PRepster Lauren Novo on Key Messages

Lauren Novo is a a senior at Florida State University with a double major in Media/Communication Studies and Creative Writing. Additionally, she serves as the staff writer for Trusteria Services, a regional company in Tallahassee, and as a public relations staff assistant for RB Oppenheim Associates, a local PR agency. Connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn and read her blog, Gen-Y PRogress: Lauren Novo’s PR Journey.

By Lauren Novo

Many of us are just two months away from the real world. College life is actually coming to an end. Perhaps you’re graduating with top grades and impressive resumes or maybe you’re just barely making it out alive. Regardless, we’re all in the same boat. Those of us who have decided against grad school need to start thinking about securing jobs. Like now.

So while seemingly every PR pro, extended family member and teacher asks what your plans are after graduation and your stomach starts to churn because you have no flippin’ idea, just remember this: you’re not alone and it’s going to be OK.

What’s the key to staying calm when you enter an interview (or even “non-interview”) situation and you’ve got competition? Key messages.

Think about it – right now, whether you’re learning PR tactics in school or through your internships, you’ve probably noticed how important key messages are to campaigns and initiatives. We are taught that in order to influence thinking and ultimately behavior, our messaging needs to be clear and relatable. We need to be sincere and make people genuinely care. So why not bring these lessons into our own personal, “hire me, please” endeavors?

1. Sit down and figure out who you are, what you want, why you want it and how you are going to accomplish it. If you can’t clearly define your capabilities to a prospective employer, why would you be hired?
2. Go into the interview with your key messages prepared. And no, your messages should not be the same for every interview. After all, messages aren’t going to be the same in every campaign you complete once you’re hired.
3. Consider: What does this agency/corporation stand for? Who does it serve? What does it need from its PR team? Don’t lie about yourself to get the job. Just understand and explain how and why you are a good fit.

It sounds silly, making a list of key messages. But that might just set you apart from the others. Not only will it help you understand your own value, but it will help you develop analytical skills for when you receive that first big project at work.

An Interview with Deirdre Breakenridge: #PRStudChat and Mentoring Relationships

By Rowena Briones

Rowena is a graduate student studying communication with an emphasis in public relations at the University of Maryland. She also works at ICF Macro, a research and consulting firm that conducts health and communications marketing for non-profits and governmental agencies. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter and read her blog debut, PRismatic Perspectives.

On February 15th, I had the amazing opportunity to serve as a representative for UMD’s PR students and participate in a Skype call with Deirdre Breakenridge as part of winning the #PRStudChat Challenge for Universities this past October. Though I was extremely nervous right before the call, Deirdre was extremely friendly and approachable, and we delved in right away into a very engaging and informative conversation. Feel free to listen to the podcast in its entirety, but here are some of the key takeaways from our interview, which focused on #PRStudChat and mentoring relationships:

Where do you see #PRStudChat going in the future?
We definitely want it to grow, in the student, educator, and professional base. We want to take it on the road, have meet ups all around the country. Maybe have the universities who participated in the challenge hosting these events.

How, if at all, does #PRStudChat foster mentoring relationships?
Because this dynamic community is bonded around the PR profession you’ll get a lot of people who will want to help each other. That’s what its all about. There’s an overwhelming willingness to help. Relationships are being forged outside of #PRStudChat. Students contact me for help. It’s the environment and the people that make it such a great community.

What are some advantages/benefits to a mentoring relationship?
It’s a chance to give back. All of us grow up in PR. We all take, take, take, as you advance in your career. When you get to that point it’s your time to give back to the universe. Mentoring is a wonderful opportunity to learn about PR and communication through the eyes of a professional – to have them guide you, give you advice, open your eyes to challenges and exciting communication you’ve never experienced before. Though you’re all learning in your classes it’s hard to make that connection with what you’re learning in the classroom and what actually takes place in the business environment.

What makes mentoring relationships unique in the field of public relations?
We are such great, great communicators and we truly know how to build relationships, that’s our role, that’s what makes it so wonderful and better, and the learning that’s taking place is the best relationship building because you’re working with people who know how to communicate, grow and educate.

What are some advantages to using social media in your mentoring relationships?
The landscape, depending on the platform, is so rich with ideas and information… it’s easy to listen, find relevant information, and share quickly and talk about them, either through that platform or through a Skype video sharing things on your desktop. You tap into these great informational portals and bases of knowledge to help the person that you are mentoring.

