A Mixed Melody

This guest post is written by our star intern Isobel Loschiavo, who has been interning with us for the last five weeks. 

When I was asked to write a post for the Encoder blog a million ideas were rushing through my mind. I could talk about Twitter, the Fairfax crisis or I could talk about Twitter AND television (a combination of my two favourite past times). But then I got thinking I am a 21 year old Melbourne student sitting in Sydney writing a blog post for a major PR consultancy.

A month ago I didn’t have any intentions on completing an internship during my university break let alone in another state. Fast forward 30 days and here I am, staring out the window at a view of the Sydney CBD.

Studying PR is something so many people dream of but like anything there is the reality of hard work. Last year when I began my course my lecturers emphasised the notion of applying for as many internship positions as possible.

At first I dismissed the idea; I thought “I am only first year why should I bother?” But now as I approach the half way mark of my degree I have realised everything my teachers said was true. Experience is essential for developing those skills you have only read about in your textbooks. For all those out there who thought like I did, this is why internships are essential.

1. Interning in different fields of PR can help you decide which area of PR you would like to pursue. An internship in Corporate PR might make you realise you’re bored out of your brains, but you might love Brands PR. Likewise, you might find PR isn’t for you at all.

2. Internships give you the opportunity to fine tune your PR skills. You might have read about how important it is to keep up with the news, but have you ever had to trawl Lexis Nexis and condense every bit of your client’s coverage into a table, clippings and all? Keeping up with the news is more than just reading 140 characters on Twitter.

3. Ultimately, networking is the key. It’s who you know. Not just in the PR world but with journalists, a range of suppliers, clients and the list goes on. You never know who you might need to call on in the future. Oh and it might just boost your LinkedIn connection number too!

4. One of the most important things about an internship is the real world experience you gain. As you apply for jobs in the industry the truth is that your new employer wants to see what real world PR experience you have. If you can show that you have paid your dues a potential boss is likely to be quite impressed.

With only one week of my internship left I cannot describe how invaluable it has been for me to see firsthand how the PR world works. I highly recommend students apply for any internship they can. Paid or unpaid it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day the experience you gain is priceless.

According to Google there are 165,000 local searches per month for ‘what is pr’ and 24.9million globally! In this post, I am going to provide a definition of PR using as few words as possible. The definition of Public Relations has evolved and developed as new channels of communicating have emerged.  Web 2.0 and social media have changed the dynamic between media, audiences and brands. So what is PR? Forrester refers to Earned, Owned and Paid media.

• Paid media is media that you buy; examples include outdoor ads and TV commercials.
• Owned media are platforms which the company or brand owns, their website, e newsletters, company blogs, twitter feeds or mobile sites.
• PR is Earned media where the audience becomes the channel. It is the most influential as customers, third parties and influencers provide independent advocacy.

Social media is exciting because it offers huge potential for the audience to become the channel. Studies have shown that people share things online to do the following:

• Boost their friendships within their social media communities
• Pass on things that will benefit others, gather information or explain complicated topics
• Showing off or setting up the boundaries of an ‘in group’

It is also important to keep in mind that earned media is dependent on brand behaviour. Social media has turned the traditional definition of earned media on its head. Companies must engage with online communities in an exceptionally honest and human way to promote transparency, build trust and credibility.

This was a post I wrote for my work blog

Earlier this week pop diva Beyonce announced that she and her husband Jay-Z were expecting their first child at the MTV’s Video Music Awards (VMAs). The news of Queen B’s pregnancy sparked a tweeting frenzy on microblogging platform Twitter.  

“Last night at 10:35pm ET, Beyonce’s big MTV #VMA moment gave Twitter a record bump: 8,868 Tweets per second,” announced Twitter via its @twitterglobalpr account. 

Now you may be thinking surely some other notable events have reached a higher number of Tweets Per Second (TPS) but in fact Beyonce’s womb has hit a new high. Not even Bin Laden’s death with 5,106 TPS, Kate and Wills Royal Wedding with 3,966 TPS or the Japanese earthquake on 5,530 TPS came close to Sunday night’s flurry.

Twitters new TPS record is a great example of how fast this online community is growing and what trends and topics interests users. We can see the most popular Twitter topics are often focused on celebrity and lifestyle news. The recent TPS record, proves people are using Twitter as a communications tool in record numbers.  As public relations professionals, we can use examples like this to educate clients who haven’t yet grasped the popularity of Twitter.

And even though Beyonce’s news isn’t as world changing as a natural disaster, famine or other previous record trending topics, it’s good news and maybe that’s what society is looking to read about above all else. Maybe there are so many negative stories in the media, people just wanted to share some feel-good news.

This event illustrates the power of celebrity within our society and demonstrates our strong fascination with stars. The power of celebrity can often take hold of events and the media which in turn emphasises and encourages our need to become endlessly surrounded by celebrities and embroiled in their lives.
So this event is a great reminder of how powerful social media communities can be when distributing information, especially when it’s a combination of a positive story and the powerful force of a celebrity.

Is it a bad thing that Twitter and other social media communities are so celebrity focused?