Social Livin’ - Dreams do come true

Internship should be ending the end of month and with the accumulated fatigue, at some point I did look forward to it. But there little things that kept me going and gave me the energy to keep driving forward. 

The head of our entire PR Department, Andrew, once said during a Floor meeting, to write down the reason why we're here and what we want to learn from this place on a piece of Post-it and put it somewhere as a constant reminder. As everything gets mundane or crazy or overwhelming, that piece of paper will serve as encouragement and reminder about why we should and can keep pushing forward. 

Andrew leading the Floor Meeting, every Tuesday.

I'm fortunate to be in my department and I've learnt a fountain of knowledge and experienced so much. Just last week, I was able to go to the Youtube FanFest to further understand the power of social media and how influencers (social media's equivalent of media) gain their reach and how they work. Most of them, are more often than not, inspirations and example as to how dreams can come true too. 

Being able to attend seminars / webinars have also increased my exposure to how other counterparts of the Ogilvy Network works. These sessions often open up our mind to how strategies, ideas and tactics can differ and work in different regions, countries and industries, in a practical way, when successful cases are referred to and some of them, you can even go to the people involved to find out more information. 

Webinars/Seminars.

I've got great mentors and colleagues, as well as working environment, along with great company (other interns). Which makes this an even greater internship experience.

Working environment with fellow interns.

Our agency's Markies over the years.

My view from my desk.

The social team celebrating our win for the "Markies"

My key learning points of this internship is:

1. PR is always evolving, Traditional PR will still be around and Social Media is up and coming with the sprout ups of agencies specialising in the world. 

<Did I mention that social@Ogilvy won Bronze Award for Social Media Agency of the Year at the Markies? :)>

2. Persistence is important and we should always strive to be better and be creative, because these days, its what makes a brand unique and stand out from the vast availability of information. What is tough now will grind one to become tougher. Learn to never give in or give up! 

A reminder whenever we walk pass... "Never give in. Never give in. Never Never Never."

3. Time management is VERY important, especially in an agency, where 10 things could happen at the same time. Classroom hardly teach you that.

4. PR lessons you learn in class, especially for social media or technology, are hardly relevant in the industry anymore. Maybe because they move and evolve so fast, you'd realise that the industry is so far ahead of the textbooks...

5.  Independence and Initiative are two very important keys to open that door the the fountain of knowledge. Especially in a fast paced environment, expecting to be spoon-fed is an absolutely no-no. Do not behave like an intern if you do not want to be treated like an intern.  

6. Keep an open mind. Be open to criticism and never be afraid to question. If you assume you know everything or close up to recommendations and feedback, the work will never improve. 

One of the meeting room's door

It has been a fantastic experience. And for the reason why do I say, dreams do come true?

I will be absorbed by social@Ogilvy as a Digital & Listening Analyst and will be seconded to one of the world's most favourite brand in weeks to come! :)

Wish me luck! 

Follow AleTheIntern on Facebook & Instagram through my journey! 

Alexa Lim Yuanfen

15806675

Proud intern of social@Ogilvy, Ogilvy Public Relations Singapore. 

Summing up doing corporate communications in a charitable organisation

Hi all, counting down just three more days before the internship ends.

I just want to share a few important points to note when working in the corporate communications department in a charitable organization.

First: One really has to learn to work under tight budgets, this is important as every amount of money especially in a charitable organization has to be documented. Thus regardless of how important that backdrop or exhibition panel is, either one has to think of ideas to do something cheaper or have good relations with vendors who will help to perhaps sponsor or give big discounts.

Second: Many levels of approvals. This means that to approve for example, content in the programme booklets, we do not just have to go through the head of corporate communications but also the secretary general and both deputy secretary generals. Truthfully, I understand the need to have the senior management to look through as it is a reputable charitable organization. However with the number of people that have to approve it, this means more time is involved and the initial direction that the booklet should have may be lost in the process.

 

For example, the logo on the Left that was specially created to represent the ceremony was changed numerous times.

Third: Showcasing the Real side. As we seek stories that can be used for pitching to the media or even just to highlight to the public, we never try to stage things. We believe that it is through the stories of real persons told that can perhaps inspire or encourage others to take a wider look at the people around and not judge them from just their physical appearances.

Probably the most interesting thing that we can take away is seeing a side of society that one will not normally see. Sometimes SRC aims to show the real needs in Singapore and that means visiting the beneficiaries. Through a conversation with them, you will understand that some beneficiaries really need a lot of subsidiaries to just help them get through life. For some, they tend to be optimistic believing that since life has given them a form of obstacle, they will find ways to overcome them. In fact when I was making calls to champion blood donors to find out what got them into blood donation; one of them mentioned that it really takes time and courage to donate blood. Why donate material items like food and cash when you can donate blood or platelets that can give someone another shot at life.

