3 days down, 17 to go...

After weeks of difficultly trying to secure a internship that I could start, I finally secured a spot in a small non-for profit organisation called DADAA. DADAA is an organisation that aims to involve people with disability or a mental illness into the arts. After only three days at my internship position I have been having a fabulous time! I have been working alongside their head of communications assisting with day-to-day jobs that need to be completed. Such activities as the monthly newsletter, media releases, social media monitoring(metrics) and updating, annual report writing, visiting studios and liaising with clients. These along with many other jobs are all completed by the head of communications at DADAA. Working as an intern in a small organisation gives me a chance to learn every aspect of communications and discover the broader tasks that accompany public relations.

I found myself asking the question on my first day, if I was put into this position now as a graduate I would not have the necessary skills to complete these tasks. But after being at DADAA now for only three days and working through each of the tasks it wasn't such a daunting idea to think in a few months maybe even six months to a year I could be working in a similar position all by myself.

I have collaborated with my supervisor to write the DADAA September newsletter and a media release for the community newspapers in Fremantle. After she asked me to prove read the newsletter for her we then sent out the newsletter to all of their stakeholders and internal staff only to then find a mistake in the very first sentence!! Although this doesn't have huge repercussions it was a chance to prove my worthiness as an intern as my on of my first completed tasks. My advice is to check once, twice and three times just to make sure everything is perfect. Professionalism is the key to success and spelling and grammar presents as sloppy to future employers, stakeholders and staff. My supervisor then asked me to write a media release for the community newspapers in Fremantle in which I then redeemed myself by double and triple checking for mistake and improvements! I have definitely learned to listen to my university tutors and lecturers now when they tell me to check over my work numerous times as it is one of the most important things you must do.

My three days at DADAA have been a great learning curb. The one thing I felt confident about was social media. I felt I could bring some very help insight into what DADAA could do to fix the unity of their social media platforms. This was a common issue in DADAA's social media and I'm sure across many other small organisations also. Many of the programs that are run by DADAA have people who work independently with artists and wish to create their own social media platforms that are separate from the organisations page. My supervisor gave me the task over my time working with them to think of ways to improve their social media and branding. This was something I was confident I could achieve. The only thing that I felt I lacked from my university experience was social media monitoring or metrics. I had only had one, possibly two units over my entire time at university where I had learnt about metrics. Metrics is becoming a huge way to track and report on the flow of traffic an organisation gets on their social media sites.

Overall, DADAA has been a great opportunity for me and so far I have learnt a lot in my first three days. From day one to day three I can say I have progressed further than what I thought I would, learning some very valuable lessons along the way (must triple check!).
After only three days, I'm very excited for the journey ahead, gaining new experiences and learning new things along the way.

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

The Awesome Moment When a PR Intern Attends her First Media Conference

Hello fellow interns.

This has been a busy week.

The company I intern for is sponsoring the Football Republic Cup this year and in this regard, I got the opportunity to attend my very first press conference. A number of influential people in sports were present on that day, such as the president of the Mauritius Professional Football League, Mr Georges Chung, and the head coach of the Mauritius national football team, Mr Didier Six. Of course, there were quite a few tasks to complete before and after the conference, needless to mention the phone calls that had to be made to confirm logistics for the event. I also wrote a media advisory and a press release. These were easy tasks compared to the speech I had to draft for the CEO of the company. 

Journalists waiting for the CEO of Omnicane to deliver his speech at the press conference held in Port-Louis.

It was definitely challenging, especially since it was about the Republic Cup and I’m not really into football. I was not very inspired and had to do some research on local football. I also looked for tips online and came across a nice article on Forbes, called 10 Keys To Writing A Speech. It basically says that your speech should be well structured, have a strong opening and ending, that you should repeat yourself because people tend to drift off, and most importantly, keep the speech short (let’s face it, short is sweet). Well, except when we’re talking about ‘short notice’.

Given the short notice and my lack of experience in this aspect, it was no surprise that on the day of the conference, the CEO delivered a speech different from the one I had written. However, it’s been a really good exercise as I’m pretty sure I would not have listened that attentively if I had not drafted the speech. As a result, I was able to note the things that I should have included to make it perfect. On another hand, one of the journalists asked a question to the CEO, concerning how long the partnership with the Republic Cup would last. While he had not mentioned it in his speech, I did write about it in the one I had drafted. I think it’s a good sign if, as an aspiring PR person, I can predict journalists’ questions and so I was nevertheless satisfied with my work.

