Everyone's doing social media

One of the major tasks I've been responsible for over the course of my internship is an audit of We Print It's social media presence and the creation of content for the Facebook page. In agreement with my supervisor, we decided not to start posting on the page until the beginning of November, however something came up at the beginning of this week which meant we had to push it back again. This means unfortunately I haven't had a chance to monitor and evaluate the page yet. After my internship finishes, I'll be returning to my regular post in reception and continue monitoring the Facebook page which is something I'm looking forward to.

I'm excited for the page, which has been left idle since 2012 to begin updating though it is also a little bit scary the thought of my content going out to people. Despite the fact the page has been empty for over three years we still gain followers sometimes, so hopefully with an engaging and active presence (And a cover page that's not for a promotion that expired in July 2012) our social media following will grow at a fast rate.

Audit of the existing page
The first thing that I decided to do when updating the page was to evaluate the state the page was in at the moment. I looked through all the content that was posted, our current promotions for the website and what competitors were doing on Facebook so I could have a rough idea of what was facing me.

Page Update
Through the audit the first thing I decided the page needed was an overhaul of details. I wrote new short and long summaries, I added a custom tab for all our locations, and I worked on redesigning the logo. We Print It has had the same logo since the inception of the company and it's a very important part of their branding identity. The problem was the logo has been designed for print headings, and is long and short. When put into an icon format, especially when shrunk down as happens in Facebook's comment section, the icon is virtually unrecognisable. My supervisor gave me the raw file of the icon and I spent a good couple of hours in photoshop (Thank you 3C/D Media Production and Analysis) trying to create an icon that was consistent with the branding but also suitable for Facebooks dimensions. The icon we decided to go with is incredibly similar to the logo but the way it's been compressed in dimensions makes it more recognisable when shrunk for Facebook.

The original logo, and my drafted update.

Idea Generation
Before I started creating specific posts, I developed an outline of different strategies of posts we could develop and sent it to my supervisor. I did this to make sure we were on the same page regarding the purpose of the Facebook page and so if there was a strategy he didn't think was consistent or fitting he could veto it before I developed posts using it.

Content Creation
Once my supervisor had approved my strategies I used excel to develop a plan of the content I wanted to post on the site. I listed out the date and time, which of the aforementioned strategies it used, if it was targeted at any location as well as the actual content of the posts and any links or pictures I wanted to include.

Scheduling 
One of the biggest challenges I had with the scheduling of content was daylight savings. Our Facebook fans, and client base in general, are pretty evenly split between Perth and the Eastern States. This made scheduling posts not targeted at a specific state tricky. If we hit Sydney at 7am before work, it's still only 4am in Perth. If we hit Perth around 11:30 for lunch, it's 2:30 in Sydney when everyone should be at work. I've experimented a little bit in my scheduling and relied on Facebook's insight metrics to see when most of our audience are online. Once the content goes live I'll be able to see what works and what doesn't work so I can adjust accordingly.

It was definitely the part of PR I was most hesitant about, and I'm still really nervous about actually putting my content out into the world, but this process has made me more confident in my skills. That's something that could be said about my Internship in general. Though it wasn't the typical placement it was one that challenge me and one that I enjoyed so I can't complain.

I really hope everyone else's placements were as eye-opening and rewarding as mine. Thanks for taking this journey with me,

Elizabeth

The race that kind of pauses the office for half an hour

By far the most enjoyable task I had during my internship was organising the staff Melbourne Cup lunch. Whilst by no means a large-scale event, it lasts just over half an hour, is set up in the warehouse the company operates out of and people generally stand around instead of sitting, it still came with its own set of challenges.

Whilst the idea I've always had of Melbourne Cup lunches is semi-formal dress and nice sit-down lunches, I soon realised that wasn't anything like what the corporate culture or the facilities of Printforce needed. Considering the staff is made up of customer service reps, printers, dispatchers and other various administrative staff we don't have the luxury of spending a long time sitting down and eating nor would a lot of the staff members want to.

Instead we set up the big screen television in the dispatch area, opened the huge roller doors and everyone stood around eating and drinking (there was champagne but the printers were kept far away from it) as we watched the race.

