The PR seeds blossom
Hello everyone!
The final chapter of my journey with Wanda’s Gardening and Landscaping, and what an exciting journey it’s been. I’m absolutely stoked with the opportunity I’ve had to work with this local family business, even though at first I will admit I thought the industry was far from my comfort zone. One aspect of my placement was being able to take the reigns of the online platforms for the company was a big responsibility that I’m happy I got the chance to do, and feel like I leave them now with some new and up to date content, as well as a platform to build on, and a basis to work from.
Online socials are so important in PR and marketing because it is an awesome communication tool to your publics. These days there is such a great visual element and need for this to create audience engagement and also assist with your story telling, helping to gain a greater audience. One online campaign that we ran through my time at Wanda’s was a before and after photo series, getting pictures of old jobs before they had been there and comparing them to after, in a simple few photos. This helped build our reach because it’s simple, aesthetically pleasing, and showcases our business. This photo series, accompanied with hashtags was able to get us more online traction, and increased the frequency and relevancy of our social media platforms.
All though social media was a strong aspect of my placement, I am happy with everything I have developed on the way, and the chance to be in a real work environment, with pressure and deadlines, and an attention to detail in my work. All the team were exceptional and encouraging and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my placement and look forward to taking the skills I’ve learnt and improved in to the work force.
Over and out.
Josh.
There’s a reason you’ve heard this all before.
Some of the point I’m about to make are things you have probably heard before. I know these are all the things people told me to do before I started. But the reality is… it’s helpful.
Throughout my internship I was given so many great opportunities and learning experiences, I was overwhelmed in a way. These are some of the things that I learnt to keep me on track.
- Ask, Ask, Ask.
Do not be afraid to ask questions. Interning is a learning experience. Don’t feel as though you should be chucked in the deep end. Personally, I’ve been extremely lucky at my placement, everyone is super helpful and makes me feel like every question is valued. As cliché as it sounds… there really are no dumb questions when it comes to your learning. If you’ve got a problem, someone probably has a solution.
- Why do we do this?
- What are the benefits of this?
- Can I have some assistance with this?
- Can you give me feedback on my work?
These are just some examples of question I used, during my time there. And to be honest, I hated asking questions at first, I hated thinking that my questions were stupid or that I just wasn’t understanding… but it worked in my favour. I learned so much more by simply just asking.
- Content creation
The consumer doesn’t always want to be sold items. Learning things, not only about the company but about the product or service, is a great way to build consumer engagement. Getting a gage of what your consumer base is interested in or wants to see next is super important. Canva has been an extremely useful tool for me throughout my time there. I was allocated two companies in which I had to create stories and posts. Using Canva made this extremely easy to keep similar themes and know what I’d done previously.
Here is an example of a click-through story that I made on Canva for one of the clients, Pure + Nood.
- Do your research
Throughout my time as an intern, I’ve learnt that almost every aspect of the job requires research. Know what you’re doing, who your targeting, who you’re talking to and what is the best way to approach the situation. From hosting events to blog writing, everything requires research. In terms of face-to-face interaction, a simple website or profile search can really hold value in the conversation.
- Time management
I feel as though time management is something that is brought up a lot. I’ve always been that person that does their assignment the night before, and whilst getting pretty good at it over the years, that just doesn’t really cut it working in this industry. Give yourself a deadline. As I was doing two days at my internship in a row, I was given a list of tasks to complete over the two days. Pieta (owner) would always say “prioritise the work girls.” This was good for me, I was given the challenge of deciding which tasks to complete first and the deadlines for each. Setting myself deadlines was a really helpful learning experience for me. I definitely valued that, over just being told what order to do things in and when to have them done by.
Here are some of my time management tips:
- Keep a diary
- Set reminders
- Write important or time-consuming tasks in red
- Prioritise
- Proof-reading
I would say I learnt this the hard way. This lesson comes together with time management. Always give yourself time to proofread your work. Spelling errors and grammatical errors can devalue your work. There were a few instances where I would either run out of time or just forget to look back over my work. All the times I had done this, there were mistakes.
