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9 Tips From College To PR Agency

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English: Crouse College, Syracuse University.

English: Crouse College, Syracuse University. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To say the transition from college to career is easy would be a lie. This new life chapter is rewarding and also a challenge.

Right after graduating from Syracuse University, I took an internship with a PR firm in New York City merely one month later. Within three months, I was hired full time and moved into an apartment. Luckily, my best friend moved came to New York shortly after me; it was comforting to have a small slice of college during this professional transition.

Now that I’m approaching my one-year anniversary as a NYC resident and Stuntman PR employee (June 18th!) I’m much more settled. After spending 2012 sorting out chaos, I resolved to settle into a healthy and happier routine in 2013.

Tips From College To Work

1. Exercise. The first step I took was joining a gym. It had been months since I had really exercised and I knew it would provide a calm I seriously needed. My gym has great group fitness classes so I started going to yoga. I know yoga isn’t for everyone but it has been such a peaceful and necessary thing for me. After a long, stressful workday, it feels great to get a bit of exercise in and let my mind relax for a short while. It’s really a sanctuary for my mental health.

2. Work Hard. Being the low-man on the totem pole, I have a lot to learn about PR. Thankfully, I work in a very small agency and get to work closely with PR professionals who have been in the industry for 10+ years. It’s a fantastic opportunity to be able to learn from them and I will always be the first to advocate for interning or starting your career at a small agency over a large one. There are few things more satisfying that landing a great placement and impressing or gaining your boss’s praise, but that doesn’t come without dedication and hard work – something I am constantly reminding myself of.

3. Keep Learning. I rededicated myself to continuing my education after college. I had taken a social media class my senior year and didn’t want to forget what I had learned or lag behind the ever-developing industry. A few weeks ago, I attended a seminar during Social Media week. After so many months out of college it was great to be back learning from experts in my field and working toward making myself a better PR professional.

4. Stay Connected. During my refocusing, I realized I had grossly lost touch with social media as a means of learning and connecting. I had used Hootsuite during my social media class at Syracuse, and I’ve made it a point to always keep a tab with Hootsuite open and continually monitor my news feeds throughout the day.

It’s been a long ride (though it feels like time has flown by) but I’m excited about the positive changes and challenges facing me personally and professionally. I don’t think I’ll ever have all my ducks in a row but it’s been a happy struggle trying to.

5 Tips For Young Professionals

1. Breathe and relax. Find something that calms you and let yourself forget about the stressors of your day.

2. You’re most likely in an entry-level position and will have to handle certain tasks that aren’t interesting or don’t seem important, but always take them seriously. Doing your work well and efficiently will impress your bosses and earn you a promotion or more responsibility.

3. Work hard, play hard. It’s a common saying for a reason. It’s great to work hard and impress your boss and achieve career goals but balance is essential so you don’t burn out.

4. Seek opportunities to grow as a PR professional and expand your skills. Attend seminars or workshops to stay up to date on the latest trends and advancements in the industry. Blogging, whether you start your own or guest blog, is a great way to continuously fine tune writing.

5. Network. Stay connected with peers from college; they may be able to help you with your job search when you’re ready to move on to another company or can introduce you to more great connections. And of course, always try to be making new connections with professionals who have been in your industry longer than you. They’re an amazing resource for advice and in my experience have always been willing to help you succeed.

About The Author

Alyssa Dupre is an Account Coordinator at Stuntman PR and a recent graduate of Syracuse University. She happily lives in Brooklyn but still wishes it were London where her heart has resided since she studied abroad in the spring of 2011. Connect with her on Twitter @ASDupre.

