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/
No matter how big or small an organisation: Preparation is key for a successful event
Hi everyone and welcome to my second blog post!
Today I’m going to be discussing the importance of preparation and documentation for successful event execution, and also the importance of review and reflection. As we have previously learnt in PR Techniques, events take time, energy and exceptional organisational skills to ensure they run smoothly and those who attend are satisfied.
The Stirling Lions Soccer Club recently hosted The Comedy Lounge (see more here: https://www.comedylounge.com.au) for a night full of eating, drinking and laughing with a mix of the funniest stand-ups from Australia and around the world!
On the day of the event, I was required to come to the club a bit earlier to help set up tables, the stage and a ticket station area where door sales would be occurring, so that it was all ready to go for the evening.
Tables all set up
I returned to the club at about 6pm to help with last minute preparation before guests started arriving at 6:30pm. As the club is local and primarily a volunteer-run organisation, it can understandably be a bit difficult to cover ALL bases of event preparation if there aren’t a lot of helping hands! As a result, I did notice some gaps and areas to be addressed and improved upon. I was responsible for being at the door handling the cash box and ticket sales with another volunteer, and as guests were coming in, we realised that it was hard to determine which guests already had a ticket and what table number they were on. Some people would walk in saying, “Oh, we are on _______’s table, they’ve already paid for a table of 10” or “_______ has our tickets”. There was no specific list of table numbers and guest names that we could follow, so we had to allocate tables on the spot – it was just a bit unorganised! Despite this little hiccup, the night was such a great success. My stomach was hurting from laughing so much! I went around and took photos of the comedians and the guests which were uploaded to the club’s Facebook page. This small amount of media coverage was important for the club as it showcased the type of community events they hold, the family-friendly culture they have and also raised awareness about the club for people who may want to become members for next year’s season. Although I was a bit hesitant, I did raise my suggestions on how to better prepare for club events in the future with the vice president and president of the club and they took my advice on board which was a relief! Hopefully we can implement this for the trophy presentation night event coming up.
Among other recent tasks over the weekend, I was required to again, write a speech to announce over the loud speaker from the media room before the 21st round of the NPL WA which was Stirling Lions vs Floreat Athena. In this speech, there was actually a lot more to say compared to the first one I touched on about in my first blog post. I additionally had to thank some special guests for attending the game including a local minister and ward members, go into a lot more depth about a sponsorship offer and raise awareness about a raffle and the upcoming trophy presentation night – not to forget announcing the player numbers and names again – I thought I was going to run out of breath!
Stirling Lions vs Floreat Athena
Pre-game announcing from the media room
Keep your eyes peeled for more of my blog posts!
Breanna
“Sometimes, it’s who you know, not what you know.”
It’s a saying we’ve all heard from our parents, work colleagues or tutors at some point in our lives, and, it’s entirely true. In the public relations industry, connections are everything. The lady who works at the cafe you bought your coffee from this morning? Her son so happens to be a retired soccer player. And guess what? You’ve just been given the task of writing a news article about the life of sports stars after they hang up their boots. Score! You now have a potential source to interview! You just never know when you might need to reach out to someone – so talk to people, get to know them really well, build authentic relationships and always keep their contact details.
Welcome to my very first blog! I am excited to share with you my reflective practice experience so far at the Stirling Lions Soccer Club! Despite having watched soccer on the TV multiple times and having been to a few live games at stadiums, anyone who knows me knows I am no doubt a girly girl – a soccer club is probably the last place you’d expect me to end up for this unit. I will admit, I don’t know how to run and kick a ball simultaneously (I know, embarrassing), however, I decided to try something different and push myself out of my comfort zone – sport is an area I’d love to learn more about and speak about with confidence (then people might actually think I know what I’m talking about!). I’m only a couple of days into my internship, and I’m still a bit rusty on the sports terms and rules of the game, but I’m getting there. But a soccer club isn’t just about the physical game. A lot of work happens behind the scenes too. What I can bring to the table is the media and PR knowledge and skills I have so far acquired at university.
Over my first week I was required to write a speech to announce over the loud speaker from the media room before the 19th round of the NPL WA started. In that speech, I had to include details about what round it was, what teams were playing, where they were playing, what sponsors we needed to thank and details about upcoming events at the club. I really tried putting my speech skills to use from PR Techniques and Contemporary Practice – making sure I knew who my audience was. I found using simple language, but also being lively was the best approach to take. The tricky part that came after that, was having to announce the starting lineup for both teams – having to announce (and pronounce correctly) the numbers and names of 22 soccer players was definitely nerve-wracking – but I think I did okay for my first go!
Announcing at the game.
I think the most rewarding part of my first week would have to be the days following the game. The Stirling Lions won 2-1 which was fantastic, and I was given the task of writing a news article about the result and details about the team’s upcoming game for this week. I interviewed the coach and got some great quotes from him and pieced together a story. Now, this is where the main point of my blog post title comes into play. I have previously interned at Community News and have formed a great bond with the editor there. So, I emailed him and asked if he wouldn’t mind publishing my story in The Stirling Times. He was extremely kind, gave me some editing advice and tips, and within an hour, the story was up online. If I had not known the editor and more importantly, kept in good contact with him, then the story would have probably just been uploaded onto the club’s website and would not have received as much exposure or engagement. Having my story published in the Stirling Times meant that it not only reached the club’s players and supporters, but it reached the general community – a much larger audience, which is really important for the club.
I can’t wait to see what else there is in store for me! They even gave me my own jacket to wear and I really feel like I’m part of the team.
Keep your eyes peeled for more of my blog posts!
Breanna