Reflections

Hello! This is my last post, which means it's time for reflections!

3 'What I learned' takeaways from my placement

1. School never prepares you enough

No matter how many press releases I may have written during Public Relations (Media) class, it all didn't seem to help when I had to write one during my placement.

There are so many things which school does not teach and cannot teach. For reasons such as the obvious difference in how different media organisations work, school does not teach you when is the best time to call up BBC or who you should send that RSVP to in Wall Street. There were just so many things in which I felt so useless about being during my placement.

2. But there are lots of things you can prepare yourself for

For example, you can start by familiarising yourself with the names of local journalists covering the beat in which is relevant to your job. For example, revising what you learned in school about press releases.

For example, prepping yourself for a total change in environment.

For every point that school cannot teach, I find that there's another thing that school had taught me but which I did not put it to heart before. When I finally realise that I had learned something in school before but had forgotten about it, it makes a stronger impression on me and I'm really glad to have that experience. However, there are also those incidents when you realise belatedly that you have made a mistake on something which you have learned before.

3. Change your attitude

This is probably why I think a change in attitude is the most important and useful preparation any intern can have.

This is a learning experience, but this is also the real world. Be prepared to start from the bottom, do every other administrative work that no one wants to do. Watch what other people do, learn from it, then ask for chances to try your hands on it.

While I may have had prior work experience in an office, this was vastly different from what I had experienced before. I suffered an identity crisis mid-way through my placement, unsure of my responsibilities and purpose in that office. It felt like I wasn't doing public relations work, because it was so different from what we do in school. 

To be honest, I started my placement with unwavering enthusiasm, but there's barely any of this left now. While I had a positive attitude towards my work, I clearly wasn't prepared for the wide gap between school and agency work. Whatever enthusiasm I had for my work slowly turned into panic, uncertainty and worry. 

I started dreading work.

Then somewhere along the way, I got used to the environment and everything seemed to start getting better. I got more "real work" and the days didn't seem to feel so horrible any more. At least, I stopped dreading going to work.

Undeniably though, this was a valuable learning curve, one that I'm glad happened during my internship placement rather than when I take on my first job. 

As a result, there are so many things which I wished I had a different result. Admittedly, there were tasks in which I felt I did not do my best in. They could have gone much better if I had done them with a different attitude.

3 Things I wished went better

1. Socialising

I never knew that I am so bad at socialising. Disclaimer: I have no qualms with talking to strangers. But somehow, talking to strangers in a natural, "normal" environment is different from talking to strangers during a networking event. 

Confession: I am horribly awkward at socialising events. The most common statement I say during events is: "Hi I'm Magdalene, but I'm really sorry, I don't have a name card for you."

I cringe even at the thought of how awkward I was every time I said this.

2. Media liaison

I sometimes wonder if it shows in my emails and phone calls that I'm a rookie at media liaison work, because I am just so awkward at this.

Halfway through a phone call with a media while doing a media audit, I find that I've ran out of things to say. I can never seem to get the right words or phrases immediately while on the phone and I always seem to regret my first choice of word used. It did get slightly better at a later stage, but now that I think about it, I was really very bad at it when I first started.

3. Proactiveness

I admit, I should have been more proactive. It could have changed the result of everything. Like I mentioned earlier, halfway through the placement, I started dreading work. That was probably when my enthusiasm for it waned and my desire to take the initiative in many things dropped drastically.

I avoided taking up new tasks for a period of time, contented with whatever existing regular tasks I had. The end result is that I barely had exposure beyond working in the office and there were many tasks in which I never got the chance to try. 

Nonetheless, all of these were valuable experiences to me. Many of the mistakes I've made during my placement, I'm glad I made them at this stage as an intern, because I've had really forgiving managers who understood that I was still in the process of learning the ropes of this industry. 

Had it not been for this module, I probably would have gone for my first job without any real experience on public relations, so in many ways, this module was to me, an important milestone in my life.

At the very least, it has motivated me to excel in this career path that I've chosen for myself.

With lots of love and best regards for everyone graduating this semester,

Magdalene

15096324

Curtin Singapore

Some things are best understood if you experience it first hand

Last post I shared about some of the work I've done at the agency, this post I'll continue about more work done at the agency.

Social media

One of the work that I've engaged in that really caught my interest was drafting Facebook contents for a client. While the client may not have used all of my posts, it was a particularly enriching experience because this was the first time I was involved in helping a business brand itself online. As someone born in an era of rapid technology advancements and developments, this was definitely very exciting.