 

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Storytelling And The Media Relations Pitch Revisited

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storytellingThe December 2012 issue of Vogue is an unlikely source to prompt a blog post about storytelling and media relations, but if you read ahead, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Arwa Damon – the 35-year-old Syrian-American CNN reporter who broke the story about finding the personal diary of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and who has covered every aspect of Iraq and all theaters of war in the Middle East since she was 25 years old – provided a glimpse to public relations practitioners about what makes a story her story.The coolest thing about this example is that Damon had no clue she was acting like a PR professional when she had to pitch her story to superiors and convince them of its importance.  Let me back pedal for you with this quote:

“Arwa Damon’s fearless reporting from the Middle East has made her a star at CNN. What she uncovered in Libya sparked a national furor.

And in 2007, Damon pushed to do a segment on a five-year-old Iraqi boy who had been badly burned in a raid. It was a small story, but the piece led to an enormous outpouring of support from viewers. Ultimately, CNN allowed Damon to find the boy medical care in the states and then to follow the story for four years.

Permitting such a level of engagement between a reporter, a subject, and her audience was something of a first for the network, and it made Damon a popular figure, both inside CNN headquarters and out,” Vogue, December 2012.

Think about this for a minute; I’ll ponder with you:

  • A millennial reporter who jets around the world into dangerous settings to do her job finds a 5-year-old injured in wartime.
  • She wants to do this story in the worst way and begs her superiors to make it happen. They acquiesce.
  • The reporter also begs to locate medical care and then reports on happenings for four years!

What would make a producer say yes to a story about an Iraqi toddler when U.S. troops are getting maimed and dying every day? It had to be how she presented the story, her conviction about drawing attention to babies and children as victims of war, and her passion to use her position to affect an outcry of support. Don’t forget this small fact – CNN had never done a story of this nature where the reporters became a seamless part of story for four years (not to mention earning the child free U.S. medical care).

What do you think? Are you tracking with me about how Damon had to put on the hat of a PR professional (although she didn’t know it) and pitch the heck out of that story until her producers said, “OK already!”

The clue for we in PR is this: each time we pitch a reporter, that gatekeeper has to – in turn – pitch it to editors or producers. It’s more challenging than ever for media relations professionals to sell news in one pitch.

Elements of A Successful Pitch

Anyone reading this is likely to be extremely knowledgeable about elements of a solid national or global story, but let’s recap for those who may not be:

  • Mass audience appeal. A story about children and especially 5 year olds is going to tug at all heart strings without language barrier.
  • Medical attention. When someone is injured as a result of war, that’s a natural story hook or news angle.
  • Consumers or victims of war. National stories always require a consumer/people angle. Have you ever pitched national network TV? The consumer angle is an absolute.
  • Call to action. We’re not sure about the call to action in Damon’s story; however, when the article suggests an “enormous outpouring of support from viewers,” we know how much ratings are driven by consumer sentiment and stories like these. While call to action is more of a marketing tactic, media relations professionals need to think about what the outcome of a story should be. How do you want the story to be regarded? Can you push for someone to open a wallet and donate funds to something? That inadvertent influence of earned media becomes so critical at the end of the day.
  • Data/Statistics/Big Data. This story in Vogue didn’t include statistics; however, we are fully aware of the importance of empirical evidence to support a story’s proof points.

Storytelling

I remember after Hurricane Katrina when Anderson Cooper launched a story segment called, “Keeping Them Honest” on CNN. He and his team returned to New Orleans to follow-up on officials’ plans to ensure the re-build was happening as it should. Each time I caught that segment, I said “good for you, Anderson,” as he provided everyone with a bird’s eye vantage about post-crisis Katrina.

While marketers need to be the consummate storytellers, media relations professionals need to craft the story with all the elements and more prior to pitching it anywhere. Put all the elements on the table, and if anything is missing, then hit the drawing board and dog the details. Imagine the tough sell Arwa Damon had to make to her producers to become personally involved in a story they didn’t even want to produce. All you need to do is let her be your inspiration.

This post originally appeared on the Cision Blog December 3, 2012.

By Jayme Soulati

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The Happy Friday Series: Be The Sun And Serve

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Screen Shot 2013-03-28 at 9.37.29 AM“Mommy, you have to come with us! It’s so fun. Please!”