 

 

As I end my stay at SRC, I will always have a soft spot for it. My Impression of SRC was a organization that promotes blood donation or donations for humanitarian relief overseas, now I realize that they do a lot for the community especially for the elderly and needy.

 

Regardless of any happy or tired moments, it has been a fun and enjoyable internship. It may or may not kick-start my career in public relations, but it has definitely shown me the side of public relations which I know I will always enjoy.

 Lastly, introducing SRCs’ mascot, Tiggi, who appeared suddenly three years ago and now calls the SRC his home.

 

That’s all for now as I bid farewell to an internship and the end of two fruitful years in Curtin Singapore but we will meet again someday.

 

Thank you.
Jacquelyn Woo
Curtin Singapore
15658504

 

The Inaugural Singapore Red Cross Awards Ceremony

Hi All, we are already entering the final week of the internship. Hope we all finish on a happy note!

As my title suggests, I am going to talk about the Inaugural Singapore Red Cross Awards Ceremony, it is basically an event that recognises the contributions of volunteers and partners of the Singapore Red Cross. On this day, a total of 29 awards were given out and the most important factor to the Red Cross was that the President of Singapore was the guest of honour. This is also only the second time the President of Singapore has visited the Red Cross House, the first being Yusof Ishak, the first president of Singapore in the 1960s.

Picture of Yusof Ishak visiting in the 1960s.

Preparations for this event took place from 2012. I only joined in May 2013 and I was thrown into preparations mode. Firstly I had to write the Emcee script which to me, was quite a challenge as my boss kept wanting me to add more 'meat' or content in this case. I also had to write the programme outline and ensure it matched the Emcee script. Proofreading the programme booklet and exhibition panels were no easy task as we had to make changes with the designers many times and yet when they were delivered, the exhibition boards were the wrong size.

Why were the boards the wrong size? They were supposed to be A1 and they came in A0, twice the size of panels we had bought. Thus what did we have to do? We had to paste them on the walls. In total five Females pasted 30 panels top and bottom on the walls of what was initially the staff lounge in three hours.

Our hard work in three hours.

There was a heritage tour planned for the president as well as for the awards recipients, thus these were some of the exhibitions.

 An acrylic mural and a photo wall of past events that involved Red Cross.

Below, we have the stage of where the awards are given out.

It is actually smaller than a school stage but as the staff like to put it, it is very cosy.

Public Relations wise, we had prepared a press kit to be given out to the media that was attending. Though coverage was not as expected, more importantly was that we were able to recognise the veteran volunteers and partners contributions to the Singapore Red Cross.

The press kit given out to the Media.

My role throughout the even was with the Stage Team and I had to assist my leader in coordinating the award recipients on stage. This was because I had a part in writing the programme outline thus I knew it very well and was able to control the flow of the ceremony. Though I had no role with public relations on this event, it has made me think that perhaps events are what I would like to do one day cause its like seeing something you worked so hard for come to life and I feel that not everyone can do that. More importantly was that I had great colleagues and bosses along the way and we left no man or woman behind.

This sums up my third week and I cannot wait to enjoy the final week.

Thanks for reading!
Jacquelyn Woo
Curtin Singapore
15658504

Tour of the Office

Hi all, its been a almost long and tiring month. But hope everyone has been enjoying their internship!

To start, I realise that in school, we are always taught to write in formal, dress formally, and be formal to people who are older than you. However in the real working world, I tend to see the relationship between boss and employees being fairly casual. In fact because we are in Singapore, it feels like Singlish would add that sense of pulling away the distance between people. This is just in terms of communication, but I feel it is better as we do not have to be uptight around seniors and will be able to finish our work without being stressed.

Just to give a little tour of my office, as I said earlier the Red Cross House has been around since the 1940s, 50s. Apart from fresh coats of paint and renovations internally, it still remains the same as it was.

The Red Cross House

 



There are only three stories in the Red Cross House, in particular, the staircase leading from the second to third story is a spiral staircase.

This spiral staircase is no joke, I have heard of colleagues who worked here for 20 odd years getting fit just from climbing.

 

Next we come to the open concept meeting room in the office itself.

 

As three departments share this 'meeting room', there is some order in place to ensure we do not snatch over it. Below, is the entire Corporate Communications and Marketing department. As of now, including myself, there are six people working there.

 

The most interesting things however is this ladder that I can see from my work station. As it is a old building, many things have been left untouched, including this ladder.

 



Everytime I ask my colleagues where this ladder leads to, they always answer that this is the ladder to heaven. Actually I found out it led to the roof, but it is great to have such imagination.