My proofreading checklist:
- Sentence structure
- Punctuation errors
- Grammatic errors
- Referencing
- No abbreviations
- Appropriate language
I hope this has helped… even the slightest.
Tune in next time for my last post. As my internship experience has come to an end, I will be sharing a more personal and in-depth evaluation and breakdown of my experience at Perth Happenings.
Be well, my friends.
Emma
“Sorry To Bother You!” – How Do You Get People To Help You?
Over the last 4 years of being a Curtin Student I’ve been approached by many a student asking to me to participate in all kinds of activities or events:
“Could you sign our petition?”
“Would you like hear more about us?”
“Can I tell you about our policies?”
“Do you have a minute to talk about x, y & z?”
I’m going to be honest – whether I sign the petition, take the flyer or listen to the policies changes sporadically.
Sometimes I’m carrying too many things to take a flyer, other times I’ll give a quick ‘thanks but no thanks’ as I do an awkward half walk / half run to class.
However, I’ll also take a flyer on my way to class when I can, or stop for a brief conversation if I’m interested in learning more about the cause.
It’s really only ever dependent on what I am doing in the moment. I’d never really thought about how these interactions affected the people on the other side; the people who were trying to raise awareness, run an event or complete their work, or those trying make a change.
This was of course, before I began my placement. One of the key tasks of my role within the @CurtinLifeAustralia team is to write student profiles. This is broken into two main parts:
Part 1
I interview students about their student experience (this can be about their degree, a program or club they’re involved in, scholarships, academic achievements or any other aspect of the student experience) and then write captions showcasing the student and their story.
We find most students by emailing them, they themselves self-nominate, or they are referred to us by a member of the faculty. Organising and setting up interviews has definitely helped me develop my email communication skills.
Part 2
I also took on our ‘Mini Conversations @ Curtin’ initiative. This involved myself and my colleague Christina venturing out into campus around lunch time, approaching students and asking them if 1. they can answer a random question for us from our clipboard selection and 2. if they are happy for their photo to be taken and posted along with their answer on the @CurtinLifeAustralia Instagram account.
I have never been rejected so often and so abruptly in such a short period of time ever in my life.
-Some people pretend you’re not even there when you’re clearly talking to them (PSA: please don’t do this)
-Some people laugh with their friends and nominate each other while you wait – only for none of them to actually complete the task
-Some people give a flat out no (my personal favourite – like ripping off a Band-Aid)
-Some people will listen to you explain what it’s for and that they will have their photo taken, only to pick a question, answer it, then decide they don’t like how they look on camera today and revoke their answer
You get the gist.
But the real kicker – none of these people owe us anything. We are just two random people asking for their help.
So how do we get them to help us in our efforts?
Here is what I learnt from this experience that I now pass onto you:
- Be Confident!
If you approach people looking sheepish they will not take you, or what you’re asking, seriously. I found if people can see you’re nervous they are more likely to reject you. If you’re not confident in what you’re doing why should they be? Fake it ‘til you make it folks!
- Be Direct
This is does not mean be rude. It just means say hello then jump straight into what you want from them. When you stop someone randomly they’re usually almost always on their way to do something else so you have to be direct and grab their interest while you have their full attention!
- Focus On What They Gain – Not What You Need
Telling people we needed to get 15 different quotes and photos before we went back to the office, (not surprisingly) did not really motivate people to help. For us, we found that a great way to grab people was to tell them that taking part in what we were doing was a great way to be exposed on an official Curtin account and get their face out (which is true!). By focusing on how taking part could potentially benefit the individual and be a fun experience, rather than what quota we needed to fill, we were able to find willing participants a lot faster.
Additionally, an official study by Clare Holdsworth researched the key motivations for students volunteering.
