Last Impressions

     As the final days of my internship are here, I am very pleased with the way the semester has gone so far.  I'm even sad to have to leave!  It will be somewhat strange to not be in the office a couple of times a week after this week.  I have learned a lot and even gained some friends and future references for potential jobs.  Platinum PR is definitely a place that I would enjoy working at after my internship.  Hopefully, in the future I will be able to find employment with the same friendly but productive atmosphere as Platinum PR.  Interning here has been a unique experience and gives me a lot of hope that I will be able to find employment doing something I genuinely enjoy after graduation.  Also, I would be glad to recommend this internship to anyone else too.  In fact, one of my friends has actually secured an internship for the spring.  I hope she enjoys it as much as I did.  Although I am sad to leave, I am more focused on the different experiences I had here.  Some experiences were fun and some were more challenging but all of my experiences taught me something different.  I am very  happy that I had this opportunity and look forward to gaining more.  

Resume Experiences

An example of a resume

     In my tenth grade year of high school, my English teacher helped me write my first resume.  Fortunately for me, I had already held two jobs, including working at the convenient store at the end of my neighborhood and babysitting children in my neighborhood, and was able to include some minor accomplishments I had at that time.  Since I had some experiences, but not too many, writing my first resume was just simply placing my experiences where they each fit.  To this day, I use the same format I was taught in tenth grade and utilized it to obtain three different jobs and my internship.  As my experience and accomplishments grow, though, I am constantly updating my resume to showcase my best and most impressive skills and accomplishments.  Also, I am always looking for ways to better my resume.  After all, a resume may be the only opportunity to land an interview.  Thus, if my resume is not up to standard or not impressive, I may find it hard to find a job, especially after I graduate in the spring.  Since I am hoping to find a career in the communications field, I took away some helpful tips from the book, "Resumes for Communication Careers".

A Virtual Resume

     To begin, it is always a good idea to put the most important information into a resume without making it very long.  Additionally, there are some universal headings that are in many effective resumes, such as references, work experience, and education.  Other special skills and accomplishments make for effective headings as well.  A heading with contact information is another vital aspect of a resume.  Along with the actual content in a resume, the language used is also very important.  Using strong actin verbs may impress or interest the reader, which is a potential employer.  After gathering information for the resume and rewriting it appropriately, assembling it in the right place is important.  For example, my name and address should be at the top.  Furthermore, certain things are optimal but optional, like a email address or cell phone number.  For a communications career, email address may be very important, though.  Electronic resumes are another type of resumes that may prove to be very beneficial in the communications world.  Using links to a website I made or my blog may help to show my talent.  Cover letters are also an important tool to showcase specific skills for a specific job.  This could give me an opportunity to individualize a letter to an employee and may help to land an interview.  Finally, proofreading EVERYTHING is one of the most important things to do when applying for a job.  A resume needs to be completely error free so employers take me seriously.

Proofreading

     Although I already have a decent existing resume, I can use these helpful tips to improve my resume to increase my chances of obtaining an interview.  At my internship, I have learned the importance of proofreading anything that I do, especially when working for a company.  If I send out an email that isn't fully proofread, I make the whole company look bad.  These resume tips are also helpful in an everyday work environment.   

