Developing a PR plan for WA Farmers!

 

Hello Everyone!

 

I have been having a wonderful time working at WA Farmers and have applied a lot of the skills I have learnt during my course to my work at the Federation. I have been developing a PR plan for WA Farmers to help with the promotion of their event.

 

Some of the ideas I have included in the plan for the AgconnectWA Annual Conference include:

Social Media- Social media is a valuable tool to use these days when promoting an event and therefore AgConnects’ Facebook page will be mainly used as a key channel to communicate to targeted audiences and expose them of the benefits and concepts of the event. The PR  plan includes how they can utilise Facebook effectively, a timeline of Facebook posts to use and when to post them and how to generate conversation and feedback on their Facebook page.

Twitter will be utilised in the same way as Facebook, by providing an AgConnectWA page offering links to videos, sites and encouraging excitement around the event through tweets. I have also included a timeline of twitter posts to use and appropriate hashtags.

Traditional Media:

Other traditional media includes an emailing list to contact and receive feedback from attendees. I have suggested using the Federations newsletter ‘Farm weekly’ to include news releases in about the event. Flyers and posters are another option to promote the event, however there is a strict budget we must stick to.

Other information I provided in the plan was how WA Farmers could promote their major sponsors Westpac and Agrimaster. I also included information on networking with guest speakers on social media and how they can contact and provide information about the event to students direct through the universities in WA.

 

I have got a lot out of working at WA Farmers and I am actually rather sad that my time will be ending here soon!

When the best ideas don’t go to plan!

    Hi All!

Well it’s been a very interesting week at the WA Farmers Federation! I turned up finding out that we are no longer working on the organisation of the event Foodalicious – much to my disappointment! I have realised that working in not-for-profit means projects don’t always go to plan because of the tight budgets the organisation has to stick to as well as just getting tasks done within a time frame and getting the approvals from board members. I was rather sad to hear I would no longer work on this project as I was looking forward to the experience. However, this was not a waste of time because when the time is right WA Farmers will pull out the already completed work again and continue with planning the event.

My manager has now assigned me to a new task of which involves promoting another event that’s due to happen a lot sooner than Foodalicious. AgConnectWA Annual Conference 2014 is an event organized to connect and provide support to young people with interests in a range of industries (particularly agriculture) in order to address the challenges that face them, and to harness the opportunities available to them.
This event involves presentations from guests speakers, workshops run by industry professionals, networking opportunities and of course food and drinks!

   

                                   

        

       

         My task  for the event is to achieve the following goals:

•          To raise awareness of AgConnectWA Annual Conference 2014

•          To raise awareness about AgConnectWA

•          To increase the number of attendees at the event compared to last year’s conference

In order to reach these goals ill need to research the targeted audience and the possible ways of reaching their attention and then develop a media strategy involving both social and traditional media. Being not-for-profit as well it is very important to develop a cost effective approach to promoting the event as well as developing a way to evaluate and measure the success of the communications strategy for future reference when planning other events.

Has anyone else experienced something like this during their internship where they have had to drop what they are working on for certain reasons?

x

Foodalicious!

Hello everyone!

In my first week at WA Farmers I was introduced to ‘Foodalicious’ – an event that engages the concept of bringing WA farmers and the community together to celebrate the amazing food produced in WA. With Foodalicious only being an idea of WA Farmers I was given the task of helping with the organising and planning of the event to bring it to life.

Foodalicious was planned to be the largest farmers market in the Southern Hemisphere, bringing together local producers from the popular commodities of dairy, fruit and vegetables, meat, grains and wineries. WA farmers also wanted an educational purpose behind the event as well, this being that they wanted to take guests on a journey through their favourite products. This includes guests seeing the product in its raw form and the ride it goes on to the finished product. This concept makes schools a major targeted audience for the event.

My first task was to research potential exhibitors for the event. This included researching local farmers and producers and constructing a list of these producers with their contact details and other relevant information. Once I had completed this task I moved on to developing and researching ideas for entertainment purposes and what other interactive activities Foodalicious could provide to its guests.

In this time I also was required to develop a draft email to send out to potential sponsors inviting them to support the event and what they can expect in return for their generosity. I was also brainstorming social media strategies for the promotion of the event.

This week I also learnt how to write up a sponsorship invitation. This is something I had not written up before in assignments but I got to see and learn how my manager sets their invitations out and I have kept a copy for future reference. The invitation included information on the event, why to sponsor, the programme, sponsorship packages and payments and conditions.

I hope everyone is enjoying their internships! 

The time has finally come.. where I must act professional!

Hello Everyone!

My name is Ellen and I am currently in my final year of university studying at Curtin. I major in Public relations and Tourism and Event Management of which I am thoroughly enjoying!

Since year 11 at high school I have wanted to study PR and luckily enough as soon as I started learning it I loved it. Everything about it is so interesting to me and the assignments are never boring!

The tourism industry is also of high interest to me hence why I study it, however PR and event management is my passion and I have very much enjoyed starting my PR 393 internship.

I am currently completing my internship at the Western Australian Farmers Federation. A not-for-profit organisation that represents the voice of farmers throughout Western Australia and works towards a more sustainable future for the agricultural industry.

The role given to me for my internship was a PR coordinator, of which I work alongside a small team consisting of a marketing and events manager and a communications officer. The team I work with are very friendly and I’m learning a lot from them, one of them having actually studied at Curtin University and the other at UWA.

With my studies focusing on events management and PR I have been given the tasks of helping with the development of a social media strategy for an upcoming event held by WA Farmers. With developing many social media strategies in past uni assignments this is not something I am incapable of but rather something I really enjoy doing and thrilled to be able to show my manager what I can do.

My first week at WA farmers was scary and exciting, I was worried they would have high expectations of me that I couldn't fulfill. However once I started working on my tasks I realised this is what I love doing and this is what I’m good at! This caused me only to be more excited for the weeks ahead of more learning and experience. I have a lot to learn about the ways of working in PR in a non-profit industry and I’m sure this experience will be most useful for years down the track. This experience means a lot to me and I want to make the most of it!

I hope everyone else is enjoying their internship and I look forward to reading about them!