Pathway to a successful PR career: Practice makes perfect.

Photo credits: Anne-Julie Quenette

Difficulties can be encountered anywhere but we all have a choice. We can either see them as failures or opportunities. 

While working on a media kit, I encountered several small problems ranging from minor errors in the textual content to bigger problems with the CDs in the press kit.

Most of us have heard of this saying: “Practice makes perfect”?

I am a firm believer of this.

During my internship I was to assist a colleague who had never worked on the conception of a media kit. 

Though I had realised on some at university, I noticed that every media kit can be different, depending on the company who releases it, the angle in which it is writing, the agenda behind it and on the product we want to promote.

So we worked on it once, reworked on it twice, again and again until we finally got it right.

In such case, experience would be most welcome. A colleague from another department, who had much experience in preparing media kits helped us a lot.

Fortunately the following ones were much easier and of better quality.

At university we learned that a journalist seeks newsworthy information. So as a PR person writing a media release, one should focus on what is considered important by the journalism reading it. Therefore the media release should bring on NEWSWORTHY material.

As mentioned in my previous post, Public Relations practice is a multidisciplinary one. 

Going straight to the point is also a good attitude to adopt, since the journalist might be receiving a lot of media kits from various companies. He might not have much time to spend on every media kits. Yours must trigger his attention and interest.

For future approaches, I will take into account what I learned here: write important information in bold, write concisely and go straight to the point.

Even if we have encountered several minor problems, we have been greatly rewarded.

We have been published in “Le Mauricien” newspaper.

After all for a first trial, it revealed to be pretty good.

I remember my teacher saying that it is hard to get published, since newspapers and journalists receive lots of media kits every day.

Good news never come alone. I assisted a colleague from Otayo in the conception of a poster and it was published in the “Air Mauritius” magazine.

Photo: From the “Air Mauritius Magazine”, 2015

I must confess that this feeling of knowing that we have been published in the “Air Mauritius” magazine is the best reward I could have had during my internship. 

Hope you'll keep in touch till my blog post. 

Feel free to share with me your own experience. 

Waiting for you :) 

Marie Anne-Julie Quenette