Through her studies Holdsworth found that wanting to be in new environments, personal values, escaping rigorous study or routine, and the potential employability, skills and enhanced learning volunteering brings were all key motivators for students to volunteer (Holdsworth, 2010).
So, next time you see someone handing out a flyer or are approached to take part in an initiative, think about the courage it took that person to approach you and maybe give them that level of effort you’d like others to give you – I know I will be.
Until next time,
Taysha
Reference:
Holdsworth, Clare. 2010. “Why Volunteer? Understanding Motivations For Student Volunteering” British Journal of Educational Studies 58 (4): 421-437. https://www-jstor-org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/stable/pdf/40980910.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A6ff6011795cd14ab0bb9b0fd307389e8
You’ve finished, now what?
So like me a lot of you have either finished your internship or are getting close to that endpoint. Given the current climate, you may be disappointed without the prospect of a job at the end and may even be thinking, ‘where do I go from here?’ This is a question that has been constantly ticking away in my brain for the past few weeks and probably some of yours too!
Before I get into where this thought process has taken me I thought I’d give a briefly tell you how the last week of my internship went. In my last week, I had three days left, and I could not tell you where all the days before that had gone, I’m pretty sure I used ‘whirlwind’ to describe the first week of my internship but it aptly describes the rest of it too! Monday and Tuesday were for me to finish up any work that I had left to do as well as attend meetings and plan for Wednesday – which I’ll get into shortly.
On Tuesday as Bridget suggests to all of us, I made sure I had my thank you cards ready and a box of chocolates for the team, but it turns out I wasn’t the only one saying thank you. That day the team took me out to lunch to say thanks for all the support I had provided them, it was really good to be able to step away from the desk and just chat with everyone. After lunch, they gave me flowers and a gift card! I was not expecting this and it made me feel super valued and appreciated.
The amazing gifts from the comms team
On the last day of my internship, I wasn’t in the office and instead got to travel all around the Town assisting with the filming of our tourism campaign ‘Explore more Vic Park’. This was a super interesting experience as I got to assist in the lead up with selecting the locations as well the planning the schedule for the day of the shoot. On the day of, I had outfit changes to be different extras in a few of the shots. It was great to see how the concept was translated on screen and I’m a bit disappointed that I’ll now have to wait to see the finished product.
Location in East Vic Park, do you know where?
Filming in St James
Final filming location of the day
So, back to our million-dollar question, ‘where do I go from here?’ Considering options such as travelling for 6 months are most likely not viable or are being put on hold for the foreseeable future. While I am now looking out for possible job opportunities and like some of you, may have been invited to apply for the honours program, I can’t say that I’m interested in anymore fulltime study, especially since I went straight from high school to university with no break.
The first thing I have been looking into is expanding my qualifications. In saying this, of course, this requires some sort of time commitment, but there’s online courses and short courses through TAFE. One way I intend to make sure I stay motivated is by building a qualification around a hobby I already have; photography.
Another tip I accidentally stumbled across is to ask the team you are interning with about what helps you stand out from the rest of the recruitment pool. Essentially, I was talking to one of the Communications Advisors about how I was going to do a certificate in photography and she mentioned I should look into a graphic design basics course as well. I then went and spoke to our in house graphic designer about courses and one of the HR staff overheard us and then recommended me further courses that LGOs look favourably on.
Just remember that you are there to learn and your team should be there to help you, even though I have only just finished my internship this same advisor sent me another local government communications job opportunity and has helped me apply for it over the past few days. I have been really fortunate that the team I worked with have gone above and beyond in the ways they have and still support me.
Another aspect we should be thinking about is gaining experience wherever possible. Throughout my degree, I have been a bit lax when it comes to going out and finding work in all the different industries that the PR umbrella falls into, mainly because I had a steady casual job working for an event management company. On reflection though, my work was predominantly focussed on conferences, and while there is nothing wrong with this I could I have gone out to look for other volunteer opportunities for different types of events and even looked into things such as networking functions. So that is another one of my tactics in my self strategy. You could almost think of it as try before you buy.