 

Well, we have come to the end of the tour, I hope you will all come back and visit the Red Cross House soon. Next time, I will cover on the major event that happened in Red Cross. Stay Tuned!

 

Thanks for reading!
Jacquelyn Woo
Curtin Singapore
15658504

 

PR gets social: “Watching” the audience.

2 months has past since I’ve started my internship here, at Ogilvy Public Relations Singapore, under social@Ogilvy. The workload gets heavier, demands and expectations climbs higher, hours becomes longer and rest hours dwindling. It doesn’t help when I have two other modules in school, which gets more intensive with projects and assignments. Despite all that, the knowledge pool is still filling up and everyday is still a learning experience. It helps to remind myself that, I am afterall, living the dream by given the opportunity to work in my dream company. :)

That aside, I will be sharing more about what I do, being an intern here with social@Ogilvy.  Are you wondering about the subject, about “watching the audience”?  

We are often told that we have to be careful of what we post and express online via the various social media platforms. It has never been as evident as what some of the tasks I’m doing, shows.

Part of our scope for most brands is to manage their brand presence on the digital realm and their social media accounts. This process involves strategizing an approach, planning a schedule, creating the content, monitoring the activities, reacting to responses and so fore.

Conversation Calendars

One of the tasks involved is to plan and create conversations on behalf of them.

On the brand I work on, we create a calendar on a weekly basis, with at least 1 post for Facebook a day, based on three content/message pillars. As the brand I work on is a Fast-Moving Consumer Goods brand (FMCG), we have created an Edgy online persona to make it stand out and create content according to that. We brainstorm on a weekly basis with Creatives to come up with contents, which would likely drive conversation or engagement. It is really exciting to see which posts hit the sweet spot and to watch the “fan base”, “likes” or engagement rates grow.

Based on Grunig’s Four models of Public Relations, Facebook and many other social platforms are on a two-way symmetrical model, even if on the surface, most might not realize it.  The “fans” can communicate with the brand through messaging, comments or sharing. The comments, shares and likes are monitored to help content creation and communication to the public.  

Reports are generated either on a weekly or monthly basis to give clients and ourselves insights on, the demographics more active or receptive on the page. Through monitoring, it is also a gauge of whether our communications are going through and if the performance on the digital platform has improved sales or whatever objectives it has been set for.

Social Listening

Traditional media have to do media monitoring and for social media, we have social listening. Despite certain similarities, the objective can be quite different.

It can be for research, to start off a strategy, as an analysis tool or as an ongoing function on social media crisis management AKA Listening Post, to catch on to either online News, user conversations or mentions about a brand. This is the part of the work where I feel like a social-stalker. 

Photo Credit: memecrunch.com

We have tools to search based on keywords on the conversations that goes on in the various online platforms and they do go quite in-depth. I started off with a 5-6 thousand mentions on a weekly reporting basis and am also doing a daily monitoring now for that brand with an umbrella of other brands. It is actually quite interesting, just that it is tedious and time consuming. This is the best part, the tool actually captures private users' mentions on the brands as well as backdated "deleted" conversations or contents from, say a blog or a forum comment. Time to seriously think twice about what you post online!


Bulk of my work is shifting to helping for new pitches which is an amazing experience and also listening. I foresee more sleepless nights ahead, however, so far, its been so good. Good news seems to be dropping by very soon, lookout for upcoming updates!

Follow AleTheIntern on Facebook & Instagram through my journey! 

Alexa Lim Yuanfen

15806675

Proud intern of social@Ogilvy, Ogilvy Public Relations Singapore. 

My First Week of Internship in Singapore Red Cross.

Hi All

I am glad that I finally got to start my internship a week ago. This was due to many weeks of waiting and empty promises but the past is the past and we must now focus on the present.

I managed to get an internship in Singapore Red Cross' Corporate Communications department.  A short introduction of the Singapore Red Cross. They are a Singaporean humanitarian organisation which is part of a world-wide, non-political, non-religious movement that bases its work on the fundamental principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality. They are focused on six areas namely: blood donation, first aid,
 caring for the vulnerable, community services, serving humanity and international services.

On my first day, I was thrown into work by reading reports and brochures of services that the auxiliary of government organisation provided.

A Picture of my work desk.

 

My supervisors and colleagues have been very helpful and willing to allow me to help them out in their work. In particularly, my supervisor had already drawn up a list depicting the things I should do while I am there.

As of far, I have had the experience of collating media clippings, calling up the media and confirming they have received the press release sent, helped in facilitating a press meeting and co-wrote the emcee script for the upcoming awards ceremony.

