During the time of my placement I was assigned different tasks .Some were everyday tasks whilst some where done once in a while. One thing that really caught my attention was the use of spreadsheets. I remember when I first started and my manager asked me to compile a list of Food bloggers because of the Food awards event that had just happened. I went online and surfed the net and managed to find a few of them, I then copied all their links into a word file and sent to my manager thinking I had completed ma task. She sent it back and said “nothing is PR unless it’s on a spreadsheet” so from then on ma life and my internship revolved around spreadsheets. The list of spreadsheets that I had to do included media list, media monitoring, client’s contacts and even events details. When I first started my placement I only knew basics when it came to spreadsheets but towards the end I was a pro.I mastered it like the back of my hand.
One of my daily tasks was to RSVP events which our editorial team were invited to. The editorial team had to send through all invitations that they got to PR desk and we had to call them up to RSVP whether we attending or not.
I also had the chance to work a little bit with the sales team in making sure that everyone who had subscribed to our monthly publication of Expatriates lifestyle http://www.expatriatelifestyle.com got their issue in time and making sure everyone appeared on the list and that when sending their monthly issue of January there was also a voucher for bird park which came as a freebie to our loyal subscribers.
Most importantly I leant that there is no room for mistakes in Public Relations and it’s the little things that we have to keep in mind when dealing with clients, like for instance when making a call, ask for the name of the person you want to talk to, so you hear their voice and therefore can know which gender they fall in, or even ask for their salutations and designations. There is nothing embarrassing and unprofessional like calling a client and addressing her as a he just because you assumed it’s a he looking at the name. Professionalism comes before everything else.
2 comments:
You are so right LEBO! Professionalism is an obligation in the PR industry. I Mentioned earlier on my post that there is no room for mistakes as mistakes could cost clients their reputation or even a lot of money, not mentioning one’s reputation as a PR practitioner as well as the company. Well, I guess you have gained quiet an astounding experience that you would have otherwise not learnt in class.
I believe now that you have made calls to clients, you have bettered your communications skills and broaden your knowledge on how to handle them which to me is all you could have wished for since we get to do a lot more talking and writing between and for clients in our PR projects.
Wow! I love the working in Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet part the most. Being able to do all that you have to do in the spreadsheet is rather straight to the point and detailed in the sense that each and every bit is under its row/column so one does not need to spend much time scribbling and searching for exactly that they are looking for. Considering how much work PR practitioners have, I find it wise that they use the spreadsheets to detail all the necessary information. The world of PR practitioners would go round without such things as spreadsheets to save their time and make their job much easier for themselves as well as their clients. Imagine jotting down many figures in between lines and characters, it would definitely be a jostle and stressful!
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