Learning Vocus at My Internship

Logo

     One of the best skills I have acquired over the course of my internship at Platinum PR this far is learning the software Vocus.  Vocus is an incorporation that provides over 120,000 businesses with cloud marketing software.  Vocus offers software for public relations and marketing.  Although I have never used the marketing side of Vocus and am unsure of the differences and similarities to the public relations side, I have been able to use the public relations side.  From my experiences, Vocus allows users to search media contacts by name, location, outlet, specific subject of reporting, and many other qualifications.  Contact information is included with the media contact as well as additional information that may be useful to the user.  For example, if a particular media outlet does not like to be emailed then the additional information section may inform a user of that.  Then, once a list is comprised, mass emails or individual emails can be sent out to the media outlets.  Vocus is a great tool for public relation specialists who are producing press releases and pitches.  A specific group of outlets can be reach by doing some research and their contact information is given as well.  In addition to all of the wonderful things Vocus can do (and I'm sure there are many more than I just described), its headquarters are in Maryland and it offers jobs in Maryland, North Carolina, and even in other countries.  Thus, it is a great opportunity to find a job, which I am incredibly worried about after I graduate in Spring 2013.  It looks like a pretty nice place to work and the company keeps growing too.  Another great Vocus tool is that it offers free online training sessions so users can learn the software thoroughly.  I have yet to take the online class, but am planning to do so.  This way I can learn all of the benefits of functions of Vocus.  Overall, I feel that my experiences with Vocus will make me more marketable in the future.  The more skills and experiences I have, the more impressive my resume looks!  

Middle Impressions of My Internship

Social Media

     As I continue to work more and more at my internship, I am learning many new and useful things.  So far, I have done basic office tasks, such as inputting data into an excel spreadsheet to find averages.  In addition, I have been able to do other things that are more related to public relations, such as pitching and working with social media.  So far, my favorite thing that I have accomplished is the work I have done with social media.  I have learned how to schedule Facebook updates through Facebook and Hoot Suite.  Spending a few hours one day to create several weeks worth of updates can be useful.  Those updates can be scheduled so every day someone does not have to physically update the page.  Also, I have created a LinkedIn account and am learning the usefulness of the site.   I feel that being active on that site now may help me to find employment opportunities in the future.  So far, I have not done as much work with Twitter and would like more opportunities to learn more about that site as well.  Overall, I am learning the importance of social media in this technological based society and am gaining crucial experience to better help me find a job once I do graduate.  I am very pleased with this internship and am looking forward to learning a lot more about public relations and gaining even more important skills to add to my resume.

Is Your Company LinkedIn Yet? Comm 450

As social media is continuing to expand and grow, the possibilities for it almost seem endless.  As a business or company, why not take advantage of social media?  It is true that many companies are currently using Facebook and Twitter to help promote themselves and this can result in some serious benefits (as long as your company is using it appropriately).  But the possibilities do not end there!  A somewhat less popular and newer social media website has been developed, which is arguably more business-oriented than any other out there.  LinkedIn is a great way to showcase your business, connect with other professionals, and find new clients or colleagues.  Also, a basic profile is completely free and, depending on the level of seriousness or the number of benefits its provides, you can upgrade your profile to one of two levels with fees each month to get even more out of the site.  Currently, according to socialmagnets.net, 135 million people in over 200 countries are using LinkedIn and people are signing up to use the site at about 2 people per second!  As the world is changing and more and more people are using social media, recent statistics show that one in every six employees used social media to find their most recent job, which is over 22 million people using social media to find jobs.  Overall, LinkedIn allows a company or business to discover a person's work history and to be able to find other professionals in the same field.

Pitching Impressions

A Phone

     As I continue my internship, I am always looking for things to do to gain new experiences in the public relations world.  Besides from writing and sending out press releases to news outlets, writing short pitch emails to different news outlets and following up with phone calls afterwards are two very important aspects of pubic relations.  Press releases are generally long and not individualized to a specific news outlet.  The purpose is to try to get information out about a story Rather, they are sent out to many news outlets with a more generalized type of information.  On the other hand, pitches are much shorter types of information that are much more specific to each news outlet.  Each potential story can be targeted to an individual news outlet, with the hopes that they will be interested in writing about it.  When an opportunity to pitch an annual event in Shepherdstown came up at Platinum PR, I immediately volunteered to write the pitches and email them out to several news outlets in the area.  I genuinely enjoyed writing the pitches and finding new ways to spin the same story to try to make different news outlets interested in it.  After successfully sending emails to many different news outlets, I was asked to make follow up phone calls to all of the outlets a couple days later.  Although I was incredibly apprehensive and somewhat intimidated to do this, I gave it my best shot and my boss even praised me for a job well done.  I was definitely nervous about making the calls, but after getting through the first several calls, I built up some confidence and it became more natural.  Most of the news outlets were friendly and happy to receive the information and some were not quite so nice.  However, I was proud of myself for doing it.  It is by no means something that I will look forward to doing in the future, but it is a prominent part of the job to better receive coverage of a story.

