Taking a leap into adulthood

Welcome to Semester 2, the final semester of my 4-year double degree in Commerce and Humanities; Public Relations and Internet Communications major. After one month completing my Public Relations internship at Zadro Agency in Sydney I’m finding it difficult to settle back into routine. Just 6 months left I keep telling myself but it doesn't appear to be helping! One thing that does help however is finally having the clear understanding that this is the degree for me. For years I've wondered whether I would get to the end of my degree, enter the workforce and realise that I’ve spent 4 years working on a degree in an employment field for which I wasn't suited or that I hate. Luckily for me it seems that I needn't have worried.

My public relations internship experience was unforgettable. Surrounded by lovely people at a great agency, my month was filled with a great array of tasks and learning opportunities from creating media lists, to writing social media content to media releases and creating website content from scratch - my internship provided me with a diverse range of key public relations responsibilities. Among the known and unknown tasks for working in Public Relations, I learned a few more things on the job which I'd like to share. So, here’s what you don’t learn about at university:

1. Working Outside office hours: Everyone knows that overtime is one of those things that can’t be avoided; no matter what career you’ve chosen. What they don’t tell you is that the overtime might be as annoying as having to make a single post on Instagram at 8pm on a Saturday because that’s when it suits the target market. Looking into a future of potentially ruined Saturday nights (or at the very least delayed!).

1. EXCEL IS YOUR LIFE: Never did I expect to go into my internship and use Excel, especially not everyday.

1. Office cookies are the enemy: Don’t start eating them, you’ll never stop

1. Applications: There are a number of different applications and databases that are utilised in the workforce on a day-to-day basis, to name just a few; Streamtime – used to record minutes and stakeholder information, MediaNet – an Australian publication database, Nuvi – a social media application to manage posts (currently in trial stage). These applications will require training and I can see that being ahead of the crowd in finding and using good social media applications will be part of the job, however they will make your working life much easier.

I undertook my internship in a month long period in order to give myself a real world experience where I could fully comprehend the working life. I personally recommend this method of completing an internship because not only does it allow you to experience how exhausting it is to work 9-5 Monday – Friday (despite the fact you spend most of the day in a chair), but also because you experience the flow of the office and its daily rhythm. It is easier to understand the real progression of a client through the internship period, rather than having to be updated and filled in on each client’s status week to week.

I’m excited to have undertaken this experience and to think that I almost passed on the opportunity to move over to Sydney for a month and work at such an amazing agency because of the late notice doesn't even bear thinking about. This internship has made me realise that at the end of the day, it's better to experience something firsthand and decide whether it's for you than be kept wondering what it might have like if only you'd been brave enough to take a leap of faith.

Signing off for the last time with my Zadro signature tag,
Bella

What's on my mind? Status content creation

At its core, Public Relations is the management of the face of an organisation and their visible behaviours; managing their public actions in business. Traditionally, this has been achieved through the creation of media relationships - the writing of media releases, media alerts and other relevant information. While these items remain vital to operation in contemporary practice, another medium is on the rise. We’re talking Social Media...and Social Media is talking back (well, sometimes anyway).

These past few weeks in my internship have highlighted the extent of the importance of social media to Public Relations.

It's not that I don't understand the importance of posting current and engaging information about a business, or that I don't appreciate how it can affect public perception. I've studied it in theory and even maintain a social media presence for a local café in Perth. However now I’ve had the opportunity to see real, long-term planned social media undertakings on the scale that's necessary for large organisations. So I've shifted from writing social media for a café in a Word document each week to writing 13 weeks of social media content, 4 posts per week, in an Excel spreadsheet where text, image and links are all detailed.

Writing week to week, the task is a lot easier – each day there is something to talk about that's happening then and there, be it a new menu item or wine tasting. Now, compare that with writing 13 weeks of content in one hit for an organisation where you have limited information to go on. Significant difference. I think I'm developing a personal relationship with Google. It's become my workday friend. I use it to search everything, from industry news that might still be relevant in 13 weeks to random points of related interest to searching #inspo on Pinterest.

I've had a couple of interesting moments in my content creation journey. One piece of content writing I completed for a client organisation's social media was deleted because it asked the audience a question – so it involved a response. I was genuinely surprised by this as my understanding of social media is that audience engagement is desirable and might result in more individuals discovering the page. But as it turns out, that was both its strength and weakness; it required engagement. If the audience didn’t respond it could be seen as a failed post and if they did respond it would require further action which might be a drain on human resources or the action might not be positive.

From a PR perspective, the ability to maintain and control social media is vital in modern day business because it's all about controlling the message. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more - they all provide avenues to portray desired images and present an array information of varying degrees of interest and importance. Social media is great for launching products and announcing events but it isn’t just a method of information distribution, it is also an important method of maintaining a presence and nurturing an ongoing relationship; 4 posts a week over 13 weeks is a significant commitment to that relationship. Planned, created and curated with care, social media is all about the success of the message and, for many businesses, that success is often determined simply by the size of the audience.

Logging out

Bella

The Importance of Communication

Communication is key. I feel as if I’ve heard it since I was born and, to be fair, I probably have. I’m sure our parent's regret encouraging us to speak as toddlers at times, you know, those times that they just wish you would shut up and leave them alone. In fact, as I typed this I received an email from my mum which began with a cheery “Because, you annoying little cretin…”; this is real love people. Shift communication out of the home and into the workforce and you have a process with a whole other level of importance and nuance. E-mail is a wonderful thing but it's best to remember that if it is in writing it can come back to bite you (surprisingly my mother actually did first teach me this yet still sends colourful emails!). Emails, or any written word, can also easily be miscomprehended, taken out of context or received completely void of context and meaning or simply be (sometimes wilfully) misinterpreted. Of course these issues aren't restricted to online communication, communication of any type can be tricky.

