Delayed post and Bittersweet Feelings about Internship

Hello readers, it's been a long time since my post is created. It is delayed due to my Internet connection at home, it was broken down on the weekends when I planned to post it on Friday and it was just working last night. So not to stretch time, let's just back to my blog post.

This few days will be the last days of remaining Internship that I will complete and also focusing my progress on the Internship report that due on this Friday. I will finish the internship on Wednesday, that is when I will send my gratitude to my supervisor and colleagues who have been helping me with my PR Internship Program.

In this post, I will talk about the service system that runs in the company. It is a software that specialise for requesting the songs by entering the songs on keyboard provided in the rooms and the song will automatically played in the screen TVs. Inside the karaoke room, it has 2 TVs for easier reading the lyrics to the songs, 1 wireless keyboard, 2 wireless microphones and 1 or 2 additional microphones with cable on it which will be plugged to the CPU.

The devices are as illustrated by images below (Inul Vizta 2015):

The songs that are available on the system is requested by our customers, we add the new songs from the radio charts, special request and also adding songs that are quite important for our business (local bands or hit singles).

The genre of the songs ranging from pop songs, R &B, EDM, rock songs, etc. The songs are not only from Indonesia, we also add songs from Western musician, Asian songs like Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and also some important songs (this is like national anthem from Indonesia).

The colour of list illustrated in the computer has changed for the past few years. At first, it was mostly blue and yellow when the company starts operating (2007). Now, it is mostly orange, red and yellow for just a change in display to our customers.

The keyboard also get improved and more simple for our customers to use it. The customers also can record the songs for karaoke purposes in their own personal use. Extra surcharge will be paid by customers to the company. I have used this service last time I visit there and it was really good to know that we can record our voices when we sing and maybe use it for entertainment purposes or just for personal collection.

That is all for today folks, I will write the new and last blog post on this Wednesday. Until then, happy reading and commenting!! :)

First weeks into the real world...

Hi Everyone! This is my first blog during my internship.

I have started my public relations internship at RSPCA WA in Malaga. RSPCA, as most people know, is a not-for-profit organisation that rehomes and rehabilitates neglected and abandoned animals each year. RSPCA puts great efforts in creating awareness of animal cruelty and encourages change for the way animals are treated by showing people how.

The communications team at my internship is rather big. I work alongside a team consisting of employees with various roles including a marketing coordinator, graphic designer, event coordinators, publishers, etc.

My task is to help with their ‘Cupcake Day’ fundraiser, which is run nationally on the 15^th of August. So far I have planned a Facebook content plan, reflecting key dates and goals outlined in the brief sent from the events coordinator. I am required to regularly write social media posts to engage publics and encourage them to host their own Cupcake Day.

Although it is only early days into my internship, I have enjoyed experiencing an integration of public relations and marketing. I have also had the opportunity to craft Facebook adverts, and come up with key stakeholders with particular interests to target. After crafting Facebook adverts, I learnt the importance of understanding how your audiences may decode a message. I also had to make sure the content I was sending out was engaging and (1) helped people understand or get angry about animal cruelty and (2) connected people with the love of baking.

I am very much enjoying my time at my internship whilst working alongside a kind team.

Good luck to everyone else doing their internships,

Jasmine.

Ready to Launch

Working for a start-up program is hard work especially now that launch day is getting closer and closer.

After one of our Mentors a few weeks ago made us realise we had gone off track from the main goal that Yellowbanana.com wants to achieve, we had to push back our launch date two weeks so we could refocus and really know what the public wants and how Yellowbanana can achieve it before anyone else. So we stripped back to each category and did a Lean Canvas for why ‘Teachers’ and ‘Learners’ would use our product above competitors like Gumtree. Lean Canvas was a fantastic learning tool for our whole team as it really focused us as to what we need to do in order to ensure success.

Now that we have refocused our idea on what Yellowbanana is we can finally launch.

The Yellowbanana team is working a million miles an hour to reach our goal of launching on Monday the 25^th of May. I have been busy helping the team by churning out media release after media release so they are ready to be sent out on Monday.

Our plan is on Monday morning to have a major media and marketing day. This involves the sending out of all media releases to our media contacts, blog contacts and other forms of media. This means that this week I have been working on updating our existing media contacts filling them in a way that they can be easily accessed on Monday.

Along with that I have also been creating and editing promotional posters for our social media pages. I found this quite hard because I haven’t used Photoshop since a first year tutorial. But I very excited to have my posters used on our sites.

I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks at YB, working on a brand new product is when PR is most important to in order to get people interested in the product. I think this is a great opportunity to learn about how to succeed.

Shameless promo time Like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/yellowbananaoz?fref=ts

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing" - Werner von Braun

I think research was one of the first steps I did every time I was assigned a task, particularly when it came to writing. Interning at Therapy Focus, who provides therapy disability services for children, I have come across medical terms used by the therapists that I am not familiar with. Some terms I have heard before but never really understood what they meant.

One role as a communicator in Therapy Focus is being able to simplify these terms and understand them, in order to give sound advice and information in Therapy Focus Resource Booklets. All the information provided needs to be accurate and up to date. However, our department can always ask any of their friendly therapists about something they did not know. They're just a phone call or email away.

When it came time to write an article on how funding from Help A Child Grow Fund helped  a child receive much needed equipment, I first looked at the background of the child and why his family needed the equipment. Then I researched  more about the child's disability.

This process helped me gain a better understanding of the path article would likely be going.

Studying public relations, lecturers have always stated the importance of research, whether writing a media release or developing a communication plan in group assignments. I think those tasks have assisted me through my internship in more ways than one.

I guess what you  can take way from this is to "never underestimate the importance of research in public relations".



Until next time,

Maria Nabankema

15508764.