The major responsibility I had before set up and organisation on the  day was catering. The company has used the same catering company for the last few yeas of Christmas and Melbourne Cup lunches, however the receptionist who has organised these menus over the last few years has gone on maternity leave, so I was left to pull together invoices from previous events when trying to figure out which food platters to order.

I had to take a lot of things into consideration, vegetarian options, the fact that the food had to be predominantly finger food due to the stand-up nature of the event and things that could suit everyone's taste. It was definitely a little intimidating because the company is so small people don't have an issue offering advice if they think you made the wrong choices with the catering. The other thing we had to consider was the prices of the platters had gone up; the usual budget is $15 per head however if I stuck to that budget we'd have had less food than in previous years and therefore might not have enough. In the end, after talking to the accountant, we decided to go with as many trays as last years lunch instead of a set budget.

One table worth of beautifully presented food

The other thing I had to organised independently of the caterers was buying soft drinks, alcohol and utensils in my own personal time. As someone who doesn't really drink champage I was pretty worried about getting a good kind, but no one complained so I counted that as a win.

The one thing you can't have a Melbourne Cup without is an office sweep. I spent the Monday before, and parts of Tuesday morning where I wasn't setting up, running around the office trying to fill enough spots of our sweep. It was pretty fun, I'd never been involved in a Melbourne Cup Sweep, and my horse came last so at least I got my money back.

The actual day was pretty hectic, though nothing as hectic as the major events it seems people have been involved in reading other blogs, lots of running around, filling the last few spots of the sweeps, getting the tv set up, clearing the production area out so there was room for us all to stand and making sure the food arrived on time and was what we ordered.

What I'm sure all Melbourne Cup lunches look like

It was really rewarding to hear so many people come up to me at the end of the lunch and tell me how much they enjoyed everything and how well I'd done. In fact, I've been put in charge of organising the Christmas luncheon now as well!

Organising the lunch was definitely an interesting part of my internship because it opened my eyes to how much work goes into even small, super casual events. Every event is different, and casual events aren't necessarily easier to organise or worse options than formal sit down events, it entirely depends on what the event is trying to achieve and who your attendees are. That's definitely a lesson I'll be taking away from this experience.

Until next time,

Elizabeth

The Challenges of Interning at a Small Business

I've experienced a little bit of everything working my internship at We Print It and I'm only half way through it. I've multitasked reception duty and managing the planning of Facebook content, I've had a screen of account processing and another composing an internal communication memo open at the same time. Unsurprisingly the most common multitasking situation I've found myself is that of scanning. More than once over the course of my three weeks here I've started scanning a document or two for my own work thinking it would take 5 minutes then found myself still scanning an hour later as every man and his dog had found a handful of vital documents that needed scanning, and since I "already had the scanner set up" would I please do it for them?

Working for a small company where I'm primarily driving the PR initiatives by myself and I have very little budget is far from the fast paced, multi-tasking environment that so many of my peers seem to be interning in. Days like today though where illness sweeping the office and it's a bit of all hands on every deck give me a tiny, tiny glimpse of what that's potentially like. I have a lot of respect for everyone who manages it.

Marketing and PR are so integrated that often it’s hard to tell where one starts and the other stops especially in a small business context. Multiple times over the course of my internship I’ve done tasks I know are actually marketing tasks, especially in planning of Facebook posts. Whilst this isn’t exactly news to me, tutors have told us over the course of our degrees smaller organisations often integrate the two functions; it’s been interesting to see it in action. I’ve also had to be careful to make sure that I’m not getting to distracted by the marketing side of things after all this is a Public Relations Internship.

The final challenge I’ve had to face is communication with my supervisor. For a large portion of my Internship my supervisor has actually been in the Sydney or Melbourne offices due to both regular schedules and unforeseen complications. Because of this majority of my communication with my supervisor has been over the phone or through emails. Though communication through email is something that's obviously very common in this day and age, it can sometimes be frustrating when I've emailed something for approval that won't come until the next day because of meeting or time differences.

Of course don't think I'm  complaining, my Internship so far has been a rewarding experience and these challenges have all been an amazing learning experience, and quite an eye opener. The “Real World” is a lot messier and less structured than our classes and assignments.

So I put a question to you, what’s been the most challenging part of your internship? Was it something you were expecting or not?

