MarketingMel

How to find a job in PR

It seems like every week I field a call from a desperate college student seeking my advice about how to break into public relations. I’ve answered their questions so often that I thought I would jot down a few tips that I’ve learned over my more than 20-year career in public relations.

1. Think strategically: What is your end goal? How can you get there? Have a plan. Write it down just as you would a business plan and then work it.
2. Seek internships: Be sure to have one; they often lead to jobs. Furthermore, they’ll help you to understand if this business is really for you. (It can be very stressful at times!) Treat an internship as if it’s a job. Be ready with a professional resume and photo. Be prepared with questions and skill sets you to have offer.
3. Set yourself up for success: Have an outlet after your internship. Look for opportunities. Volunteer. Play up your accomplishments. Example: MarketingMel’s intern Sarah Williams was the top PR student at her community college.  That impressed me.
   

   MarketingMel with intern Sarah Williams

4. Communicate with communicators: Communicate on their terms through their channels (and be sure to identify yourself.) Since founding MarketingMel there was only one time that a college student reached out to me in such an engaging way that I asked for a meeting with him. Yet that was how impressed I was with the abilities of David Ford. (Remember that name. I think he will go far in the advertising business!) If you want to see what the pro’s are doing listen to tweetchats like # soloPR and #journchat and say “Hello.”
5. Study the thought leaders: Look who’s leading the way in your chosen field, in your community, and in the world. (I treasure my virtual friendships with my international friends. Judy Gombita in Toronto with PR Conversations is a great example.)
6. Innovate: Use the latest tools and learn about new ones. The field of communications changes daily. Be sure you are running at all times to keep up with it. Is your Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn up to date? (Yes, I said LinkedIn. More than 80 percent of all headhunters are there so you need to be there as well.) Use YouTube to present yourself on video to a future employer. Skype is a another handy tool.
7. Learn something new: Do you know a foreign language? Spend time abroad. Be open to opportunities elsewhere. There will never be a better time in your life to pick up and move somewhere and do something different. It will expose you to a new way of thinking.
8. Show kindness: Put the phone away in class and share some real (not virtual) Facetime with your teachers and friends. This goes for our online behavior as well. Others can tell when you genuinely care about them.
9. Follow journalists: Media relations is part of public relations. Follow your favorite journalists and engage with them. I often chat on twitter with our local morning news anchor, Josh Smith via twitter. He and I are both early risers and our friendship has deepened with our regular tweet banter.
10. Know your strengths and weaknesses and focus on your strengths: (Now Discover Your Strengths by Buckingham and Clifton is a book well worth reading with an easy-to-take online quiz that will help you determine your top strengths.)
11. Create your Personal Brand: Put some thought into this one and again there are some great books available (see Tom Peters and Brand You.) Remember your personal brand will follow you from job to job throughout the rest of your life.

What suggestions do you have to add to this list? Please post your comments here. I’d love to hear from you!

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Editor’s note: The following is a guest blog post by my friend Cathy Rodgers, Founder of Seven Waves Marketing. We met on twitter several years ago and we both enjoy helping clients succeed with their social media marketing.

It happened again this week.  I met a local business owner at a networking event who didn’t have a business card, but told me to be sure and find them on Facebook. My search was futile.  In fact, I was able to find their website but the link to Facebook was broken.

I’ve noticed many businesses advertise to look for them on Facebook, thinking people will flock to their page, but it’s impossible to find them in the search bar.  Before you spend money for offline advertising, be sure to register the vanity url or facebook name. I know, you can find your page but please ask someone who has not “liked” your business page to test it out in case you have any doubts.

It’s really easy to register the name of your page, just go here: http://www.facebook.com/username/

The sad thing about the example above was this company hired a social media company to manage their online presence.

Creating Community

Social media is all about creating community and helping others.  Facebook just rolled out new features which now allows business owners to like other pages and to make comments as the brand.  This also allows you to create online partnerships.  Be sure to take advantage of this feature, as well using the @ symbol to reference other pages which provides a link to their page in your post, while landing you visibility on their page.

Also, Facebook just announced a new feature last week which now allows links in the comment box.  This works well when you find out someone has been talking about your brand on another page.  How do you do that?  Sign up for an alert system like Social Mention, which monitors a variety of online mediums including blogs, Facebook, and Twitter: http://www.socialmention.com/

Promote Your Own Services on Facebook

With the new banner feature, business owners can easily create graphics to promote themselves.  If you don’t upload a lot of photos to promote events, then why not create your own promotional ads in this space.  The dimensions are:  97 pixels wide x 68 pixels high.  There are five boxes, which translates to five opportunities for promotion of your services.    The next time you create a post with a photo, your images will update – or simply update with text.   Here’s an example for you:  Seven Waves

Currently, there is not a way to control which image appears first.  There are a lot of free banner programs which plug into Facebook which can easily create one solid banner  that breaks up into five, but make sure the one you choose is recommended by your online business community.   Happy marketing.

Cathy Rodgers is Founder and President of Seven Waves Marketing in Savannah, Georgia. She can be reached through numerous channels including her newly revamped web site at http://www.7wavesmarketing.com

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I’ll start with a confession. I follow Charlie Sheen.

OK, it’s out in the open now. I’ve joined the 2.1million others who follow the champion of TigerBlood on twitter. (There were only about a million of us when I first started following him last week.)

So why am I following a man who keeps imploding at every turn? All it takes is a stop-off in the check-out line at the local grocery store and a view of the magazines on display to see that people are intrigued by celebrities, particularly those who have gotten into some sort of trouble. As a Public Relations pro, it’s been fascinating to watch first Charlie’s long-time publicist Stan Rosenfield quit, and then Charlie become his own media man. Sure, he’s looking for a social media intern but what I’ve observed over the past week it’s all Charlie behind (and in front of) the curtain.

Today CBS announced they’d parted ways with him yet my husband and I just sat mesmerized at the latest live  SheensKorner (Charlie’s Ustream video). Perhaps it is because of the giant gulf between our “everyday” lives and those of a self-proclaimed winner. To what do you attribute our celebrity obsessed culture? Is it a case of “The bigger they are the harder they fall?”

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