Tag: entry-level PR job

My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 20

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Marketing, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , 1 Comment on My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 20

I love Pinterest, and this infographic from a recent PR Daily article was too good not to share. Did you know that by the end of the year, Pinterest will contribute roughly 40 percent of all social media driven purchases (Facebook will control about 60 percent, and Twitter will become virtually insignificant.), or that buyers from Pinterest are 10 percent more likely to purchase and will spend, on average, 10 percent more than users from other social media sites?

With Pinterest’s popularity still on the rise, and its future still unknown (especially in regards to advertising), we are keeping a close eye on the pinning site here at Clairemont, because numbers like these are hard to ignore! This infographic from PR Daily gives a great breakdown of Pinterest’s current, and possibly future, clout, and reinforces that Pinterest really is a site to continue to watch.

 

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My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 19

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Public Relations, Raleigh PR Agency, , , , , , 1 Comment on My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 19

A lot of my work at Clairemont thus far has been centered around doing social media and blogging for clients, but every once in a while, I’m doing what we now consider “traditional PR,” as well. My most recent task has involved pitching the Charlotte and nearby Lancaster, S.C. media regarding our client Walnut Creek’sannouncement that three new builders are set to begin construction in the housing development.
Pitching media is still a new experience for me, and it is probably one of the most nerve-wracking assignments that I have worked on yet at a PR agency. Reporters are busy and can receive hundreds of pitches a day. Sometimes they are just not interested in hearing another pitch, and sometimes your story just really isn’t what that reporter needs.

My best advice? Don’t take the rejection personally. Pitching the media can be hard, but it gets much better with practice (so I’ve heard). Instead, make the pitch into a game. What can you do, what angle can you approach it from to make your story sound the most interesting to the reporter? What can you do to make the reporter’s job easy? If you can give the journalist as much information as they need as soon as they need it, you are making his or her job easier, which means you are in a much better position to get placement for your story.

This is just my initial reaction on how to make pitching the most interesting and effective, but for those of you who have had way more experience than me, do you have any tips and tricks to share?

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My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 18

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Raleigh PR Agency, , , , , ,

If you’re working on a team, it can be difficult staying up-to-date on what everyone is doing, what you need to be doing, when something is due, when something is completed, etc. Clairemont’s solution to this problem? A free online task manager program called Asana.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiLCmstyDdM&feature=player_embedded

Asana is a digital workspace where you and your team can share task lists, plan, organize, prioritize and stay in sync with all of your different projects. On Asana, you can create new workspaces for each client or project, create different tasks and to-dos for each workplace, assign tasks to different team members, set due dates and check items off the list upon their completion. Each team member can see exactly what she and other team members need to do. Projects can be prioritized so you always know which is the most pressing and important at that time.

With people in and out of the Clairemont office and often on different schedules, Asana has helped us communicate what needs to be done and when. Instead of clogging up email inboxes with messages reminding someone to edit a blog or send a document, the task can be added to Asana, assigned to a specific team member and flagged with a due date. This may sound like an elementary idea, but in a public relations office where you are working on a number of different assignments and clients at any given time, the ability to streamline everyone’s schedules is necessary for productivity and efficiency

Intrigued? You should be! Asana is easy, effective and, most importantly, free! It’s a great tool for a public relations agency to use, and we highly suggest it. Take a look at this “Intro to Asana” video to learn more!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liO5VbbIqIs&list=UU2BoogM0AqwOJyoSp1S4ClQ&index=7&feature=plcp

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My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 17

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , ,

This month, the North Carolina Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (NCPRSA) hosted a monthly professional development luncheon featuring a presentation by guest speaker Natalia Flores on the topic, Social Media Engagement Begins Offline: A Corporate Case Study in Building Successful Relationships in Latin America.

Flores, who has spent nearly a decade as a public relations marketing professional developing communications strategies for the U.S., U.S. Hispanic and Latin American markets, currently serves as a director at a public relations agency in Charlotte. Throughout her career, her clients have included VMware, Samsung, MasterCard Worldwide, SAP, Office Depot, Latin GRAMMYs and Batanga.