I also wrote a media release after the event and I was excited when my supervisor told me that I did a good job and that I did not need to edit it.

If you have any other suggestions as to how to write a good speech, feel free to share them.

All the best,

Haddiyyah Tasneem Futloo

If It's Not Newsworthy Or Interesting, Don't Bother

Writing a press release is something that every Public Relations practitioner knows how to do.

Interning at a not-for-profit organisation that does not have a Marketing or Public Relations department. Writing and distributing press releases became an important part of my journey at Global Hand Charity.


The difference between a good press release and a bad press release is that good press release ALWAYS GET NOTICED. You may get a phone call from the journalist or publication it was sent to, or stumble upon an article that is similar to a press release you sent out.


I would love to say that my press releases got published, but that was not the case. This experience made re-analyse the current situation of charities and not for profits in Perth. October is the month for Telethon and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So for a small, lesser known charity it was hard to "compete" with these other charities being more prominent in all media publications.

Every day journalists and newspapers are receiving hundreds of press releases. Only the most interesting and newsworthy ones are chosen.even then if there is no space for a quick story, BAD LUCK.

Although it would have been great to have a press release that I wrote get noticed from a journalists, I did receive get advice from a reporter that changed my focus and look at MY WRITING and see how it can improve.


Until next time,

Maria
15508764.

Media: Best Friend and Enemy

We all know how important the media is for PR. We were all told we needed to build good relationships with journalists. We even had a unit, Media Relations 250, on how to maintain good relationship with the media. However, we also know it is impossible to control the message; journalists publish or broadcast anything they want to.

Recently, I came across a news article in a Mauritian newspaper about a crisis of an organisation which is a client of the PR consultancy I am doing my internship with. Several employees of the company were refusing to abide by some regulations and were threatening to strike. The journalist who reported the crisis took into consideration only the point of view of the employees. It was written in the article that some employees were threatened to be sacked for some invalid reasons and the reporter did not mention the reasons he or she considered as 'invalid'. How far is that ethical? What was the aim behind it? I don’t know. I only know that the content of the article portrayed a bad image of the company.

I used that case study in a presentation last week and asked the other students how they perceived the company. They all gave positive comments. I then showed them the news article with emphasis on specific paragraphs and asked them again how they perceived the company. I received only negative comments. Some even told me that the company was unethical.

A single news article changed completely the students’ perception of the company. Even if the whole truth was not reported in the article, the readers believed what they read in the papers. This is normal because the media should normally be trustworthy and reliable. No matter what good actions the company did before and the good services it provides everyday, a single news article succeeded in affecting negatively its image.

Coming back to what really happened. The journalist did not mention anywhere in the article why these regulations were implemented. Of course, there were relevant reasons to that. The most important one: for the safety of the employees! And there were no threats of sacking, few employees were suspended for some days because they refused to abide by the rules.

How did the PR agency react to that? A media release was issued with all the reasons and benefits behind those new regulations. The release was sent to several media outlets and it was even published later in the evening on the company’s facebook account. The next day, several newspapers published articles on the reasons and benefits.

The media affected negatively the image of the company, the media itself helped in bringing back the good reputation of the company. 

“You should not expect much on the three first days of your internship!” They said….

I am doing an internship with 12 Monkeys in Mauritius, which is an advertising and brand communication company which opened in July 2011.   

I wanted to wait for my first week to end before writing my first post, but I did only two days and I have to admit that it was not like what ‘they said’, in fact, I never worked that much!!

On my first day, I was really stressed (I guess like everyone else involve in PR393). Of course I was early, but I did not plan to be sitting in front of the office door half an hour before it actually opened, (I wanted to give a good first impression).

I was quite surprised to see the office, a big room with desks disposed everywhere but no walls. I thought that this was great, I directly felt at ease, and no one acted like ‘the boss’. It is like one family working all together.

My day started quite slowly as I did not really know what to do and was quite shy to ask. Then I saw a woman with a pile of newspaper on her desk, and I thought (media clipping, that’s something I can do!) and there I started. However, I have to say that doing my studies in English did not help much as when I said ‘you are doing media clipping right?’ she looked at me and did not understand. (This is where I remember my OB classes: the communication model). In French the Media Clipping is called ‘Dossier de Presse’ which is something I should have known as even though our official language in Mauritius is supposed to be English, nearly every Medias publish in French.

