Posted in August 2008 …

Aug 29 2008
4 Comments
Wolfstar

My first pitch!

After two weeks down south I’m back in Leeds and back to work at Wolfstar!

The team offered me the fantastic opportunity of helping them pitch this morning for an NHS account.  I was pretty nervous but thankfully I managed not to mess up or stutter during my part of the presentation!   We came out of the pitch feeling fairly pleased with our performance but very aware of the other companies that were still to pitch after us, we’d have to wait to hear the news!

We’d just got back to the office from lunch when the phone rang- we’d won the pitch! I’m incredibly pleased with such a great result from my first pitch and a huge thanks has to go to Stuart for letting me be a part of it!

Now we just have to start the hard part- turning our ideas into a campaign!

Tagged ,
Aug 26 2008
2 Comments
Personal, Placements

Which sector is right for me?

I’m in London for a fortnight at the moment for a placement with financial and corporate PR company Hudson Sandler.  After being here just over a week I’ve decided it’s probably a good time to reflect on my experience so far and what I’m hoping to achieve by the end of this week. 

I originally found the whole prospect a little daunting- financial PR, what was I getting myself into? I had an image in my head of an office full of maths graduates (obviously from the so called “red brick” Universities)  who’d snigger at my PR degree. 

I was pleasantly surprised that they all seemed normal and that they were actually intrigued by my degree (one of the girls did a PR degree herself!) 

I was set to work with various tasks; newspaper read- throughs, speaker profiles and creating new databases.  It wasn’t until I recieved feedback that I realised how much previous placements had helped me.  They were impressed that I was competent with Gorkana (learnt at Nelson Bostock) and liked the way I laid out profile documents for speakers and companies (thanks to Wolfstar). 

I’m not going to lie there has been a couple of occasions in the last week that I have felt a little out of my depth.  I was invited to attend a results meeting for a client, with analysts, and they could well have been speaking another language at some points.  Although I feel I have a fairly decent grasp of business and economic jargon, I was overwhelmed with financial terms and phrases and the fast paced questions and answers! I stumbled my way through though, and actually came out of it with some relevant notes!

The placement has given me a great insight into what financial and corporate PR is all about and I believe I’ve learnt a lot about what this sector of PR actually involves.  With the wide range of sectors available within the PR industy I’ve been left thinking, which one is right for me? Only time will tell..

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Aug 11 2008
15 Comments
Social media, Wolfstar

What should we be taught about social media?

I was recently asked by Richard Bailey what I think first year students studying PR at Leeds Met should be taught about social media.  Well to be honest at the time of the question I didn’t really have enough knowledge of the area to answer sufficiently. 

After spending more time with Wolfstar I’ve begun to understand how important social media has become within the PR industry.

I’ve devised a quick list of questions/topics I think should be taught within lectures and tutor sessions for first year students… 

  • What is social media?
  • What technologies are involved? (many students presume Facebook and Myspace are the extent of social media sites)
  • Social media used to a clients advantage
  • What is a blog and should I have one? What are the advantages?
  • How do I work my blog? (including posts, hyperlinks, trackbacks, commenting, blogroll etc.)
  • What is an RSS feed? What are the benefits of subscribing to feeds?
  • Old media vs New media
  • Why is social media important for PR practitioners?

Guest lecturers from PR companies that currently use social media would also be of a huge advantage to students, giving them a first hand insight into the world of social media networking. 

I must admit I’ve become a bit of a social media monkey since beginning my placement with Wolfstar and now I love it (my laptop however is finding it a little more stressful..) With technology moving forward at such a pace, PR practitioners must embrace it and get social media savvy.  Teaching undergraduate students from the first year would enable them to get their names out there for people to see, increasing their chances of employment on completion of the degree. 

Aug 01 2008
2 Comments
BA (Hons) Public Relations

What has happened to ethical blogging?

Well here I am at Wolfstar again, and today’s been very interesting so far!

After reading BBC News article “The power of female blogging”, I feel a little uneasy about just why more women are choosing to blog.  I personally decided to start up my own blog to help get my name out there and improve my PR portfolio. 

Blogging is a way of expressing your thoughts and opinions on any subject you want; it gives people the ability to read these views at the click of a button, but according to BBC News this is no longer the only incentive to start a blog. 

Blogher.com, an online community for women who blog, encourages it’s users to accept the request to display adverts on their pages. But just how ethical is this, and since when did blogging become the latest woman_moneyopportunity to get quick and easy cash?

People love blogging because it gives them the opportunity to shout to the world about anything that takes their fancy, with little or no censoring. But if advertising on blogs became the norm, just think what the result could be. What’s to say that the blogger wouldn’t accept a little more money to write whatever the advertiser wants them to? Products could be plugged and companies promoted, all under the veil of the bloggers views. The reader, none the wiser, could believe the subtle advertisements within the blog are genuine opinions and buy the product based on recommendation. Great news for the advertiser, awful news for genuine bloggers.

So just what are these women writing about that sparks the advertiser’s interest in the first place? Well, after checking out Blogher.com, I’ve got to say I’m not overly impressed. Most of the featured blogs are about fashion, TV or household chores (I kid you not, there’s a post about how to clean grout), surely female bloggers could be portrayed in a better way!

It’s about time female bloggers put their name on the map for the right reasons; scrap the ads and let’s have some straight talking, honest blogging!

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