Has social media changed our perceptions of mentoring?
It could in the sense that you do have quick sharing and knowledge. I don’t want it to replace…if you have the opportunity to be face to face, there’s a certain relationship building when it’s more personal. I wouldn’t want mentoring to be in 140 characters or less. For mentoring, you wouldn’t want anything to be cut short. Because that’s the opportunity to ask questions, to get in depth with stories, and anecdotes, and challenges and how we got over certain obstacles. That can’t be shortened, it shouldn’t be.

What advice would you give to mentors/mentees undertaking a mentoring relationship in PR?
It would be to really listen first, so you can understand the person, the relationship, understand their needs. Bring what is relevant and new and important to PR professionals, be proactive, bring information to them that they wouldn’t get as student or in their own organization. It all starts from the “getting to know you” phase. And that is so important. You don’t want to skip over it, you don’t want to bombard with information… you want to learn and understand and grow together.

Students are so intuitive when it comes to the technology and the platforms and being able to navigate the landscape. They could teach us a few things. And we can help them connect the technology side of PR with the business and communication end of it and how to help customers.

What advice would you give to mentors/mentees undertaking a mentoring relationship using social media?
If you’re using social media, don’t rush it, balance it with other platforms to have longer conversations. If you get the opportunity together to participate in dynamic chats, do it, so that you’re both listening and learning to bring back interesting topics and things that have happened.

All in all, I had a great experience talking with Deirdre and learning about her personal experiences with mentoring and PR, why she started #PRStudChat, and her thoughts on how social media can impact mentoring relationships.

5 Tips for Planning Your First Press Conference

By: Samantha McCain

For the last five months, I have been interning with a local community foundation. It has been, by far, the most rewarding and challenging public relations work I have done to date.

Recently, our Executive Director tasked me with planning a press conference for one of our funds. I have worked in many different realms of PR, but media relations have not been one of them. Even as confident as I am in other areas of PR, I was a little (A LOT) hesitant; but I like a good challenge, so plan I did.

Online resources were a tad low in the “HELP ME I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING” department, so I followed my gut and went for it.  For your planning pleasure, here are a few nuggets of wisdom to help anyone as they embark on planning a press conference.

1. Make a list! I am a listing fanatic. I create to-do lists daily, and then I merge at the end of the day for the next day.

Make a list of everything that needs to be done and a time line for yourself. If you don’t give yourself a deadline, tasks will begin to overlap and become overwhelming. Be sure to write down questions you need to ask, and it also helps to list important people that need to be involved.  Find your story and figure out what will help the media make an appearance… because after all – it’s not much of a press conference without them.

2. Know who you need to talk to. Our foundation works with A LOT of different organizations and projects in the community.  Knowing the president of the organization we represented was key to planning this event. It was important for me to figure out what he wanted represented at the press conference and how he saw the day unfolding. From my initial meeting with him, I also realized that there were about 5 other people that I needed to talk to as well.

3. Be sure all parties involved are on the same page. For our particular event, we needed to coordinate with the local police department AND the mayor.  It was pivotal to book these two departments to tell our story.  Communicating with the public information coordinators for these two offices helped keep our event on the fast track of success. It was important to have all three of us on the same page with the who, what, when, where, and how.

4. Befriend the media and PICK UP THE PHONE. We should always be fostering relationships with our media entities. However, if this is your first time working in media relations (Hey, that was me!) – know your outlets, and those that report on specific topics and beats.  This only takes a little background research.  Check out their respective web sites and look at past stories they’ve written.  THEN, pick up the phone. I will say it again, PICK UP THE PHONE.  It’s so easy to send an e-mail, but you will garner a more effective response from an initial phone call.

A week and a half before the event, I called our four major news outlets and spoke with specific reporters.  I asked them if they were familiar with our organization and the fund we represented.  Lucky for us, the organization had already been in the news and their interests were peaked.  THEY asked me to e-mail them follow up information.  When I e-mailed the media advisory, I told them that I would follow up in a week by phone.  All four e-mailed me back with a commitment to be there. It only took three tiny steps.

5. Media Kits are essential. They may seem a bit old-fashioned in the world of everything social media, but we felt it was important to hand the media everything they needed to know about our organization and then let them retell our story in the manner they saw fit.  We trust our media and wanted to help them where we could.  They have deadlines, and if it saves them 10 minutes of Internet searching, then we’ve served our purpose.

For our event, we included a brochure about our foundation, a brochure about the organization featured in our press conference, a fact sheet about both, a news release AND the agenda for the press conference.

Connect with Samantha: @samemac | http://samanthamccain.wordpress.com/