A key thing to remember is the phrase we’re all probably sick of hearing by now is that “we are living in unprecedented times,” and its something that will most likely impact us for years to come in both our personal and professional lives.
Have you got any other advice for those finishing their internships, I think we need all the help we can get!
Alicia
Building Bridges
If you read my first post- you know there were red flags. Now the penny drops. It’s the end of the road. 3 months are up and my internship is finished. Now I have a lot to talk about, some is interesting, some is content I have to talk about and some is just my own personal opinion. Let me start by first recommending you to never- work at a start up. At the end of my 3 months, the entire office was promptly let go and the company was shut down. This was obviously devastating- but not totally surprising in the start up world. At first I felt mislead, disappointed, taken-advantage of. But then, sitting at my nifty little electronic desk, on my brand new macbook pro- I wondered to myself….was it worth it?
………………………….
…………………………
……….
YES.
This took me a long time to decide. But overall- this internship was a foot in the door. And it taught me that any opportunity- no matter how brief- is valuable. I sat down with our founder- Paul- and had a coffee over a frank conversation- where I practiced REAL PR. I explained that I was disappointed not to be moving on with the company, but that I wished him luck and to give me a call if he ever needed a marketing coordinator. I explained how much I enjoyed working with everyone- and what a shame it would be to burn bridges with people who had taught me so much. Despite how I felt about being let go- the conversation ended with us laughing and we remain friends on LinkedIn.
My last week of work was grim, everyone knew they would soon have to find a new job. But we were probably the most prepared people in the world- I had after all spent the last 3 months perfecting the art of job seeking. So overnight- I was suddenly my own student. Reviewing every piece of content I had ever written, and testing the validity of my own work. This was a really interesting process, because my position had been flipped and I was now criticising and reviewing the way I had created everything. I noticed that the marketing carousel posts I had created were useful- but not in depth enough. I needed to add more content into a small image. And then I noticed that all the articles and scripts I had written didn’t have enough real life examples or original images, and the team should have made an effort to produce more media in that sense instead of using stock images to better fit with the content. By throwing myself into that position- I had a front row view of my own job performance and how effective my work was for its target audience, if I was relying on that material myself. I spent a lot of time editing my previous work and transferring our brand presence into the owners’ personal accounts and socials. I think that the value of tedious, repetitive work is actually underrated. Because in fact by going over something a hundred times- you realise exactly what it is and what it does- and what it doesn’t. For me, Useverb was a stepping stone. It was a space for me to develop my skills and meet people, it was an introduction to business from the ground up- it was RESPONSIBILITY.
My Office at Heathcote Cultural Precinct
For my last day of work, we did a shoot on Rottnest for a kayaking company. We spent half the day dragging gear around an island and conducting interviews. But the other half of the day…that was ours. My team and I spent our last day of work on the beach, drinking milkshakes.
Our Client (Seaview Kayaks) Hard at Work
Producer and I at the Lighthouse
The end.
It’s all…Beaches and Milkshakes?
My second week. Probably the best one of the experience.
In the second week, I went on my first shoot. It was for a café on John Street in Cottesloe, and the chef’s name was Alejandro. He was adorable. And Italian. The most important thing about this shoot was that it was my first client-facing role. I helped coordinate the call sheets, the creative brief, and even edit and be in the footage. How is that related to PR? Because it was promotional! The café was having trouble attracting the right talent, but not after we showcased what their unique business had to offer. The most amazing part? We were able to actually go to Cottesloe beach for a day, drive around in a little shi%%y car and essentially enjoy the start-up life. If you’ve seen ‘between 2 ferns’, it was exactly like that. So the good- I got to meet a client and be part of a project from the communication stage to the shoot wrap-up.
Some things I learned from the shoot:
-Businesses will go to long lengths to get what they want
– When interviewing someone, do it in a U shape (start with something good, dig into the guts, bring the end up on a good note)
-There’s never enough time in the day.