Some takeaways from this experience: 

1. It's important to have good content.

Prior to drafting the content for the client, they had been coming ultimately with their own content for the Facebook posts. As that was around Mid-Autumn Festival and many hotels were trying to sell their mooncakes (a local pastry often seen around Mid-Autumn Festival), most of the client's posts were on mooncakes.

However, their posts just weren't getting the clicks they wanted.

When we started taking over this task of generating the content, I was first tasked with researching Facebook posts by some of the client's competitors. I had to categorise the different types of posts made by their competitors and rank the different categories of posts by order of how popular they were, judging based on the number of likes and comments on each post. 

The result was that we could come up with posts that got more desirable results.

2. It's more important to do research.

Coming up with social media content is very time consuming. 

Where does good content come from? Research.

Even after the initial research was done, there was still more research to do. For example, whenever we had to draft a whole week's worth of content, we go through the past week of newspapers and weekly magazines for ideas. Five days worth of content required reading, reading and more reading. 

When we were still doing our academic modules, I never understood why every module had at least one lesson dedicated to research. Now I can proudly say, I understand the rationale.

Had we never done the research on the posts, I am sure we would never have been able to convince the client to use our content and ideas. When we had actual facts and figures, while the process was still not easy, it definitely made the job much easier.

Media Audit

Another research-based task I undertook during my placement was media audit. This was surely the best experience I've had. While it was dreadful, it was one good learning experience. 

Unlike writing press releases and coming up with strategies and tactics, media audit is not something that can be taught in school. 

What school can teach us about media audit: how it works, why do we need it, how can we go about doing it.

What school cannot teach us about media audit: the actual experience.

There were editors who were patient and cooperative; they answered the questions to the best of their abilities. Then there were editors who didn't want to take the conversation any further the moment they heard you were calling for a media audit.

From being nervous about making the call to dreading picking up the phone to being able to improvise questions on the spot, that was definitely an important learning curve for me. 

If understanding how relationships with the media work was the first 'what-you-can't-learn-in-school' lesson for me, this was definitely the second.

I guess this is why people say, experience truly matters.

With much love,
Magdalene
15096324
Curtin Singapore

Next post: Reflections!

Is the press release dead?

Hello!

Last post, I did a little introduction about the agency where I did my internship placement. Today, I’ll go on to the little nitty-gritty daily things we do in the office!


Looking back, I think I’m quite lucky. Prior to my internship placement, I have heard horror stories about how some interns were stuck with doing media monitoring for a long period of time or just weren’t given enough public relations work.

Thankfully, while I had my fair share of media monitoring, I did get to try other PR activities. Of these tasks, there were some which I enjoyed more than others and some which I felt were more meaningful than others.

Press Releases

According to Jane Johnston (who is co-author of our Public Relations (Principles) 201 textbook), “the best-known communication tool is the media release, also called a press release, news release, media alert or media announcement”.

At GHC, on average, there is at least one press release going out to the media each month for each client. Not all clients may request for other PR activities such as press trips or media luncheon, but almost all clients come to us for press release generation and distribution.

With the high volume of press releases going out each month, it is probably little surprise that I did get to try my hand at actual press release writing. Till date, I have helped draft three press releases for a client.

However, this is one of those areas which I realized there is a gap between school and real life.

In school, I really enjoyed press release writing exercises. They encouraged creativity and made us think out of the box to write a good press release. After all, theoretically, press releases should be creative, fresh and newsworthy. They should be different so that they catch the attention of the journalists.

Theoretically, they should be different.

In truth, press releases aren’t always newsworthy, as I realized.

No matter how creative you are, there is still a certain brand image to maintain. And even if you had no problems with the brand image, there was always the problem of a client insisting in having a press release for certain “news”.

Once, I got tasked to draft a press release for something I felt had no newsworthiness to the media. It didn’t matter that I thought nothing of the news as a consumer; the press release had to be written and distributed because the client felt that it should be distributed to the media.

This reminds me of the question that always pops up: is the media release dead?

Pitches

Forbes reporter Aaron Perlut has ananswer to the question above: he feels that the traditional press release is in many cases, irrelevant. His survey with other reporters revealed that it is often the personal relationship journalists have with PR practioners and their pitches which count.

Now that I’ve gone through my internship at GHC, I finally understand why personal relationships and pitches count more than press releases.

As compared to press release writing, I have had more experience with pitching to the media. On my second day of work, I had my first try in drafting a pitch. In less than a month, I have already tried pitching three press releases to the media.

If I had to pick the biggest lesson I learnt throughout my internship placement, it would be the lessons I learnt from pitching to the media.

