Kion Sanders is a recent communications and public relations graduate from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is the former Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) national vice president of chapter development and a current member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Recently, he officially started his career in Cleveland, OH as an account associate for Fahlgren Mortine Public Relations.
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As a student, I was fortunate to have internships that provided me with pitching responsibilities. One of the major roles of entry-level PR professionals is building and maintaining relationships with media representatives. My relevant experience made the transition from student to professional that much smoother because I was properly prepared for future responsibilities.
A model from the Nicholas Lindsey Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Show. (Image Rights: Nicholas Lindsey Brand)
A few weeks ago, I concluded my post-graduation internship with Weber Shandwick – a global public relations agency. As a consumer brands intern, one of my major responsibilities was pitching the media on behalf of clients I represented. I was able to practice everything from writing and distributing pitch e-mails, using social media tools to engage my targeted journalists, the proper way to pitch bloggers and of course, jumping on the phones to tell my client’s story.
This experience prepared me for one of my most challenging roles to date – serving as a PR manager for a Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week show. Nicholas Lindsey, a brand designer and one of my fellow PRSSA graduates, was in need of last-minute PR support for one of the biggest shows of his life. Immediately, I jumped at the opportunity; it was a great way to help a friend in need and a way to practice what I learned from my internship.
As PR manager for the show, my main responsibility was media relations. On show day, I had journalists present from Essence Magazine, NBC Universal and fashion bloggers from around the country, including an NYC Fashion Examiner. To solidify these high profile media representatives, I used everything I learned from my internship, especially social media for media relations purposes. My wonderful PR agency allowing me to pitch as an intern led to something I am very proud of – my first national magazine placement: NYFW Designer Q/A: Nicholas Clements-Lindsey.
To answer Tressa Robbins’ question, posted on the BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas blog, “Should PR Interns Pitch the Media?” … YES, they should – I am a living example of how it can prepare interns for the “real world.” In fact, I recently accepted a full-time position with Fahlgren Mortine Public Relations where I … pitch the media on behalf of clients.
Giving the valuable experience interns can learn from pitching, can you think of any reasons why they shouldn’t?
As interns head into the office for the first time this fall, eager to make a good impression and begin a successful career, wouldn’t it be nice to be given a reading list…a list of books that hold the secrets and lessons to give you that extra advantage? I decided to ask a few leaders in the PR industry, “Is there a book you’d consider ‘required reading’? Something you wish every new hire read prior to their first day on the job?” Here are their responses:
Beyond How-to and PR 2.0 “I think better than any how-to or PR 2.0 book are business bios that inspire,(e.g., Howard Schulz, J. Dyson), books re: creativity, and Mad Men,” says Dorothy Crenshaw, CEO and creative director Crenshaw Communications. Personally, I love reading the biographies of successful business leaders; in fact, Howard Schulz’s “Pour Your Heart Into It” has a special place on my bookshelf.
Good for All Levels Stephanie Smirnov, president, Devries PR suggests “Making News in the Digital Era” by David Henderson.
Global Clientele and Mega Trends Alex Aizenberg , group manager, Weber Shandwick: “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” and “The World Is Flat” both by Tom Friedman.
Must Reads Richard Laermer, founder and CEO, RLM Public Relations: “Elements of Style” by E.B. White and “On Writing Well” by Wiliam Zinsser.
Start Your Career Right Christine Barney, CEO Rbb Public Relations: “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t” by Robert Sutton.
The World Around You As Stefan Pollack, president of The Pollack PR Marketing Group points out, “With today’s explosion of information, to me, required reading is to read everything one can get their hands on. Books, eBooks, white papers, blogs, etc..Today’s entry level pro needs to up their level of intellectual curiosity and their life experiences. They need to know more about everything and as important link it to their pursuit for a career in PR.” Pollack’s recommendation: “the Book of Life, the life that is around you both near and far. By upping one’s intellectual curiosity, new hires, run the greater chance of understanding the contextual relevance of what they read when applying it to what they do. ”
As for my suggestions? Attempting to choose a single book to offer up as required reading is certainly not easy. My friends at BurrellesLuce and I frequently pass around books and a few of my favorite books, among those that have circulated, include:
But I think that if I could mandate a single book as required reading for new hires, I’d just stick to an old favorite: “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. While Carnegie may have written the book in 1936, the simple lessons are timeless and perhaps more important today than ever before.
What book would you suggest a new employee reads before coming on board at your organization?