For a large majority of the shoot, as the digital marketer I wasn’t really needed. I spent a few hours sitting at a coffee table, getting free milkshakes and researching SEO. I watched a lot of YouTube videos from Neil Patel, and troubleshot his platform ‘ubbersuggest.’ My boss also asked me to learn what I could about writing the code for meta data/ html tags, and that took quite a few milkshakes. A lot of my week was an intensive internet course on DIY SEO and internet tools we could use on a start-up budget. I bumped into things like buzzsumo, google trends and Facebook analytics.
As a fairly impatient and spontaneous person, I almost always had a notebook on hand to write down all my notes and capture my thoughts. I find that opening your laptop and creating a doc every time just takes so long, and then it’s too hard to find. Call me old fashioned.
Take a look?
Check out the final edit for the cafe! –> bit.ly/39MgNPo
Straight Into the Content Creation Game
This week began with a lesson in communication as well as an analysis of social media strategies, efforts and trends. The brands social media presence had been on a steady decline for the past few months so I was assigned to rectify the problem, hindering the potential for new and existing clients to connect to the business on a further level.
Technically, I was sent to scout new talent for the Instagram feed , blog posts and website content. A task that I was excited to try, but definitely a difficult and time consuming one. Firstly, I formulated a template message that I could send to potential ambassadors and collaborators. Deciding on the right tone, phrasing and approach to take to ensure the correct message was delivered, was definitely something new to me. I already knew how to deliver the best customer service skills to clients, but this was a completely different form of communication that I was not accustomed to.
Viva La Blonde – Social Media Content Template
Then came the process of researching and discovering fresh faces for their content creation and electronic marketing spread. This started off very slow as I found it difficult deciding on which platforms and formats to use to begin my search.
- How would I locate these people?
- What form of communication is best suited?
- Who would best represent the brand?
- Who has the look that the brand wants?
- How to determine their residence?
My main communication channel was most successful through Instagram. It was easier to source talent through other Perth businesses e.g. make-up artists, retailers and existing clients. Once I sent my first few messages, I began to get a feel for the expectations and further understand what we were looking for so the contact began to flow.
Later that week, the responses began to come in and I had booked our first shoot for the month. In order to properly showcase the Evo Product Range, our sourced model had a take home colour conditioner applied in studio, to show clients how the product works and what the physical end result for the client would look like. The shoot was lead by myself with direction from my supervisor and the colourist.
This was by far my favourite week, learning more about content creation and how to successfully communicate with a different element of B2B that I hadn’t yet experienced in any workplace. This would definitely be an element of PR that I would like to pursue in further detail as I believe this is where my strengths lie.
Every ending is a new beginning
Well, well, well, what season has arrived upon us? Think: suits, ball gowns and champagne … yep, you guessed it! Sport club awards and trophy nights! So there I was, getting ready for the Stirling Lions Soccer Club 2019 Awards Night. Little did I know after doing my hair and makeup (I even went to the EXTREME effort of putting fake eyelashes on people!) and putting on a cocktail dress with high heels, things were about to get … messy!
My night started behind the Stirling Lions bar with the ever so glamorous job of finding a dish scrubber brush, washing jugs out with detergent in the sink and filling them up with fresh water for the guest tables. Next, came setting up the guest tables with tablecloths, plates and cutlery, name cards, candles and flowers. Then, I was back behind the bar preparing the antipasto platters for the guests to nibble on before dinner (I had to use an exorbitant amount of self control to refrain from picking at the food).
Once the guests had settled in (and had a couple of drinks), I started roaming around the club room, taking photos of the players, their family and friends, coaches, community members and City of Stirling ministers for the club’s Facebook page and Instagram story. Following this, everyone was asked to be seated at their tables for dinner to be served. Once the official proceedings commenced, it was my role to sit at the front and take photos and videos of each team’s trophy announcements (U18 Divisional, U18 NPL, U20 NPL, Social and Seniors NPL), the coach’s speech and make note of who won each award (Fairest and Best, Runner Up Fairest and Best, Coach’s award etc).