Comm 450 Blog 3 First Impressions of Internship

     After being in the Platinum PR office for a few weeks now, I must admit that most of my experiences have not exactly matched my original expectations of this internship.  However, I am not saying this in a bad way.  After spending most of my summer working at my part-time job, I am unfortunately used to the strict, hostile environment I am generally forced to work in.  Personally, I tend to be much more open minded and laid back, as long as everyone is working and getting their jobs done.  The older I get, the more I realize that some people just do not feel the same way about life as I do and that is okay.

     Luckily for me, though, I feel as if I fit in more with the other employees and enjoy my work environment more at Platinum PR.  In fact, in just these few weeks I have learned a lot about the business and about public relations in general.  I have been exposed to different, effective tools public relation specialists can use and I've learned more about what a public relations business actually does on a day to day basis.  I feel fortunate that I have the opportunity to work here and learn.  All of the employees have been incredibly helpful and friendly when I have questions and I am truly looking forward to all of the important things I will learn throughout the rest of the semester.  As I continue to keep a journal of my experiences across the semester, I feel confident in saying that I will be able to share valuable and positive experiences.  

Comm 450 Blog 2 Why Businesses Should Use Social Media

Photo by: birgerking

     According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, social media is defined as "forms of electronic communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content".  Although this definition does not mention anything specifically about marketing your business or company, using forms of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and many more, to create an online community to share your business's information can be a great way to help achieve success.  Today, so many people are using the Internet; why not get your business involved in this revolution?

If you are not completely convinced yet, here are some important reasons to start using social media:

1. Have direct interaction with customers.  The best type of interaction between businesses and customers is genuine.  If businesses stay genuine with its customers, customers will likely respond well the business.  Most people prefer businesses that take time to listen and reward customers.  Social media is a great way to achieve the type of interaction many customer want.
2. It is cheaper than other forms of advertising.  Signing up for a Facebook, Twitter, and many other forms of social media is free.  Combine this with the fact that it is pretty simple to use and quick to set up, it's hard to find a reason not to utilize the tools.
3. Has the potential for more customers.  Millions of people use the internet daily.  According to ebizMBA.com, the estimated amount of unique visitors each month for Facebook alone is 750,000,000!  Unfortunately, not every single one of those visitors will make it to your company's page, but if even a small percentage of people using Facebook see your page, your clientele will expand.  And, the great thing about Facebook is that when one person likes your page or comments on your post, all of their friends can see that, opening up so many more opportunities every single time you get a new like.  Remember, these statistics and facts are strictly for Facebook.  Using other forms of social media will enhance your potential for customers even more.
4. Become closer to customers and gain their trust.  Studies have already shown that customers are more likely to trust a company using social media.  According to an article by Curt Finch, 82% of people surveyed said that they are more likely to trust a company who communicates via social media.  Trust not only leads to more sales from individuals, but those individuals are more likely to suggest your business to others as well.
5. Receive direct feedback and ideas from customers.  Social media allows customers and potential customers to communicate directly with the company.  If this type of communication is not ignored, businesses can understand what customers are looking for and the types of things that either want or expect from your company.  They can also offer their feelings on what the business is currently doing right and wrong.  Therefore, improvements and adjustments can be made.
6. Directly explain mission of business to customers.  Studies also show that individuals are much more likely to buy from a business that directly explains its mission and values via social media, especially when that business's top officials are involved in social media.  

If you are still not convinced, many more rewards and research are out there to prove the importance of social media in businesses.  It's at least worth a shot!