So why the focus on communication. YMEA – Young Meeting and Event Association. My very first professional networking experience. Those attending were from event hosting venues throughout Sydney with a range of ages and even different languages represented. Perhaps the best thing I learnt from attending YMEA’s Christmas in July networking function on Wednesday 22 was actually from one of their sponsors – The Fun Department - in the form of an icebreaker.

Separated into groups by a letter, we were allocated the letter L and instructed to choose a team name 5 letters or less; we chose Lunar. Our very first game involved a bit of a play on Chinese whispers. A member of the group viewed a picture and had to remember the image's details then return to the group and whisper those details into the first person’s ear. Those details were then passed around the group and the final participant had to draw the image onto a board. Our final image was a ranger in a jumper and red glasses. The actual image? An Indy reindeer in a Christmas sweater complete with red nose and glasses. Hilarious but certainly concrete evidence of our slightly below par communication skills in this activity and a great reminder of the importance of communication.

Aside from the fun and games, it was interesting to attend a real networking function. As it was a night specific to the events industry, many of the attendees had previously met or heard of each other to the extent that the event operated as something of a 'catch up'. Certainly, the positive experience of speaking to people I had never met or heard of from the industry - particularly as it was in another state -  was an amazing opportunity which will encourage me to attend and communicate at future networking events.

The very next morning, I took the opportunity to connect with the woman who introduced me to Zadro agency and suggested me as a possible intern. Having never met her before, I was keen to thank her. The path to Zadro was certainly a circuitous one.  I work part-time at a Perth hotel that is part of a world-wide chain (IHG) and approached our internal Marketing/PR contact with the aim of securing an internship in the hotel on the East a Coast or overseas. She put me in contact with Annmarie from IHG in Sydney, who is a lovely lady with an amazing career, but the company were unable to accommodate the timeframe. A number of email communications followed during which she reached out to a friend at Zadro agency and, in the end, my internship was arranged with surprising speed. The opportunity for us to connect was not a daunting experience at all, it was a great opportunity to thank her and discuss a range of topics around university, interning and the work she does with IHG.

The communication theme of also spilled over into my working week. On Wednesday afternoon, I sent out a round of emails to specialised magazines with the aim of securing a written promotional article for a client. I then spent hours on Thursday phoning contacts on a client’s database to update their information (some of who didn’t realise they were even on a database), a total of 100 contacts required updating.

Looking back over this post, it strikes me that this is probably closer to an essay than a blog post but that is exactly how I felt over those two days….and I love it. In the space of just one short working week, I've had the theory of good and strategic communication in the workplace reinforced continuously in practice; I'm waiting to see what other theoretical aspects of PR I'll get to see in practice over the next week.

Signing off

Bella

Unfamiliar Territory

I must admit, I found the very idea alone of an internship incredibly scary. What will it be like? Will they like me? Am I prepared for this; am I good enough; will I be able to do what they ask of me? Not content with that challenge, I decided to double the fear factor...and undertake my internship in Sydney. On my own. So here I am, blogging from Surry Hills, Sydney in my own tiny house/room in a long stay hostel. I say house/room because literally everything I need is right next to me; my bed is touching the desk, my bathroom is two feet away and my fridge is two feet away from that! Compact living at its best (or perhaps worst?).

I arrived in Sydney on a Sunday night, primed to start my first day in the PR field the next day but it was safe to say my nerves kept me awake a good portion of the night. Location of said internship? Zadro Agency – named Top 5 PR and Marketing Company by Spice Magazine. Just to add to the pressure right?

Before arriving at the agency, I was told by my contact Debbie that the week I arrive would be quite busy due to multiple members of the team being on leave. She wasn’t wrong. I arrived at the quaint townhouse that had been converted into an office, to staff furiously typing away. Debbie was the first to stand and greet me, introducing me to Jacqueline who would be my contact for the next month. I was then introduced to each member of the office, a team of 15 people in total working in the areas of public relations, marketing, digital and social, design and internal communications. After a quick tour of the office area and receiving my Zadro goodies (including Zadro rock candy!), I was put to work straightaway.

My very first task was a media release. I couldn’t believe it. My first thought; this is a dream come true. My second? When is the last time I actually wrote a media release? Turns out these learned hypothetical skills do stick with you and, just in case they don't, there are thousands of other examples on the hard-drive or as we call it here, the Z-drive (clearly, I am an early-adopter of office lingo). Luckily I’m not the first intern to have been dropped into the real world of PR at Zadro Agency, with Jacqueline easing my nerves in saying, “it’s okay, we don’t expect you to know everything yet - the real world is different to uni”. With the aid of the Z-drive and a bit of a Google background search, I completed my first media release and sent it back to Jacqueline. From there it was edited twice, once by herself and then again by Debbie. I was rather surprised at the editing stages of a single media release; you expect it to be edited of course but I had never stopped never to consider the time that goes into the entire process especially in the workplace. This editing process is the norm for all work at Zadro Agency as they strive to provide the best for their clients. Hopefully, I can rise to the challenge and provide my best for the Zadro team as I progress throughout this internship. 

Bye for now

Bella