Overall, it was a fantastic night to celebrate the end of the 2019 season and sadly, the end of my internship.
I can’t believe how quickly this semester has flown by – I’m in my final two weeks of uni – EVER. It is so scary to think, especially because this lifestyle is all I have ever known for the past four years, however, in saying that, the biggest piece of advice I could give from my whole internship experience is:
“So long as you’re sitting within your comfort zone, you’re not growing, because you’re not moving.”
I believe my biggest learnings have been that firstly, PR is a diverse industry – no role is the EXACT same as another and secondly, you NEVER stop learning. At a previous internship I undertook last year in the PR field, I was writing and editing letters on behalf of authoritative staff, collating fact sheets, sending out invitations, preparing gift bags and press kits and preparing run sheets, an order of service and excel spreadsheets on staff and guest information for events. When I first started this internship at the Stirling Lions Soccer Club, I quickly realised the work would be a little bit different, simply because the industry and environment of the organisation is vastly different to that of my previous experience. I was scared I wasn’t going to be challenged or have enough work for my portfolio, however, I was completely wrong.
Throughout this internship, I have put the skills I have learnt at university into action – I’ve written speeches and understood the value of properly catering them to suit a particular audience, voiced these speeches in front of large crowds, conducted interviews and written a news article published by an external outlet, created content across multiple social media platforms, enhanced my photography skills and understood the essentials of event planning.
Ultimately, all of these activities have boosted my confidence as an upcoming PR graduate and even personally. No matter how confident some of us may seem on the outside, we are all human and everyone gets nervous. We are constantly learning every single day of our lives and will never reach a point where that will stop. My internship has helped me develop a newfound passion for sports media and this may be an area I’ll eventually get into later down the track of my career.
I would like to thank the Stirling Lions Soccer Club for all of the support and freedom they have given me throughout my internship. I believe the Reflective Practice unit is truly an integral part of the PR degree at Curtin University, as it is not until you are actually thrown into the deep end out in the ‘real world’ you fully comprehend what the PR industry entails.
Thank you for reading all of my blog posts, I hope I haven’t put half of you to sleep!
Breanna xx
Social media spruce up
Hi everyone and welcome to my third blog post!
Today, I am going to be discussing the importance of social media in sport – in particular, the sport my internship relates to – soccer! (or football – the official term if we want to get REAL technical!).
Some of the biggest opportunities to access current and potential players, members, sponsors etc. is through digital and social media, as it offers great reach and direct engagement.
After reading and replying to another student’s blog post regarding social media, it got me thinking about the social media accounts of the Stirling Lions Soccer Club. Sure, they have a website and they have a Facebook account in which they are quite active. However, despite being present on Twitter and Instagram, they are not so active on these two platforms. Upon inspecting their Instagram account further, I realised there were not many posts and they didn’t have many followers – the latest post was from May this year. It wasn’t hard for me to realise not a lot of effort was currently going into maintaining this account, so I asked the vice president for the login and took it upon myself to spruce it up a little bit.
Fun fact: According to Socialbakers data, Manchester United achieved 26,938 interactions per 1000 Instagram fans in the 2016-17 season, in comparison to 4,229 interactions per 1000 Facebook fans! Instagram is undoubtedly an important and emerging social media platform, so I felt as though there was a lot of potential for the Stirling Lions Instagram account to blossom.