Once the Media clipping done, my supervisor called me as to see what exactly I can do for her, and she asked me if I know how to do an (the French technic word) ‘OURS’. I panicked and did not know what to say; I am sure you all can relate to that moment where it is your first day and your supervisor asks you about something you never heard before. But I had to tell the truth, and then when she started to explain what it was, I had to maintain my laugh as I figured out it is the update of the media list. I felt quite stupid.

I was later asked to write a press release on an event, I spent about one hour on it and showed it to my supervisor who said “it is good. But this was only a test. Can you write a media release on the event of Sunday?” I felt betrayed and proud at the same time.

For my second day, I was feeling much better; I was there on time, started to be more confident and did some research on the French words for PR Techniques. I carried on writing the release for the event, it took me some time but it was finally approved.  After lunch, half of the team (designers) was creating a newsletter and asked for my help as to correct the text. They were also working on the bibs for the sport event, and I helped them on these too.

Once the bib and newsletter finalized, I had to call a list of journalists as to confirm if they were coming on Sunday. I do not know if it is only with me, but journalists are worse than celebrities! They are very difficult to reach. With one specific journalist, I am sure that I had about four different receptionists on the phone asking me to call on another number and guess what? I never reached the journalist…

So basically, I did only two days of internship and I feel like I have been working for weeks! However, I deeply think that it is an amazing experience and that I am lucky to work that much, I think it is the best way to learn and I am happy that ‘what they said’ was not true!   

Wrapping it all up – PR and charity events

Throughout my time at Cancer Support WA, I’ve been exposed to tasks to refine my skills in Public Relations, marketing and event management.

The key skills I have learnt/honed during my internship include the following:

Writing to suit the organisational house style. Since I wasn’t working in a corporate setting, I had more creative leeway and didn’t have too many restrictions on how I wrote fact sheets and media releases.

However the basic rules of correct grammar, punctuation, and structure had to be followed in order to maintain quality and professionalism in my work. I was appreciative of the honest and constructive feedback I received from the helpful staff at CSWA.

I also became familiar with the importance of networking and communication whilst in a professional setting and beyond. One of the main ways CSWA raised funds was by contacting previous event sponsors, ie: Individuals in the community, organisations and public figures across the state. From there we contacted people in their professional circle, and so our email database (of sponsors) began to grow.

This reinforced in my mind the importance of maintaining strong professional relationship with clients and stakeholders even after said business transactions are completed. You never know when their assistance (or contacts) may be needed in the future.

Today I attended an afternoon tea as part of 2014 National Volunteer week in Australia (12-18^th May). It was basically an opportunity for the team at CSWA to get better acquainted, and reinforce that sense of community that has been established in our organisation over time. It was a really enjoyable experience as it added that personal touch to the organisation, and solidified our motives for being here (ie: to support a good cause, break into the media industry).

All in all, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here at Cancer Support WA. From the moment I started I was welcomed into a professional, friendly and team oriented environment. I have not only honed my writing skills, but adapted new skills which will assist me in being an even better PR practitioner for future years to come. 

Natasha Scekic 15498315
Curtin Bentley 

Hotels, PR & Hotel PR – in a nutshell

Let me start by saying thank goodness it is Friday, the acronym does not truly give justice to how thankful I am. Don’t get me wrong, the internship is going great - but this first month has been a shock to the system to say the least. Monday to Friday, waking up at the crack of dawn, sitting in traffic, the 9 hour work day, more traffic – absolutely exhausting! It takes getting used to, coffee does help and weekends are a godsend. 

Working in a hotel takes some getting used to too. You realise in a matter of hours that you must make the mental transition from past guest to employee, or ‘associate’ as we are known in Marriott. My expectations of hotel Public Relations have been warped as well. When I applied for this job, I was told during my interview that the PR was part of the Sales and Marketing department, no real surprise at the time but once I started, I soon realised Sales, Marketing and PR all blend together – In other Marriott hotels it is also known as Marcom (marketing communications). The PR team mainly deals with the hotel’s advertising and promotions.

