natalie ellen

Since I’ve become a bit of a Twitter addict, I’ve noticed that the way people use their bio differs incredibly. From what I’ve seen, I’ve summarised a few Twitter personalities below..

The “oh it’s just me” type

These are the bios that simply explain who the person is, and perhaps what they do. You know the usual, “Hi, I’m Dave, 32 and I’m a graphic designer”. I assume these people don’t want to seem too try hard and simply want to use Twitter for business purposes.

The “OH MY GOD I LOVE JUSTIN BIEBER” type

This pretty much speaks for itself -those that have purely created a Twitter account so they can stalk the hell out of a certain celebrity who they “just have to meet.” This type can often be quite scary in their determination to get a RT from said celeb, and can get quite personal in the process. The bios will often be riddled with typos and ridiculous, unnecessary symbols and read a little something like “wє αrє hєrє вєcαusє σf Justin Bieber♥ hє tαught us tσ bєlíєvє ín σur drєαms, вєcαusє єvєrчthíng’s rєαchαвlє. nєvєr sαч nєvєr♥ℒινℯ.ℒℴνℯ.ℬℯℓιℯъ♡” Yeah, erm sure..

The “Please someone give me a job, any job!” type

Now this type I can obviously relate to, but at the same time it can get a bit cringey when your bio reads “Amazing graduate looking for a job doing anything, in any sector. Check out my online CV, my video CVIV, my blog, my website. Please!” This type also tend to spend pretty much their entire day tweeting company after company asking if they have any vacancies. Sure, it might work sometimes, but why not focus your efforts on those few companies that you really want to work for, and spend your time building up relationships with them?

The “AAAGH I’m just so quirky and random” type

These people will often just have a few completely random words to apparently describe themselves. These are obviously fine and not actually annoying, but surely they realise writing “Toast. Rainbows. Fun.” doesn’t actually say a lot about them, so why would anyone be interested? Fair play you are very random though..

The “I’m so intelligent” type

Now these ones can really bug me. Your bio is supposed to tell people a little something about you, maybe who you are or what you do. So why do so many people insist on copying and pasting in a quote from some well (or little) known scholar or public figure? I can only think that they’re doing it to try to seem intelligent, and perhaps the reality is that they actually are. But to be honest when you have a quote from Aristotle in your bio and then tweet continuously about absolute rubbish with lots of typos, it doesn’t seem quite right.

So where do I fit in? I’ll paste mine below and let you decide..

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how little I write considering how much I really enjoy it. Dissertation and assignments aside I really haven’t written anything in months- this makes me sad.

So although yes, I should technically be writing my dissertation and working on two presentations as I write this, I want to kick-start my new ‘writing for me’ hobby with a few things that have really made me smile this week. Hopefully you’ll like them too..

1) The scientists who used their brains in the BEST possible way.

In aid of a new National Geographic TV series entitled How Hard Can It Be?, scientists created a flying house,inspired by the Pixar movie Up!

Once the 300 eight-foot-high helium balloons had been securely attached to the custom built house, it was let free into the sky where it reached a total of 10, 000 feet for over an hour. Amazing.

2) My new Groupon obsession

Now I might be a little behind with this one but I’ve just recently got a bit hooked on Groupon. I admit I might sound like I’ve been paid for this little endorsement (and personally believe I should be..) but I honestly do think it’s a really good site, especially if you like to obsessively look for weekends away and spa trips like I do!

If you haven’t already checked it out, I really advise you to have a look- but remember it can be a little addictive…

3) The Model Agency

To anyone who knows me it won’t come as much of a surprise that I’m loving the new c4 programme The Model Agency. The programme follows Premier- the modelling agency responsible for giving us the likes of Naomi Campbell, Lisa Snowdon and Claudia Schiffer.

I must admit, I was a little bit surprised and my evil side was a little disappointed that the agency doesn’t actually seem that bitchy or cruel. They seem to genuinely care about the models they’re managing, particularly those younger girls who they’ve helped to ‘grow’ since they were as young as 13-14.

Yes, of course at times they can seem cold and mean (the “no, too short” and slamming the phone down incident being a prime example) but it really has made me see the industry in a new light. But then perhaps that’s exactly what they were going for? Hmm..

4) The launch of Behind The Looking Glass

Behind The Looking Glass is a lovely new style, beauty and wellbeing website launched by my former colleague and friend Becca Caddy.

It’s only a few days in and the site is already looking great, with some really exciting (and often v. funny) content.

Fingers crossed I’ll be contributing to the site sometime soon!

Now that I’m back in Leeds and playing the role of a proper student again, it’s hard not to find the change pretty bizarre. I’ve gone from set routine to almost no routine in the space of a month and I must admit it’s a bit of a shock to the system. I became used to 7am starts and (embarrassingly) 11pm bedtimes so it’s very strange and also slightly unnerving to be allowed to snooze the alarm more than once.  After almost a month I still wake up some days with a sense of panic that I’m late!

I’m starting to believe that perhaps I actually took full time work for granted, and am finding myself longing for some kind of structure. Unfortunately I’m becoming increasingly aware that this structure won’t be handed to me this year; I won’t be told my hours of work per day and allowed my hour lunch, or have set meetings per week that I can rely on to talk through my projects. The final year of my course is very much independent learning, a concept which I’m luckily starting to grasp.

Although we still have lectures, tutorials and meetings, these are now much fewer and further between, allowing us the majority of the week for getting on with assignments, including (of course) the dissertation. This is definitely something that myself and fellow students have found difficult.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to view my timetable for the first time and think ‘Yes! Most of the week free’…oh how wrong I was, I’m already wishing there were more days in a week!

Now that I’m starting to get used to the idea, and realising just how important this final year is, I’m keen to make sure everything goes well- and that means planning! On top of our pretty huge work load I’m also looking at other opportunities to help enhance my CV and have recently taken on the role of student guide for Leeds Met- an interesting one considering I can hardly navigate myself round the city centre campus after the move from Headingley!

I’m also looking forward to enhancing my writing skills this year in preparation for the world of work.  I’ll be keeping an eye open for an opportunities but please let me know if you hear of anything!

Wow, I knew I was neglecting my blog a lot in recent months but I had no idea a year had passed since my last post.  It seems not working with social media every day makes it harder to find the time to log on and keep your online presence..

What didn’t help is that my URL  seemed to disappear completely, leaving me with a not-so-enticing WordPress address Luckily www.prgirl.co.uk is now happily back up and running (I hope..)

So what brought me back? Well if I’m honest it was actually good old-fashioned pride that gave me the push to get back on here. 

We’re currently working with an agency to put together a digital PR workshop for the business and after an hour long meeting discussing content, I was left feeling a little embarrassed I used to work for a social media agency, so why was I so behind after less than a year? Now having someone know more than me about something isn’t new to  me, I’m obviously still learning and welcome people passing on knowledge, but this was different.  This meeting was something I should know about, something I’m supposed to be quite good at, so I’m getting back in the game (as geeky as that sounds) to make sure I don’t get left behind again!

Working in a pharmaceutical company has been so different to life at Wolfstar, I’ve learnt so much about the relationships with in-house comms and agencies and more than anything I will always respect those PR’s that spend their days trying to please in-house regulatory- it’s a difficult skill to master!

I can’t believe I’m nearing the end of my time here at GSK- only a couple of short months left to go! Although it’s definitely going to be strange to leave here and London (which I’ve fallen in love with..) I think the experience has and will continue to help me in the future.  Now I just have the slightly daunting task of figuring out what’s next!