I decided to start off with the basics: proofreading, content and engagement.
i) Proofreading
One of the first things I picked up on in their Instagram bio, was the word ‘official’ had been spelt incorrectly as ‘offical’. Good spelling, correct grammar and the appropriate use of punctuation is really important for any organisation or business as this oozes a ‘professional’ vibe. I was at one of the club’s recent events and a senior player’s dad made a comment to me and the vice president as we were chatting that a post on the Stirling Lions Facebook page (not made by me) had the word ‘Stirling’ misspelt as ‘Striling’. I think this area in general across all their social media platforms really needed to be improved upon – it is important people are proofreading their own work and then getting a second set of fresh eyes to go over the work too to be safe.
ii) Content
Another thing I picked up on was that there was not a lot of content of the Stirling Lions Instagram. I have been trying to post something every few days making sure it is timely and relevant to the events happening around the club such as cup finals, trophy awards night, coaching announcements and even videos of the actual facility itself.
iii) Engagement
I have been following more people, liking the posts of the people we follow and liking comments and commenting back to accounts who interact with us!
I’d like to go into more detail about this topic and my work in my portfolio, but below you can see a before and after shot of how I made the Stirling Lions Instagram bio look a bit more lively!
Stirling Lions Instagram bio before and after
Thanks for reading,
Keep your eyes peeled for my final blog post!
Breanna
References:
https://nielsensports.com/rising-importance-social-media-football-clubs/
4 Wholesale Brands= 4 Social Media Strategies!
One of my ongoing tasks at my placement was to propose a social media strategy for the footwear retailer I was working for… and their three other wholesale brands. Finding out that I needed to create four separate social media strategies did make me quite nervous, as I hadn’t created even one before on this scale. Let the strategising begin!
The least favourite part of this task for me was the research stage. I am not research inclined at all (as I predict most of us PR students aren’t), so this was definitely a struggle. Any strategy, whether it be in social media or general marketing, really does require extensive research to actually understand what is working currently and what needs to change. The name for this? The dreaded social media audit.
Conducting a social media audit for 4 Facebook profiles and 4 Instagram profiles was, in simple terms, not that fun. My advice to all of you is to use the template on Hootsuite and tips given on Social Media Examiner! They really did help me organise all of the information I was collecting from the embedded Facebook and Instagram analytics, like which post types were getting the most engagement and what audience was being reached. When you have all of the key statistics in one convenient spreadsheet, creating goals and objectives is a lot easier.
Here were the goals and objectives I created for one of the wholesale brands:
For me, the best part of this task was creating the content strategies! I loved looking at the social media platforms of key competitors and getting inspired by the type of content they were posting. For each brand I decided to come up with a ‘brand personality’ for them. I proposed that 50% of content would be product based, and 50% would be brand personality based. The PR unit Transmedia Storytelling really helped spark ideas around creating a participatory culture for the brands, too. I think all organisations can benefit from encouraging the production of user-generated content on social media, because its free content! On top of this, the majority of consumers find this type of media way more trustworthy than communication from the brand itself.
Here are my ideas for one of the brand’s Instagram profiles, focusing on the brand personality being all around ‘travel’.
- Inspiration from Wittner Shoes for user-generated content:
- Mock-up of my version:
- Inspiration from Rollie Nation on using quizzes and polls to create a participatory culture:
Creating these social media strategies really did show me just how important social media is for a business today. Whether the brands took on my ideas or not, I think this was a fantastic experience that gave me a taste of social media management. It also has helped me decide whether I want to specialise in this as a PR professional (read my next blog post for my answer!).
Meeting *and* Maintaining Expectations
I’ve been at my new internship for a few weeks now and have been through all the anticipated emotions when starting out a new job (if you haven’t read my previous blog, I highly suggest you do!). From the nerves, excitement and challenges, I’ve loved every second.
My cute desk set up!
For me it’s a little different as I’m starting a new job which I’ll be employed for the foreseeable future. One of the days was a handover with the previous employee and then before I knew it the following week, I was going solo! The previous employee set the bar high; colour coded excel spreadsheets, a categorised inbox, a calendar with scheduling dates planned for upcoming weeks and different formatting methods to suit the clients. All in all, it was seamless organisational skills.
