done. However this does not happen every day. This kind of news just doesn't appear in the paper every day, which means I do end up getting nothing sometimes.

Just when I thought my second week was going to be just like my first week of working, here came a surprise! Okay, I was shocked instead of surprised. I was asked to prepare a speech for our Managing Director for the upcoming event, Hari Raya Goodies Presentation. I know there is an event next week and I know the MD is going to give a speech but little did I know I had to prepare the speech. I have written speeches before but none of them was a “real” one, they were all for assignments. I totally did not expect I would be given this task as it was not stated in my job scope by the supervisor earlier. I worried too much thus I have spent three days to write a speech (what a shamefully long time to write a speech). Gratefully, my supervisor did not reproach me for spending that long but she did point out my shortcomings. She also told me she has helped to do some editing (I believed it was a lot though she said some).  

Anyway, it is good that my shortcomings have been pointed out so I would know what and where I should improve on. I have also learnt to be prepared for any task assigned to me. “Not stated in the job scope” is definitely not an excuse for not doing the task well. 

Chang Song Enn

15597157 / 7E1A8451

Brand, for product or human?

Hi!

This is my second post and I would like to talk about one of the topics we learnt, 'brand'. Why all of the sudden I want to discuss this topic? It is because on last Friday, there was a training session in the company which was about 'brand'.

Brand basically is the design or symbol that differentiate one item from another. A product brand can be a logo and it delivers message to the people. Now, let's see some examples of hidden meanings in some logos.

First, FedEx logo. Can you notice something? Well, there is something in the white space between the letter E and X. Yes, it is an arrow! The arrow indicates FedEx's fast and proficiency services provided to its customers.

Second, a very familiar electronic commerce company, Amazon. What's so special about this logo and what is the message the logo is trying to communicate? The yellow line actually indicates a smile. Besides that, it begins from a to z which means that Amazon's products cover everything from a to z.

Lastly, The Bronx Zoo logo. For those who do not know about the zoo, The Bronx Zoo is a zoo located in the middle of New York City. If you can get the hidden meaning of the logo, you can actually know the zoo is located in the middle of the city. Why? Can you see the buildings in the white space?

It is so fun when my college shared those logos with us. Everyone in the training was so eager to tell the hidden meanings. There are a lot more but in this blog I only share three of these logos.

From this training session, I learnt that a brand is not only for products, it's for human too! It's about branding YOURSELF!!
Why is it so important? Because a brand can tell the others about yourself which influence how they look at us. So, we must always brand ourselves through several ways. It can be build through attitude and attire.

In a nutshell, branding is not solely for products, it's for human too! So, always brand yourself to tell the others who you are!

Till next time,
Ching Mei