We lived on Shady Lane, and the shade  was profound. I was making it through the days as best I could but truth be told I was struggling.

I needed light desperately. Sunlight.

So, I dressed my tired body  and trudged to Tree Hill down the street and bordering the pond. The kids were racing ahead, and I thought about warning them that I wasn’t going to last long, so hurry up and get done with this joyful experience you’re convinced I’m going to have. But I didn’t.

We reached the top of the path and came out of the woods onto a bare hill drenched in warming sunlight. I sat down and nearly cried. I sat and sat and sat and dreaded going home to the darkness. I spent a lot of time at Tree Hill while we lived on Shady Lane, needless to say.

You might think that this post is about getting outside and basking in the sun, collecting your vitamin D for the day.

It’s not.

It’s about being the sun for someone else.

Being On Edge

Let me share with you how I felt the other day in order to explain it better.

I was on edge. The edge. All I could focus on was the sleep I wasn’t getting and I was not a happy camper.

What do you do when you feel like that?

I considered the typical options, but nothing appealed to me. I was sinking deeper into the mire of misery…in the breeding ground of boredom…that was being fueled by extreme fatigue.

“Call Lois.” That was a strange and unexpected  thought. It bordered on annoying because all I really wanted to do was sleep.

Lois is in her late eighties, early nineties. I haven’t seen her for a while. I’d thought of her at least three times in two days. But I had no reason to call her. We used to visit a lot and talk about genealogy and her dogs.

So I picked up the phone and called her. Her phone was disconnected. So, I called her daughter. Her phone was disconnected, too. All of a sudden I was concerned about Lois and her family. Where were they? How was she? Was there something they might need?

I reflected for a second on what had happened and giggled. I hadn’t even done anything more than start thinking about someone else and I’d started to feel better.

I’d sort of been like the sun.

The energy inside of me was released outward to touch someone else’s life and suddenly, somehow, I was brighter.

Showing up in life and giving what we can in the moments that we share makes us all a part of life’s warming rays for the people who show up at the same time. We choose whether or not to give our light or to withhold it.

I get it. Sometimes we’re tired. But maybe we’re not so much physically tired but emotionally fatigued because we haven’t been able to really connect with other people in meaningful ways.

Maybe we expect too much return on our investment of time and energy.

Maybe we are thinking “what’s in it for me?”

It’s About Service

There are some things I know about service:

  • A need is a need, and others’ needs come at inconvenient times.
  • People don’t wake up (typically) and plan to have an accident, lose their job, or have their house burn down, or struggle with depression, etc.
  • When we are the poorest we’ve ever been, a neighbor, a friend, or a stranger’s lack will remind us that we still have something to give.
  • The need for service doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t wait for us to feel refreshed and chipper. We are needed now. Sleep is for later.
  • Service blesses us more than the served if we do it like the sun shines its rays- with no expectation of thanks.
  • There will always be someone else that we can think of who is more able than we are at any given moment or in any situation who could do what is needed better. But they might think of someone else, too. There are no guarantees that the car behind us will stop to give aid to the person we just passed. We can at least stop to ask how we can help. Right?
  • There is no better short-cut to joy than thinking about how we can help someone else whether it be a smile, a hug, a “thank you”, an anonymous donation, or random kindness like shoveling their snowbound walkway.

I’ll leave you with a favorite quote of mine along with the hope for you to find the happiness that serving others brings.

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.”
~Rabindranath Tagore

About The Author

Betsy Cross is a prolific blogger at What If Today and Remember. She is accessible all over the Interwebz on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest.

 

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Cyber Security Is The Future

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All dongles aside, the incident over remarks that included one of those (I had no idea it looked like this for real) by a perky-eared bystander who snapped and posted an image to Twitter of alleged offenders behind her and subsequently jobs were lost over the conundrum (breath), has caused all sorts of crazy cyber-bullying against the female bystander and one of my peers who wrote about the incident.dongle

Still not in the know? You can read all about it:

And, you know what really sucks? We don’t know the truth; we don’t know who is ultimately responsible — perhaps it’s Anonymous and perhaps not.