Initially this was a bit overwhelming as she clearly had a thorough process in place (which is a good thing really) and was there for me to follow. As one of my tasks is to manage numerous social media accounts across Facebook and Instagram, as well as produce monthly content plans and reports, I had to be on top of it. What I struggled with most is no two days are the same, which is a given in the PR field but more in the way when starting out it was tricky to know what tasks to carry out as there isn’t a daily schedule to follow.
For instance;
- How far in advance to make the content plan to be sent for approval
- What content am I allowed to be posting
- Which client do I work on today and what platform
- Do I schedule for the whole month or just week by week
So my answer? Ask questions! My mentor was amazing in answering what felt like loads of questions when really it was only a few. I had to remember I’m new and not expected to know every detail as if I’d been there for years! I have all the previous samples of work, layouts, Canva designs and formatting, so I’m actually lucky in the way I’m not starting from absolute scratch. Also hats off to the previous employee as I love being organised and she’s aced it!
Going forward my advice is to always ask when you’re unsure, it makes you feel way more relieved in knowing you’re getting the job done but also correctly! Also try out some organisational tips such as writing a list of tasks for the day and you can tick them off, utilise calendars whether its weekly or monthly, it may be basic knowledge but its super helpful and will set you up for the day.
Now I just have to make sure I keep meeting these expectations and methods… and colour coordinating my Apple Calendar.
You can check out the website to my internship here
Instagram Stories: My Recipe
Do you have a job? Is it Social Media related? Is the company you work for selling SOMETHING?
This Recipe is for you.
Much like the perfect soufflé you can’t just go throwing together random ingredients and expect Michelin star quality, the perfect Instagram Story requires a game plan. Here’s mine.
Cooking Time: 1 hour, but keep consumption time quick (No super long stories allowed, slow eaters are rare).
Serves: Really depends on how hungry your audience is. At WelleCo, we get an average view rate at approximately 15% of our Audience (12,000 Views) on the first image (first bite) which usually filters out to about 5% by the final photo (bite).
Ingredients
Product/ Service to Focus on: In this example I focused on WelleCo’s Organic Fruit and Vegetable Wash. The attention span for stories is short so having more than one focus is very ambitious.
Camera: “iPhonography” will suffice if not excel here.
Creative Juices: you’ll need an excess of these, standing out will rely on it.
Method
1. Start with the hook. Pose a question or use a leading statement that peaks the users attention. In this instance “It’s not always easy getting ORGANIC Fruit & Vegetables”.
2. Introduce the product. Use strong imagery and creative text to leave an impression on users.
3. Involve different formats of footage: for added interest include video/boomerang footage. In this instance demonstration footage was used.
4. Mix it up: use this casual 24 hour format to add information that you may not otherwise include in an Instagram or Facebook caption. Customer review or more casual product shot perhaps. Get creative here.
5. Put it in the oven/ Give a call to action. The finishing touch should always leave the customer with information either on how to purchase, how to further engage or how to further educate themselves.
This is a dish best served at “Prime Time”, make sure you evaluate what time people are clicking each time you ‘cook up’ a story so you know when it’s important to deliver your message for the highest levels of engagement.
CHEFS’ TIPS:
– Pre-shoot and save your content before you post: take the photos, draw and write on the given shots and save the entire story so you can see how the finished product will look before you post it. This also ensures your audience can watch the story in one viewing to fully receive the picture should they chose. If there is 5 minutes between posts while you make it, confusion will occur. Once you’ve finished saving the sequence and ensuring it coordinates, simply swipe up on stories and post your content straight from your phone’s camera roll.
– Keep it Relaxed: This avenue of Instagram is the ideal space to post interviews, staff related “get to know you’s'” and other such information that gives the customer a more personal link to your brand.
– No one likes a lumpy cake: Consistency is key. You’ve heard it all before but using the stories feature regularly creates an audience who expect quality content and thus engage with it more frequently.
What’s your recipe for Instagram story success?