Lessons in Public Relations, Week Ten

1. Just when you start to really enjoy something and get into the swing of things, it's time for the next thing.

This past week was my last week at my internship {at least for now-- I have finals and spring break, so I won't be in LA}, and I was sad to see it go. I like this. Public Relations? It's fun. And it's interesting and the office is never boring to say the least. I may not be perfect at it, as can be seen in the fact that the press release drafts that I write all get editted within an inch of their lives, but it all comes with practice, right?

I'm not sure what I'm doing next quarter. I told myself I'd take a break from interning and working {all of last year and this past fall quarter I had DBM, summer was the Chamber of Commerce and then this quarter I had this PR internship} and just enjoy the summeriness that is LA in the springtime and adventure and explore.

But there are so many opportunities out there. So many places that are willing to take interns that are right up my alley and based here in LA. Granted, I think getting everywhere would be so much easier if I had a car, but since that's an unlikely event, there's always the bus. So many things I could do-- is taking a break and having free time really worth it?

Anyways, my point is that I liked this internship. I'm probably going to go back and do a few more months with them at some point, since I do learn a lot while I'm there and the people are fantastic. I'm sad to not be going there twice a week {although I do enjoy the fact that I don't have to wake up as early}; sign of a good internship? Yes, I think so.

2. Leave with a good impression.

They say that a good first impression is everything, but I'd add that a good last impression is just as important. On my last day at the office, I brought in cookies {since I knew my office wasn't the type to bring cookies in for my last day} and before I left, gave both A & C thank you notes for the wonderfulness they'd shown me over the span of my time with them. Make sure you bring in your business cards as well, since those can leave an impression, too.

3. Make sure to finish everything up by the end of the day.

Obviously. Cause you won't be back for a while.

4. Take a deep breathe after you walk out the door. And relaaax.

Or you know, if you have finals, commence freaking out cause you now have no excuse not to study your butt off.

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It's been fun. I've probably learned a lot more than simply the things I've been making lists of here, but I think we all learn things unconsciously throughout each day that we don't notice until we use it. Tis nice. Like unexpected presents.

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The photo above was taken a few weeks ago when it was about 80 degrees here in LA. Cloudless blue skies, bright sunshine, extra day of the year {note the timestamp}... what more could you ask for? Oh. And it's a picture of my bus stop. I've grown somewhat attached to it. *laughs*

{written & posted March 21st}

Lessons in Public Relations, Week Eight

1. When work doesn't seem like work, it's a good day.

This week was pretty cool. I got a lot of work done, but we also goofed off a lot Friday-- the entire office.

A had us play 'Name That Tune' with '80s dance movie soundtracks that no one really knew and then had us watch clips of Saturday Night Fever and a few other movies since we are so deprived. *laughs* And a few early music videos from the early '80s with breakdancers. Twas really funny.

M really is having a good effect on our office dynamics and everything. It's not so much that she's doing anything extra or her personality is just THAT awesome {though she is pretty cool-- she's very sweet}, but it's just easier to be in the office when there's another person on C's level and working for A. Work gets spread out more, people are a little more talkative... I don't know. It's nice.

2. The more you do this job, get to know your clients, and understand how to do your work, the easier and more fun the job gets. Notice I didn't say less stressful.

PR is by its very nature really hard on the nerves. There are constantly things that need doing and they all need doing at the same time. Since we have more than one client, we're constantly multi-tasking to take care of all of them. The media people you have to deal with aren't always the happiest to hear from you.

But I've noticed over the last few weeks that because I've been getting used to the work and the pace and what I need to do and when, work has been more fun to go to and I've been more productive. It also helps when you communicate more with your co-workers/boss since you'll know more about what you're doing and how to do it and what you should do after the thing you're working on.

These last few weeks were nice.

3. It's 'pending' unless the media person on the other end of the phone/email specifically says, "Yes, we love it and we're running it in Friday's issue" or "It's great; look for it in the March edition of our magazine" or "Fantastic, it'll be in this specific episode of this specific show". Anything else is 'pending', not 'confirmed'.

Just because you talked to someone on the other end of the phone doesn't mean you're done. If you need to send them a sample of the product or email them with more information, then it's still pending and requires more work/phonecalls/emails/effort.

So go do that.

4. Practice those phone answering skills when everyone's out to lunch. It works.

I was alone in the office for about 15 minutes Friday. As soon as N had walked out the door to go get Starbucks, I wrote down how I was supposed to answer the phone and ran through it a couple of times. Good thing, too, because the darn thing ran three seconds after I finished practicing a bit. Scared the living daylights out of me.

I did it though! *yes!* Answered the phone without sounding like an idiot! Although the woman on the other end didn't end up leaving a message for me to take down-- said she'd call back later since A wasn't in the office. *sigh*

Maybe next time I'll get to answer the phone for an actual phone call!