For the luncheon, Flores presented a case study about her client, Samsung, and the launch of its new product, the Samsung Galaxy Note, last year in Peru. Focusing on the fact that many businesses forget about offline interaction when using social media, Flores shared this video of the product launch and how her client used both offline and online interaction to promote the product:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOuVJhJO6Q0

Promoted online but acted out offline, the Samsung launch proved that the offline and online engagement are very much interrelated and should be used together. Instead of writing on the Samsung Facebook Page, “Buy the new Samsung Galaxy Note,” “Click here to see a video of the Samsung Galaxy Note,” or “Have you seen our new product the Samsung Galaxy Note?” Samsung promoted its product by encouraging fans to attend an offline event at a popular mall, where fans could use, interact and play with the new product.

Wanting to highlight the product’s easy-to-use stylist, Samsung hired local artists to create caricature drawings of participating fans and mall-goers. Fans could turn these pictures into buttons, t-shirts, etc., and in addition, photos were uploaded to the Facebook page, where fans could then tag, share and like their pictures.

In conjunction with this event, product sales increased, the fan base on Facebook grew and across social media platforms, fans tweeted, shared, posted and liked their drawings. Media coverage was high, and similar campaigns took place across Latin America and the Caribbean. Overall, it was a success!

So, what message did Flores want us to get out of this case study? Building relationships online starts offline. Just because you are on Facebook or Twitter doesn’t mean that you cannot engage with fans and followers offline. Use social media to become a resource for your fans, reward them for their loyalty and be more than just a computer or machine constantly pushing sales and promotions. Add human appeal to your postings and don’t be afraid to engage with fans offline. Having that face-to-face interaction offline is just as valuable to your social media strategy as writing Facebook posts or tweets.

Interested in learning more about this case study? Contact Natalia Flores at natalia@fusioncomminc.com or @curlygnat for a copy of her presentation, or come to the 2012 NCPRSA PR & Marketing Seminar November 15, where Flores will be guest-speaking.

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My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 16

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Raleigh PR Agency, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , ,

While I was fortunate enough to land a job at a Raleigh PR agency prior to graduation, many of my friends and classmates are still searching for full-time employment. The job market is tough right now, and job openings don’t necessarily match up with the timing of graduation.

www.hubspot.com

With so many recent graduates unemployed, looking for jobs is extremely competitive. So, what can you do to make yourself stand out from the crowd? According to my Hubspot e-book, Learning LinkedIn from the Experts, “LinkedIn is one of the most powerful resources online to market yourself.”

Whether you are trying to become more influential in your industry, get more leads or clients, build your brand, drive traffic to your website or find your dream job, LinkedIn is one the most influential tools you can use. Here are just some of Hubspot’s top tips on how to use LinkedIn to market yourself.

1. Give before asking for favors. One of the best ways to give back to others on LinkedIn is by making recommendations. The more you recommend others, the more they will want to be helpful in return, especially if you weren’t asking for a favor. Introducing two connections you think would benefit from each other is another great way to give back.

2. Connect with everyone. Don’t limit yourself to only having a “small trusted network.” You never know where an opportunity will come from, so don’t limit your connections. Add a link to your LinkedIn profile to your email signature, business cards and other social networking profiles to encourage people to connect with you.

3. Use advanced applications to promote your own content. Add advanced applications to create a full profile that showcases your abilities. If you wrote a book, add the Amazon application to display a picture of your book and a link that takes anyone interested directly to the Amazon page selling it. Or, add the WordPress application to your profile to link your connections directly to your blog.

LinkedIn is a powerful asset for building a strong professional presence and standing out from the crowd. But, just having a LinkedIn account isn’t enough. Staying active on the site and employing some of the suggestions listed above is essential. Does anyone else have any tips on how to improve your LinkedIn profile? I’m going to take one of Hubspot’s suggestions and start adding my personal LinkedIn link to my different sites. You can connect with me here at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/margothorgan.

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