Hotel PR combines with advertising and promotion to generate awareness for the hotel or it services, create demand for its services, and increase its perceived value – the latter being absolutely key.  This includes media releases, promotion booklets, the website, blog and other SNS’s, even the key cards – all of which have to support your hotel’s business positioning and marketing objectives. My boss’s first bit of advice was ‘stick to the guidelines and policies’ – Hotel PR is a huge responsibility as you are the voice of the hotel – no one else other than PR personnel have the right to speak on behalf of the hotel publicly, so when you do make sure you get it right. Stating the obvious, For Marriott, it is all about the brand value and maintaining the high standards that come with it.

So from my first 3 weeks, I have come up with a brief list of what you need to know about interning in hotel PR, let’s say the 5 basics shall we, which are as follows:-

·         It is not limited solely to issuing press releases and doing media clippings – definitely not. They were in my initial ‘what to expect’ list. Media clippings I do daily but no press releases in these first 3 weeks. Instead I have been doing write-ups for their promotion booklets, designing Christmas e-cards, and most recently making ‘No Durians Allowed’ signs.

·         As much as you want to make all advertising and promotions sound as appealing as possible, it is essential you TELL THE TRUTH. Yes company and personal ethics are involved, but the whole deal of marketing (and marketing hospitality in particular) is that your product needs to be as good as you say it is.

·         CSR is a biggy – For the big players like Marriott, it is extremely important to give back to the community, and they make sure they do all year around in their ‘Spirit to Serve’ community initiatives. At the moment I am helping with their Christmas Wish Tree Project, which supports children and adults with physical and mental disabilities, orphans, and underprivileged families in Miri.

·         Know your SNS’s – as a member of gen Y, your boss will expect you to be tech-savvy and know everything there is to know about digital media platforms. If you haven’t tweeted or instagram’d before, I suggest you start and know the power of hashtags. I was put in charge of setting up and maintaining the hotel’s Instagram – being totally unfamiliar with the platform prior to this. My advice if you’re faced with the same situation is to research first, check how other hotels use Instagram, remember to hashtag, and have fun with it.  

·         And lastly, don’t start the internship with the expectation of having work to do all day, 5 days a week. You will find that there are often days where you have nothing to do and you are just sitting around waiting to clock out at 5pm. I suggest headphones and good music, and get to know the software your company uses. For example, CorelDraw is the software of choice here for designing everything from their promo booklets to their company envelopes.

Obviously these are only based on my experience so far – it may vary from hotel to hotel, hospitality to consultancy - but the essential elements are there.

Rachel Salinah Jackson

7e0b8041/15624958

Curtin Miri

Go Green and 1 Malaysia photo exhibition

Hi again!

Day 14 of my placement I start to write media release for my own photo exhibition that going to be held on 12 September 2013. As usual I always refer to Ms Sofina after I done writing media release before she pass it to the journalist or post it on the Pustaka Sarawak Facebook page. Right after I wrote the media release I start to find people and photographer to contribute their pictures for my photo exhibition. We received a lot of feedback and email that would like to join the exhibition. I was so happy because I was scared at first that no one will see our media release and no one will contribute to the photo exhibition. The next day, which is day 15 of my internship, me and Michelle start creating the poster for the event and we agreed that Michelle poster to be use as the official poster for the event because last time on the ShowTime event mine poster was chosen. I also start planning what to do on that event and who to invite to join the event. The whole week Ms Sofina let me and Michelle to concentrate on that event only and didn’t give us any heavy job. A week after on day 21 of my placement, I finalize everything and double check the kiosk and make sure everything is there and the place is clean before the soft lunch on the next day. 3 days after the soft lunch which is on 15 September, celebrity from TV3 Faiz, was a reporter for Muzik- Muzik program on TV3 stop by on the photo exhibition and take few shot and told me and Ms Sofina that he is doing a program on TV9 called “Makan angin”. He said our footage will be air on 11 October 2013. I am so happy as well as my boss. I never thought that someone in the big company would come to my photo exhibition. It was a big achievement for me. My media release also on air in Era.Fm and published in few newspapers. It supposes to be 1-week exhibition. Because of the good respond from the public, Ms Sofina decided to continue the exhibition for a month.

Photo Exhibition

Thats it for now and don't forget to check out my last post soon!. cheers.