5. Sometimes buses are late and sometimes bus drivers are really grumpy.

You just gotta deal. Have patience and some sense of self-preservation. You'll survive.

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Twas a good week. I enjoyed it.

Lessons in Public Relations, Week Seven

1. In order to reingratiate yourself after being gone for over a week, make sure to show up early at least several times in a row.

Last week, I took both Wednesday and Friday off {kind of by accident-- Wednesday, my alarm never went off, so my only choice was to take the day off and Friday, I was supposed to go adventuring with Steph}. The week before, I took Friday off to study for midterms and write papers. So this past Wednesday was my first time into the office in two weeks. Wow.

Getting there early helps reestablish your commitment to the internship and helps them remember your good traits!

2. Even if you don't have any experience in PR, if you choose the right place to apply, you can get the job.

A girl came in Wednesday for an interview-- either for the internship or for a job, I'm not quite sure. But it was apparent from what I could hear during the short interview that she had absolutely no experience in PR. She had a foot in the fashion industry and had helped with runway shows before, but not writing about those shows in press releases. Her writing sample wasn't quite the voice we use at this firm either.

But because she was personable and sweet and our PR firm has only two paid employees {if you consider the boss/founder an 'employee'; there's just herself and C}, she got a job offer Friday afternoon. It helped that she had had another interview for a bigger PR firm who had a three month paid internship and they had liked her as well.

As soon as A heard that M {the girl interviewing} was considering the other offer because it paid and there was a possibility that a job offer there might be made post-internship, she offered her a position at our firm asap.

If only all job interviews/offers were that easy. On the other hand, because she didn't do any internshipping beforehand, she has no idea what she's getting into... Good luck, M! You might need it...

3. Figure out what needs doing immediately and what can be done after those other things, and prioritize appropriately.

As a general rule, things that A {our boss} gives you to do are first priority; for interns, this usually means making lists for her, so be good at researching. Then come the other writing things you need to do, like press releases. Or you could prioritize by amount of time it will take you. That usually ends up being in about the same order as 'by importance'.

4. If you let your boss know you're done with the current assignment and are waiting for the next one, you'll end up with three new assignments on your to-do list.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing since...

5. Having several assignments lined up means you concentrate more and thus get more accomplished.

I rather liked having several things that needed doing. That way I could work on something and then take a break by working on something else. Turns out, I need the pressure of having more than one thing on my to-do list to keep me on track. Plus it felt like I was actually working as opposed to just waiting for time to go by. It was nice.

6. Practice your phone-answering skills.

Especially if you don't have any.

Which is up for debate with me. *grins*

I don't normally have to answer the phone, so when I suddenly had to on Friday, I completely flustered what I was supposed to say. I'm not sure whether to be thankful or horrified that it was actually A on the other end, since she was thankful that no one else had to hear me stumble about, trying to get the right words out of my mouth. I seriously sounded like a preteen girl answering the phone only to find out there's a boy calling her or something. *gaaah*

7. Know your social media.

I feel dumb. As quickly and as efficiently as I can research and ferret out all this information about companies and things that our firm needs to know, I don't know how to use LinkedIn or Twitter. Which made this week particularly awkward.

I need to get an account for both places. But first, I have to create a new email address so that I'm not using the one I made in eighth grade as my professional contact email. Cause that's even more embarrassing than telling your boss that you don't understand Twitter at all.

What can I say; I just don't relish the fact that Twitter's so... *crinkles nose* But oh wells. This is for work.

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How did we get so grown up? Huh.

Lessons in Public Relations, Week Five

1. Be prepared in case there's a lull at work.

Sometimes your boss calls your co-worker into a meeting that ends up lasting over two hours. Since aforementioned co-worker is the one who gives you your assignments and you finished the one she gave you riiight before she walked into A's office for that meeting, you find yourself with no work to do.

What do you do?

I ended up re-researching every.single.client. we've got, answering email, and then reading blogs for a while. What I should have done was study for my midterm the next day, but it didn't occur to me at the time.

Next time, I'll know.

2. If you're a student, sometimes it's okay to take a day off in order to study for midterms and write papers.

I did today. It's better if you give them more warning than I did {I emailed when I woke up at 7:30 am and I was supposed to be in by 9 am...}, but in general, your boss will understand. Just don't take too many days off or there might be a problem.

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Since I only went in for a half day this week and I didn't do much during those three hours, I don't have much to share. Maybe next week!

Lessons in Public Relations, Week Four

1. Re-research your clients every now and then.

It's a good way to keep updated with the latest stuff that's going on with them and which articles they've been featured in recently. Plus, if you don't, you can get caught up with only knowing about what you're working on for them and forget they're out there promoting their own business, too. Stay informed.