My first task actually terrified me the most, I was given a list of blood donors and I had to call them up, find out their stories behind donating blood and send them to the public relations agency. I had a lot of phone calls to make and as the office is a open concept, everyone could hear every conversations made. This made me tune my voice down and a few times the person on the other end had to tell me to speak up. Overall, this was a very interesting task and I did well as the modules in school has already trained me to find the key points that the public relations agency could use to pitch as a story to the media.

At times when I am feeling distracted and need a pick-me-up, I always go to the cabinet picured below. Do not look down on this simple cabinet for it is filled with a variety of sweets, chocolates, potato chips, instant coffee and tea and even instant noodles.

This sums up the end of my first week. I cannot wait to start another week and learn as much as I can.

Thanks for reading!
Jacquelyn Woo
Curtin Singapore
15658504

Social Media is cheap, easy and fun PR!... or is it?

A month into the internship now and I feel as though I’ve gained a “digital” semester worth of knowledge. We have touch on technology and social media topics in our modules such as Public Relations (Media) about the evolution of PR. However, in reality, there is so much more that we need to catch on and get in touch with, as that evolution is faster than we think.
Interning in Ogilvy has been intensive thus far, yet immensely rewarding. Being allocated to social@Ogilvy, which specializes in Social Media, I was apprehensive about whether this experience would be beneficial and relevant to my PR internship, which specifies that we should be taking on a PR function. Being a “user” myself, Social Media does not seem like it will be a feat to take on, more like a common sense as I am almost on most of the platforms everyday. Platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook – where almost ALL my friends are on it.

The PR Plans that we have produced in school typically includes social media strategies into our plans and our mentality is usually: “Oh, social media would reach a wide number of audience, it will save on our budget because getting an account is free and we can be the “media” ourselves.” – But I was SO wrong.

Peers and classmates, even fellow interns in other departments of the PR arm would constantly think or tell me that my work looks fun, or even easy. Starting off, I would just give them a smile. What it is in reality is really quite far from what they think.

How is it really like then?

Technicalities

Being in the social media department, it seems that there is a certain expectation of how IT and “social-savvy” you are.

I started off with my first task in my first week, keying in data for an application, or an “App” on Facebook for one of our brands. Being users, we enjoy the benefits of the Apps we get on Facebook for free. However, these Apps meant to “engage” users like us costs quite a lot to make, could be a pain to maintain and has certain technicalities and strategies behind it which could have taken A LOT of time for the team to come up with. 

These Apps makes each brand’s page unique and most brands would like and should have them to make their FB page more unique and “fun”.  I was just involved in one process but it was definitely an experience, being able to see the mechanics of things such as thing. Of course, when the App is launched to the public for the first time through the brand’s page, the feeling is indescribable.

Strategies

In my first week here, there was a compulsory Digital belt program, which I have to attend. It was a progressive program, which starts off with the White Belt as an online module, introducing the processes and strategies that social@Ogilvy does for clients and has case studies of past successful cases.  The White Belt is the most basic and all staffs having roles and functions relating to Social Media have to go through. There is a quiz in each section in the module and after completing the sections, there is a final test at the end. Upon passing the test, one would be awarded the “White Belt” and will be “operationally ready”. Once White Belt is completed, following that would be the Red and Black belts, which goes in depth into specifics of analyzing, strategizing and planning.

social@Ogilvy members are all considered Black Belts and the other PR departments generally stops at White.  I am a proud Digital White Belt, for now!

Diving into the point, I have learnt that Social Media is not just part of a PR Plan. Within its own, there are so much to consider, the different phases and processes, which I have learn just the tip of the ice berg after being put to do up Social Media Playbooks, which are essentially guidebooks, one for Twitter and one for Instagram after attaining the White Belt. Each book felt like a Curtin module, semester’s worth of report, holding an average of about 25 pages of information and strategies and to be at least drafted within 3-5 working days. That research gave me so much more insights as to the business/PR functions of social media, which left me thinking about how much more could there possibly be, for me to learn on social media.

Learning points thus far:

• Social Media as a job function can be fun, but there is a lot more to it than just being able to stay online on Facebook all day.
• Social Media is evolving everyday and to be able to stand out in the digital realm amidst all the other brands and available information out there, requires a lot of strategizing, creativity, planning and consistency.
• Using Social Media as a PR tool or strategy might not necessarily be the cheapest. However, if budgets are used in the correct places and strategies are well planned, it will definitely reap huge benefits and values.

Tell me how you think about it! Would love to hear your opinion about Social Media too. Do feel free to ask me any questions as well. :)

Meanwhile, here's an article by eMarketer on the importance of brands to retool their approach for real time age - which is jumping on the Social Media bandwagon.

Follow AleTheIntern on Facebook & Instagram through my journey! 

Alexa Lim Yuanfen

15806675

Proud intern of social@Ogilvy, Ogilvy Public Relations Singapore.