Stop Being Naive

What I do know is that we the people can no longer be naive that what we say online is protected and without recourse; that what we do in public surroundings when involving strangers is innocent. It’s not and it’s not.

The scare tactics of hacker groups are real; it is cyber-bullying extraordinaire. Reputations and businesses that don’t play according to cyber rules are being ruined; it’s survival of the fittest and who can survive a cyber attack?

As I was explaining to Amber-Lee Dibble of Pioneer Outfitters on Google+, it’s time to pick the battles, choose carefully how to tread online, know with whom you’re engaging, and throw caution into every word.

Ever wonder how to fight a cyber-attack during which a website crashes and the spam bots destroy the back end with waves of onslaught? I would not have the financial resources or time to devote to managing this type of crisis; in fact, there’s nothing I would be able to do but call in the troops and borrow from the IRA (that’s not the Irish Republican Army).

In a Facebook discussion today, Ms. Kittie Walker, Founder and President of Indigo Girl in London said, “It takes for people to stand up and stand up en masse to fight that kind of bullying. There are plenty of rival sub-culture organizations fighting against Anonymous, but they are employing the same tactics. The global security services and police are fighting Anonymous and they’ve made some inroads, but for every hacker they arrest, a new one pops up.

What’s the likelihood of the masses standing up to them – not big; they are currently seen as modern day Robin Hoods and those that don’t see them that way may take the road that you did when bullied over a review. So whom do you side with? The Government and their agencies that want to restrict the internet in ways that you can’t even imagine (crushing your business just as surely) or the anarchists. Seems to me to be a bit of a loose-loose situation. (Kittie also mentioned she respects Anonymous and I should be prepared to stand by my research.)

Pick your battles carefully – not just the ones that you can win – but where you can make a difference.”

Fighting Cyber Attacks

Pay careful attention to your passwords. The previous school of thought was to do random characters, yet none of us can remember them. The now school of thought is to take a story, the dog ate my  homework, and use it as your password e.g. DogAteHomeHah. These resources below are worth a read.

Inc. Magazine on Fighting Hacking

Wired Magazine on Passwords/Hacking

Inc. Magazine: Cyberrisk Insurance

Books on Cybersecurity You May Want To Read

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Q & A With Journalism Professor @ProfKRG

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In this Q and A between Jayme Soulati and Assistant Professor Kenna Griffin of the Oklahoma City University Mass Communications Department,  you will see what’s changed and what hasn’t about the world of writing and reporting in today’s social engagement era:

KennaGriffinSoulati Q:   How long have you been a professor in J School (journalism school for all those not in the know)?

I began teaching in the mass communications department at Oklahoma City University in Fall 2003. I teach primarily journalism, although I also teach media law, media ethics and public relations courses. I also advise the university’s student publications staff.

Soulati Q: What are the basics in the curriculum students must have to graduate?

Because we are a pure mass communications program, all students take certain courses (introduction to mass communications, mass communications research, mass media law and ethics, and a senior capstone). The students then choose a track area—print journalism, broadcasting, advertising or public relations— to study. Most of our students study in more than one track area, which helps to make them more well-rounded in the job market.

Soulati Q: Are you seeing an influx of people entering J School or a decline in the numbers in the last five years?

Honestly, we have seen a decline. However, that has not been the experience of other journalism schools in our area. The economy has resulted in us, a private university, seeing an overall enrollment decline.

Soulati Q:  How has social media influenced how you teach journalism now?

Social media has completely changed the way I teach journalism. The Internet as a whole has leveled the playing field for journalists. We no longer have to wait for the next publication cycle to provide our audience with the information they need and want. We can report news in real time for the first time ever.

Soulati Q: Is there a social media track in J School or is it woven into courses?