2. If someone makes a bad comment on an article that your client is featured in, know about it BEFORE the client finds out.

Another advantage of re-researching clients. If you don't catch these mean people before your client does, because they're compulsively checking for comments every hour on the hour, it can be seen as you're not doing your job and staying on top of things for them. Which can be dangerous. Because you'd like those clients to stay your clients.

Again, stay informed.

3. Speak up.

Otherwise A thinks you're frightened or intimidated by her. Which, I mean, you kind of are, but you're not going to tell her that. You think you're trying to be polite to everyone else in the office. She thinks you're a timid little mouse that's never going to make it in PR. So. Be loud and direct. Wait.

BE LOUD AND DIRECT.

There we go.

4. The day I decide to wear a nerdy tee shirt to work, A would pay more attention to me.

Mind you, it was still decently work appropriate and I had a cardigan on, but when she was talking to me, she kept glancing down at it. Not good. Don't try to distract your boss, no matter how unintentionally.

5. A pitch is the little blurb that you send to the media that they'll read before they read your press release.

It's kind of like a veryveryvery short cover letter in email format {because you've attached your press release to the bottom of the email, which would, in this analogy, be your resume}.

Greet them, say 'I hope this finds you well', tell them who you're writing on behalf of, a short paragraph on the product/client/what they did that's so great, thank them for their time, and bid them adieu.

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Adieu! *grins*

Lessons in Public Relations, Week Three

1. Researching is usually more fun than writing.

I never thought I'd say that, but turns out, it's true. My two-part reasoning: (1) You come across all these cool websites/blogs/businesses when you're researching and you learn all this new information while (2) when you write something, it usually gets edited beyond recognition, so what's the point in feeling proud of it/a sense of accomplishment when the final product is barely yours anyways?

When you're new to PR and you haven't learned the voice/tone your company's going for, your end written product will always get edited a ridiculous amount. After they're done, about 5, maybe 10% if you're having a great day, will be your original content.

Personally, I find that rather depressing.

And somewhat discouraging as well.

Sigh.

2. When someone doesn't answer your email within an hour of you sending it and it's still within the work day, call them.

Make that half an hour if the matter was important. We've got no time to wait around for them to respond back. Be direct. Get them on the phone. Now.

3. If the person with seniority thinks they know something better than you, it doesn't matter that you're technically more knowledgable in the subject area and know what you're talking about. Your good idea/better understanding isn't going to be heard by the boss, so just do what the senior person wants and let it go.

I'm not sure I'd follow this advice if I were planning on working here long term or were being paid for my time, but since I'm not, let's just keep the peace and move on.

It also doesn't help that the person with seniority in our office is only about a year older than we are, but hey. That's life.

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Current Thoughts on This Job {That Don't Apply to All PR, Just This Internship}:

1. The 'unpaid-ness' of unpaid internships can start to affect your motivation and drive when you realize how much brainpower you're expending versus how much you're getting out of the internship {experience/learning-wise}.

What makes this even worse is that I'm technically paying to expend lots of brainpower and be belittled for my inexperience because not only am I not being paid, but I have to pay for the bus every day and spend two hours in transit. Lovely.

2. I started counting down how many more times I have to go into the office before this internship is over early last week.

That was the beginning of second week. Aka the third day on the job. Apparently...

3. When I get out of college and get an actual job, I need something that is either (a) more creative, (b) something I really believe in/enjoy, and/or (c) something where the learning curve isn't straight up, which is like running into a brick wall face-first at 60 mph.

With the economy the way that it is though, by the time I graduate, I'll be thankful for whatever job I can get. *sigh*

Lessons in Public Relations, Week Two

Day Three: January 16, 2012

When the boss is away...

1. Everyone's a lot calmer.

And they don't dress up as much.

2. But still no one dares touch the AC setting.

Because in our office, A gets super annoyed if it's above 50 degrees in there.

Exaggerating, of course, but still.

So. Cold.

3. People actually take lunch breaks.

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Day Four: January 18, 2012

4. It's okay to make the intern wait for you in the morning.

You know, when you're fifteen minutes late and the intern's known to show up ten/fifteen minutes early cause she hasn't gotten the hang of the bus schedule yet?

S'all good. Just an intern.

5. Always title, date, and add location to press releases.

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Day Five: January 20, 2012

7. Title media lists by topic, not client.

Because we may need that media list again for a different client and we need to be able to find it easily.

8. Create individual media lists for each topic AND media type.

As in, one for print, one for Internet. This is also useful.