Until next time,

Elizabeth

Starting from Quite Literally Nothing

As I was looking through the reflective blogs that have been posted over the past five or six months to get inspiration before posting this blog I came to realise my choice of placement is a relatively unusual one.

Instead of interning at a not-for-profit, consultancy, or an in-house communications or PR department I chose to undertake my internship at a small company that does not have any such departments so to speak. Essentially I am driving the PR initiatives of the organisation on my own, though of course under the eye of my supervisor.

I found myself in this position in a pretty simple way - We Print It Australia is a branch of Printforce Australia, the company I work at during my university breaks.

We Print It, as the name may tell you, is a company that prints (and if necessary helps design and brand) a variety of office marketing materials from business cards and flyers to letterheads and corflutes. If you don't know what a corflute is (and I didn't before I started my internship) it's one of these:

Random fact of the day. 

Since I'm working with co-workers that I know well and in an office I'm familiar with I didn't have any of those first day nerves, that's something I'll get to experience at my very first job. Instead my biggest worry has been that I won't be able to find enough opportunities or strategies on my own.

Since We Print It has no PR department, the first couple of days of my internship were spent writing a proposal for my supervisor. I had to investigate which, if any, of the company's current initiatives could be considered PR,  narrow down a very broad target audience to more targetable groups, and cement my understanding of positioning and points of differentiation.

The hardest bit, and bit that took by far the longest, was identifying PR opportunities for the company, especially when my supervisor had specified in the printing industry media coverage is not a priority for them.

I was a little bit hesitant with my suggestions in the first draft of the report, but my supervisor has been really enthusiastic and open to a lot of my ideas so I started to make suggestions. Obviously not all of them are viable but at the moment more of them are getting accepted than rejected. It's certainly given me more confidence in my ideas and hopefully that confidence only grows.

Despite my concern that I haven't done enough I have enough of a starting point to satisfy my supervisor right now so I can't wait to get stuck into the Facebook page next week.

It'll certainly be a challenge over the next few weeks keeping myself motivated and self-driven as well as juggling my other three units (especially Capstone) but I'm confident I can get it done.

I hope everyone else is having a placement experience as interesting and challenging as I am,

Elizabeth

"Social media is also like throwing spaghetti at a wall — we’re still trying to see what sticks"

 In today's world, social media is becoming more and more intergrated with who we are, what we do and how we express that. This is no different for companies, corporations and not-for-profits. In fact, they have more of an online presence and social responsibility than most indivuduals ever will.

Most organisations will have the basic social media tools; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. But a new era of social media is arriving, especially for small businesses and more relevantly, night clubs.

As part of my internship, I have been working closely with the Promo and Communications manager, Ken. It has been our responsibility to fully implement an application for the club. It took a lot of convincing to get the Chief Finicial Officer to approve the funding for this, because it is a new and untested medium for social media. For all we know it could be high cost, low profit.
The idea is simple; an interactive application which has all the events and details that patrons may want to know as well as an incentive and reward program.

Ken and I launched the application last week, but without little fanfare so we could do a limited release to work out some of the kinks. One of the biggest issues was the fact that point system didn't seem to have the lock out once you had accrued the maximum amount of points, so we called the developers only to be told that it was only uploading photos that had the point limit. This meant we had to change our reward scheme.

Who knows if this will work, but it will be interesting to see how it develops and how many other clubs get on board with this. Already in Perth: Metro Freo, Amplifier, Air Nightclub, The Deen and many other competitors are on board; though few seem to have a rewards system.

Here are some details available on the Metro City website.

Another issue to contend with is how we increase the amount of NEW patrons into the club. The application is most likely to be downloaded by regular visitors and though I pointed out that this might not be a bad thing (it seems like a reward system to a regulars) the Chief Executive Officer said that the main idea of the application was to increase the variety in the crowds and pack out our club nights.

I found a link which is useful for my own placement and involvement with their social media and thought it is specified to nightclubs it may also be useful for others who are taking placements in small businesses or even not-for-profit. You can find it here. It has an interesting few points, one of which I used for the title of this blog post - which is think is witty and highly relevant but it also points out a few things that some of us might forget whilst entering the real world.