In the last PR Professional class that I went for, in one of the slides, I saw a quote along the lines of this: “I used to think I was the only one who was afraid to call up the media. Turns out I wasn’t the only one!”

Confession time: I was afraid to pick up the phone and call up journalists too.

Somehow, there was something scary about picking up the phone and calling up someone I only knew by name but not by face. I have worried about whether it was the right time to call or if they would be dismissive of me. It was a daunting task for me, despite the fact that I had no qualms about talking to strangers.

Eight weeks into my internship, this daunting task proved a problem for me. A press release which I had pitched through emails but not followed-up by phone was not getting enough coverage like the client had wished for. While it could have been that the news was not newsworthy enough for the media, I was at fault as well as I had not followed-up as I should have done.

Reflecting back, I have to say this was a very meaningful experience.

It reinforced what we learn in school about following up and building relationships with the media. Good media relationships make the work easier because there is a personal relationship and it makes everything less daunting.

I guess this is another of those ‘what-you-can’t-learn-in-school’ lessons.

With much love,

Magdalene

15096324

Curtin Singapore

Next post: More work in the office!

What would you like to do for a living?

Hello!

I'm Magdalene from the Singapore campus. I'm currently in my final semester, so it's really exciting to be working in a PR agency and get some real experience before I graduate.

Unlike some of my peers, I have not had any internship experience prior to this, so even searching for an internship placement was quite daunting. Thankfully, after four emails to four different prospective employers, one replied in April, two months prior to starting my internship.

The interview process was daunting, but I was well-prepared. Prior to the interview, I prepared a physical copy of the relevant PR assignments we did in school. With some advice from my lecturer, Ms Shalu, I had also prepped myself for the interview by understanding the kind of work the agency does and the industry they work in.

With some good luck shining on me, I was confirmed for an intern position at Grebstad Hicks Communications a month before I officially start my internship.

GHC has offices in five cities, and most of our clients are Asian-based, but we do get international clients such as luxury hotel chains. GHC specialises in PR in the travel and luxury lifestyle industries so our clients are mostly hotels, F&B outlets and luxury lifestyle brands.

Specialisation is a benefit to smaller PR agencies as the agency focuses and concentrates all its resources on a similar target audience. Travel, luxury, aviation, hospitality – these are some of the words that are of particular concern to us. We target the lifestyle and travel sections of newspaper and magazines; we aim to be associated with the likes of Tatler magazines and Conde Nast Traveller.

Another form of specialization we do is in the type of work we do. For us, it is media relations, as this is the agency’s core competency.

Public relations is often used interchangeably with media relations by many, however, they are vastly different concepts. The latter only addresses the relationship of the organisation with journalists and editors, and is a part of the former but not the only component of it.

Despite this confusion, it is probably universally recognized that building strong relations with the media is important. The extent of this importance of media relations can be illustrated by the amount of hours dedicated in our course to media relations – a 25-credits module, Public Relations (Media) 250.

My internship at GHC has definitely given me a better understanding of media relations and the effort that goes into building a good relationship with the media.

Meet-ups and phone calls are some of the basic initiatives from the part of a PR practioner that goes into building a good relationship with journalists and editors. Often, I find that calling up a journalist makes the job so much easier.

There was however, a different initiative that really caught my attention. At the office, there is an open invitation for journalists and freelance writers who need a space to work to come in and join us in the office. Once, I’ve met a journalist pop by and say thank you because we lent her a space to work. This really reinforces what we learn in media relations about understanding a journalist’s needs – needs that go beyond their need for newsworthy information.

Why did you choose to do Public Relations?

On several occasions, I have been asked why I chose to do public relations.

An initiative we took up in the office really sums up why I chose to do public relations in the first place.

Less than one month into my internship, we decided together as an office that we would do some pro-bono work for a charitable organisation. One meeting later, we picked Make-A-Wish Foundation Singapore as the charity of our choice. We have since started helping them with media relations work such as writing and distributing press releases and media liaison.

The choice to do pro-bono media relations work for a charitable organisation, is in my opinion, a really good decision made by the office.

Other than for reasons such as corporate responsibility and helping the charity raise their media profile, it makes the work we do so much more worthwhile. It transforms us to some extent, I feel, into ambassadors of the Public Relations industry. You ponder about how the job and industry you have chosen to be in can make a difference to the society and the less-privileged in the society.

It is a decision like this which makes me glad that I chose to be where I am now.

With much love,
Magdalene
15096324
Curtin Singapore

Next post: The little nitty-gritty daily things we do in the office!