9. Structure media lists and RSVP lists so that emails are easy to highlight and mass send things to.

Ended in a preposition, I know. But everyone keeps getting in trouble over this from A, so just thought it'd be a good thing to remember.

10. On Cision {what we use to make media lists} and on the subsequent media list, don't have several contacts from the same company.

If you see several contact names from the same company, choose the 'Editor' first, then 'Managing Editor' or 'Associate Editor' if there is no 'Editor'. All but one contact should be deleted.

11. It doesn't matter too much that you're dressed business casual which is appropriate for the office. Because no one's going to see it anyway to approve.

It's so cold in there, you keep your jacket on at all times. This doesn't apply/isn't helpful to/for all PR firms, obviously, but it does apply to ours.

I think it has something to do with the fact that A's from the East Coast and the rest of us are Californians. Something's definitely wrong when INSIDE the office is colder than OUTSIDE the building in the middle of winter.

12. Don't go to bed at 4am the night before you have to wake up at 7am for work.

Seems like a no-brainer, but I did just that Thursday night because Evelyn, Mickeyla, Steph, and I were having the most interesting talk over at their apartment and I didn't want to miss any of it by going back to my apartment and sleeping early.

I knew better, I just thought I could pull it off. Apparently, though, I'm not the high schooler I once was and can no longer get away with 3-4 hour nights. Sadness. Gettin' old.

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{Written up and posted at 3:20pm Saturday}.

Lessons in Public Relations, Week One

Day One: January 11, 2012

1. When A {the boss} asks for something to be done, she means 10 minutes ago, not 10 minutes from now.

I feel like I'm being overly dramatic and very Devil Wears Prada-ish, but turns out it's true. So be fast and be efficient.

2. When someone calls to cancel an appointment, find out why before they hang up.

Else A has to call them and that's kind of a waste of her time.

3. Make sure you know who's who and spell their names correctly.

Plus, it's so not cool if you've put their married name down and they're no longer married to that person. Awwwkward. Also, it's apparently advantageous to name-drop if you're in the PR industry. If someone signed up to attend your event with their maiden name, but their married name is more famous, go with the famous one. *shrugs*

4. Just because A says don't bother finishing something, doesn't mean she's serious. It just means she wants you to finish it AND get other stuff done.

She might need that something in the future, so it's better to be prepared than not.

5. Make lists. Because once A starts giving you things to do, she'll remember them all even if you don't.

That's how she got to where she is. So until you've honed the talent of keeping mental lists as well as she can, you'd be smart to start writing things down.

6. Get to the point and speak up. Tell her what you need to tell her and move on.

Time is precious. Prehhhh-shuuuuusss...

{Not actually a LOTR fan, but it fits. *grins*}

7. Think ahead and do what you can to make A's life easier.

Because what makes A's life easier, will make yours as well.

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Day Two: January 13, 2012

8. The difference between public relations and advertising is that PR is material about a business that makes it to the editorial section and is unpaid for {this famous person and this famous person attended this event last night hosted by this company/person in honor of this charity}, while advertising is when companies pay for straight up promotions {donate money to this cause because this famous person is promoting it!}.

Does that make sense? Cause I finally get it now. PR is more subtle and sneaky. Advertising's INYOURFACE.

Now do you get it?

9. A fact sheet contains the basic information about a business {whowhatwherewhyhow}, plus any social media information/stats and press articles about the business.

These seem to be used to get a quick overview of the business and can be used to decide if you want them as a client {if they have really awful press, probably not}.

10. A press release is a short 1-2 page blurb about something meant to be mass sent to all media outlets that may be remotely interested, so they can use it in their articles/editorials if they so desire.

These can be about events that're being held by the business/where the business will be {trade shows, etc}, special promotions, ideas for why you might be interested in this product for holiday gifts, a new program they're launching, or anything else.

These get written really fast. Man, these guys are speedy.

11. A company profile is an intro to the business that gives people a feeling of what the business does/makes, who the people behind it are, and why they got started.

Kind of like a much better written and more in depth fact sheet.

12. Public relations is a lot of writing.

And they like their adjectives. Very much unlike DBM. I'm still getting used to being able to use dependent clauses before independent ones again. Love it.

13. Sometimes working with famous people is not fun.

Especially when they're over-controlling. Normal people may be nicer. At least from what I hear.

14. People who overwork expect everyone else to do the same.

I don't think my boss sleeps.

She seems disgruntled that everyone else does.

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More to come as the weeks progress. Next week's should be interesting because I somehow found myself volunteering to go into work on Monday {we have the day off for MLK Day}, so I'll be there Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Why did I give up my one day of sleeping in? I plead temporary insanity. *deep sigh*

{Technically posted at 3:35am Saturday, January 14th, but Friday needs a post and the first half of this was written earlier than Friday, so it all evens out, right?}