Whilst I think the progession of social media is a good idea and that following the app trend is a good idea, without substantial proof that it is a worthy investment...I doubt the mangement will be happy to continue forking out $400/month of something which yields little to no returns.

We'll just have to see what happens in the future! (It seems to be catching on - here is a link about a US company giving it a go)

Crisis management

Hi all,

This is my first post for the semester as I went overseas during the break and only just recently started my internship.

I'm doing my placement at Metro City, the biggest club venue in Perth. Although I'm not working with a "public relations department", I am taking on roles which would be expected of a PR graduate.

I had my first real collision with crisis management the other day when the "Wild West Comedy Festival" had to cancel their event with Metro City. They had failed to sell enough tickets to cover the cost of staffing the event and though the contract stated that they were to forfeit the deposit should such a thing occur, they came over to talk to our Venue Manager.

Kim Westwood (Venue Manager), Jacquie Kelly (Events Manager) and I entered into a meeting with the organizers to find another arrangement. They came to the conclusion that the deposit would be returned to the company and that the Wild West organisers would be responsible for finding a replacement venue. From there I was asked to create a release, detailing the event cancellation and to give details of the new venue once they were passed on. This was then to be posted on the Metro City website and to be distributed through all our social media platforms.

It made me think about how crisis management can differ between types of organizations and though it may not have seemed like a big crisis for the club it was pertinent to practice good public relations should they choose to hold an event in the future. It was interesting to have noted and reinforced in a real world situation that for businesses, making a profit and good PR don't always go hand in hand.

In the same sense, it made me appreciate that a "crisis" is relative, it really depends on what your business does and what kind of social responsibility it has. For example, this "crisis" cannot be compared to something like the Exxon Valdez spill, but it could in fact influence their reputation and possible business for the future.

Hope you are all enjoying your placements!

Nicole

it's just not the same without Gravy... Part 4

The countdown was on in the office Thursday morning. Lawless Cooking’s new website design was being unveiled to the team at 11:00am and we could all not wait to see the end product.

Lawless Cooking is a catering and cooking class company headed by celebrity chef, Iain Lawless and is the fourth client of Gravy’s that I would have introduced to you. Lawless Cooking lends us space in their office in Mt Hawthorn which forms part of our contract with them. This means Gravy is not solely at this office for Lawless Cooking duties as I am on-site for The Bra Bar, but we are there day-to-day for all of Gravy’s undertakings. Gravy controls and operates all of Lawless Cooking communications (social media, e-Newsletters, enquiries, bookings of functions and classes, etc.) and any promotional or marketing ventures that are embarked upon.

In Thursday morning’s instance, this entailed Ivana and I sitting in on the meeting with the website designers and Vicki Lawless; Iain Lawless’s wife and business manager of Lawless Cooking. This was a fantastic experience as I could see everyone’s opinion from all different kinds of skilled perspectives. Firstly, there was the website designer pitching his proposal to us and explaining as to why he has made specific decisions on the design. Secondly, there was Vicki Lawless, whose main concern is that the website harmonizes with the Lawless Cooking brand and what she expects the company to be portrayed as. Lastly, there was Ivana and I, the PR and Marketing gurus. We were mainly seeking functionality, efficiency and ease of the website and likewise to Vicki, making sure it corresponds with the brand.

Well, we were all BLOWN AWAY! It was what we imagined, and beyond. The website designer completely understood the brand and identification of the company, whilst using his expertise for the best practices of website operation. He clearly understood and identified with the brief he was given by us to produce such an amazing product. I would LOVE to show and prove to you just how amazing the website is but, unfortunately, that was simply the design. The website is now being created and will be up and running soon (I will keep you all updated so you can check it out!).

The website images where all spinning around in my head for the rest of the day with me agonizing over the question: “WHY CAN’T I DO THAT?!” As professionals in the PR and marketing industry, we are all sure to come across some artwork that is needed to be produced at some point in time; whether it be a newsletter, a poster, a brochure (the list goes on!) and as for me at Gravy; times like these come around quite often as we don’t usually work with budgets that can afford fancy graphic designers. Well, my artwork was certainly put to shame that day. Nonetheless, I went on with my day which did in fact include creating posters for Lawless Cooking cooking classes! I did get a few good ideas off him at leastJ. And although they may not be as high-grade and professional as the website designer’s, they do the job and am reassured by Ivana that they aren’t as shabby I may think! It is also a huge consolation hearing Ivana assure me that I CAN’T DO EVERYTHING and in the real world, different projects are passed through many different people until the final product is completed. This can be through various departments in an organisation or, in Lawless Cooking’s circumstance (a small business); this can be outsourced or sometimes attempted by someone within the organisation which may mean doing so in an ad hoc fashion.