Social media has become part of every course we teach, from News Reporting to Mass Media Research. I, personally, only teach one social media specific course, which is Social Media Marketing and Online Promotions. The class is cross listed between the mass communications department and the business school. The students enrolled typically are studying journalism, public relations or marketing. The course’s purpose is to teach them to create a strategic, measurable social media campaign for an organization, instead of the all too common approach to “use social media.”

Soulati Q: What’s your view of how journalism will continue to evolve based on how things stand today?

It’s interesting to hear people saying that newspapers are dying. I’m not convinced that this is the case or that it even matters. We know people are seeking out and consuming more information than ever before. Therefore, the need to give them factual information via the platform of their choice is in high demand. It’s been 30 or 40 years since there’s been a more exciting time to be a journalist!

Soulati Q: What are 3-5 tips you can offer writers seeking a career in journalism?

– Learn the fundamentals of our profession. Understand what makes someone a journalist as opposed to just another person with a keyboard.

– Focus on the basics. Recognizing news value, gathering information through interviewing sources, using AP Style and the inverted pyramid… these are basic skills of journalism that lay the foundation for your career.

– Be adaptable to change. The basic skills stay the same, but the delivery platform changes every day. Get excited about the possibilities of new, different ways to deliver information.

– Take advantage of all presented opportunities. I’m amazed by the students who don’t attend networking and training events. I know you’re busy. We’re all busy. But you have four years to fit in as much learning as you can. What you do in that time will determine to some extent your success afterward. Take advantage of every opportunity presented to learn more about journalism and to hone your craft.

– Network like it’s your full-time job. I don’t agree with the idea that it’s not “what you know, but who you know.” Success actually is a combination of both. You have to understand journalism more than you understand most things. Then, you must position yourself for career advancement. This means meeting people and helping them understand what skills you have that benefit them.

Soulati Q: Is everyone a writer?

Everyone can be a writer, but it’s more difficult for some while being intrinsic to others. Anyone can become a writer, but not every writer is a journalist. Journalism is a profession that requires training, an understanding of professional values, norms and routines, a method for practical application of the craft, and a network of others serving the profession. Simply having a platform or being able to form a sentence doesn’t make you a journalist. A journalist is more than someone who strings together words to form a sentence.

Soulati Q: Is there a career in this profession, or are you seeing it erode from the academic perspective? 

There are more jobs available in journalism than there are professional journalists to fill them. This is one of the key reasons I started posting a weekly list of media jobs. You can read more about that here.  The short answer is yes – journalism is a viable, thriving profession.

Soulati Q: Should students of today insulate their journalistic career with other skills besides news or feature writing?

Absolutely! Anyone in media that puts on their blinders to multimedia or even public relations aspects of the industry is just begging to be extinct. Being a good writer still is a critical skills, but it can’t be the only tool in your professional arsenal.

Soulati Q: Has social media broadened the scope of opportunity for students and young professionals today?

I think it has. Of course, I’m a lover of social media. I see two critical ways social has broadened opportunities for students. First, social media have created a whole new genre of exciting career opportunities in content promotion and community management. Second, social media allow students to create and maintain a professional network that will serve them well throughout their careers. This network is no longer bound by geography or professional, institutional hierarchies. You want to network with the CEO of an organization where you want to work post-graduation? Follow him/her on Twitter and start the conversation immediately.

Soulati Q: Do have any further sage counsel to share for anyone reading?

Change is frightening, but it won’t kill you. In fact, I’m pretty sure some have said it makes you stronger. What’s your purpose as a journalist? Focus on that. Everything else is just changing tools that allow you to do your job. The method is not the meaning.

About The Author

Kenna Griffin (@profkrg) is the blogger behind www.profkrg.com, which aims to create an ongoing educational dialogue between professional journalists and media students and educators. In her spare time she teaches journalism, multimedia, public relations, media law, and media ethics courses as a full-time university professor. Oh, and she is a doctoral candidate in mass communication on the side.

 

 

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