I may or may not have still looked into a graphic design courses when I get home (purely out of interest of course!) It turns out… there is no quick fix for learning such skills. Lesson officially learnt – leave it to the professional graphic designers!!

Until next time…

--Sarah

Small Business PR

One of the most challenging aspects of my placement has been working on getting press coverage. We are a small business and most publications I have contacted regarding the possibility of getting an article done or a small piece of press in any way, shape or form, has been incredibly difficult.

While we have had a number of events or achievements over the duration of my placement, gaining media coverage has been difficult. We did receive a small write up in MacWorld regarding a range of products we had become the Australian Distributor for, however this really focused on the product and little was drawn back to the company.

We also had a retail store opening, that gained a moderate amount of attention from a radio station, however to get community paper coverage we needed to notify the paper 3-4 weeks in advance, and even then they could not guarantee someone would come to cover it.

There is also a software we have built that delivers incredible benefit to small business owners, however getting media coverage is incredibly difficult. The response I receive more often than not is something along the lines of "we don't generally give out feature article space or any kind of writeups without an investment in the magazine" ... reading between the lines, this means to get a feature article or mention in any credible way into the publications (both online and print) we were interested in for our target markets, we needed to buy advertising space along with it.

This also happened in radio to us also, where we wanted to run a competition through one of the commercial stations, however were told that without an investment of 4-5k in terms of advertising, the competition would not run.

The reasons given for this made sense on the surface, and were along the lines of "by combining an advertising package with your article/competition, we find this increases takeup and the impact of your news/item/service/event/competition and overall benefits your campaign and delivers better results". This I agree with on one level, but on another, being a small business, where large advertising budgets are more often slim to none, the opportunities pass us by.

Granted there are legitimate newsworthy events that happen for businesses of all sizes, where coverage is guaranteed without needing to buy advertising space along with it. However, for small businesses, this is sometimes just not feasible.

Was I going about things the wrong way? Or was this just the unspoken yet agreed upon relationship between advertising and PR? I started noticing things in magazines such as Marketing Magazine or B&T or Nett# where articles referencing the benefits of online CRM software or the benefits of the right promotional products, ended on page 31 and on page 32 what would there be? An advertisement for a certain CRM software or promotional product company. Coincidence? Or well structured ploy, honed over time to achieve the best results for advertiser and publication?

Perhaps my frustration merely stems from the fact that the company I work for is not overly in a position to buy our public relations coverage? Or am I being naive? Please someone tell me. I don't remember this being covered in PR 211 or 200 or any of the units, where more often than not our assignments were to 'create a PR campaign for such-and-such incredibly newsworthy event' ... where are the struggles? The coverage for events where you can't afford to buy advertising space to accompany your article? The real world adaptations for small business? Or again, am I being naive and just going about things the complete wrong way?

A number of sites for small businesses cite how important it is to gain PR for your business, and make out how simple it is - http://www.publicityship.com.au/ http://www.flyingsolo.com.au/marketing/public-relations-pr/5-ways-to-gain-small-business-pr-for-free http://www.smartcompany.com.au/advertising-and-marketing/20100421-public-relations-2.html etc etc ... however I remain 100% unconvinced. Or perhaps I am just demoralised?

Clearly, I do not mean to say that anything and everything that occurs in small businesses is newsworthy. In my placement I have learned that something merely existing or occurring, in itself is not newsworthy. It needs to be targeted based on the publication you are speaking to and their core demographic... it needs to have substance, a story to it, a benefit, a unique selling point. And again, I am speaking about small companies that do not naturally have large-scale news items or occurrences taking place.... please take this post in the context in which it is placed. I just wonder, even when our small businesses 'newsworthy' events come up... will we be able to afford the advertising space needed to cement a write up in a publication?

Any thoughts or opinions are gladly welcomed...