TIM MARKLEIN: Yeah. I’m Tim Marklein. I run the measurement and strategy practice for Weber Shandwick.
BURKE: And, Tim, you had a session this morning about tying sales to PR efforts. For the people who couldn’t make it to the session, can you talk a little bit about a couple of the big takeaways from that?
MARKLEIN: Yeah. I think one of the key takeaways really was about starting with the premise in mind that you can link PR to sales. I hear all too often where people will either immediately accept that, oh, PR can’t be linked to sales, or they–because they don’t know how to measure it, they won’t take that upon themselves as a goal. And I would say for any marketing organization where you have a sales objective in mind, that the PR leadership should take that objective on as part of what they do and then work backwards to figure out how to measure it. And we talked about a number of different ways to be able to connect those dots so that you can, over time, show the link between PR and sales, but that the first part of it is really buying into the premise and having the belief that PR can drive sales.
BURKE: Great. And, Tim, where can people find you on the web and in social media?
MARKLEIN: They can find me on Twitter @tmarklein, or I’ve got a number of presentations on slideshare.net at @tmarklein as well, and LinkedIn as well.
In a recent PR News Q&A with Tim Marklein of Weber Shandwick,leading up to the Measurement Conference in D.C., a number of points resonated with me – particularly those relevant to our media measurement work.
Some of the highlights were:
The more you can frame metrics in the context of your own organization, the more they’ll matter.
Bridge the gap between PR language and the broader language of the business when presenting media metrics and when attempting to convey the value of your efforts to the C-suite.
Think of a good measurement structure and process before looking at measurement tools and cost.
Define clear, crisp, desired outcomes for your communications objectives; get more specific about your target audiences and clearly define each one.
Some long-held measurement assumptions — one is impressions – are being called into question. So carefully consider the types of metrics you are using.
The last two points, in particular, struck a cord when reflecting on own my experiences with our clients:
First, as we design custom measurement programs with clients, many clients struggle to be able to define clear target audiences for us. In providing quality rating scores (QRS) for stories, we marry the story content score with the media importance score, so the clients’ ability to provide their targeted tiers of media by importance is crucial, but often difficult for them to do.
Secondly when we do provide impressions or “opportunities to see,” we judge these by favorability and we always encourage clients to present all media metrics in the context of favorability.
This Q&A served its purpose in whetting my appetite for the actual live discussions that will be presented by my BurrellesLuce colleague Johna Burke and the other presenters at the PR News’ Measurement Conference. I am particularly curious to learn more about the measurement challenges PR and marketing professionals face in the ever-expanding world of media.
What areas of measurement do you struggle with? What areas have proved successful for you, your company, brand, or client? Will you be attending the measurement conference? If so, what are you hoping to take away from the experience? I look forward to continuing the discussion here on the Fresh Ideas blog.
Bio: I’ve been in the media business all of my adult life, first in newspapers before going full circle and joining BurrellesLuce, where I now direct the Media Measurement department. I’ve always enjoyed meeting and especially listening to the needs of our customers and others in the public relations and communications fields; I welcome sharing ideas through the Fresh Ideas blog. One of my professional passions is providing the type of service to a client that makes them respond, “atta girl” – inspiring our entire team to keep striving to be the best. Although I have been lucky enough to travel through much of Asia and most major U.S. cities for business or pleasure, my free time is now spent with my daughter, visiting family/friends, and of course the Jersey shore. Twitter: @domeasurement LinkedIn: Carol Holden Facebook: BurrellesLuce
Most of the speakers at these three events, although sometimes reviewing traditional PR tactics, often seemed to switch their focus to new social media tools.
In this post, I’m focusing on one basic tactic that seemed to be common to all: the universal recommendation of listening first (and often) to find-out where your audience and advocates are talking. Simply stated, “You need to know where the community is congregating if you want to engage them.” Although it will seem daunting at first, a 360 overview using several tools, will help you know where to focus for continued monitoring evaluation.
Sam Ford, Peppercom, said listening is important for—
Product research
Customer service
Solidifying/adapting messages
Crisis preparation
Outreach
New business opportunities
Target audiences
Falkow, at a separate event, seemed to expand upon this point by saying that, “Listening helps you with your plan by generating ideas and showing you what the community is interested in discussing.”
Wendy Harmon, American Red Cross, gave a great tip: Learn to tie in your PR campaigns to what the community is talking about. By monitoring the discussions, you can make your campaigns relevant.
Both Falkow and Anne Carelli, Coca-Cola, emphasized you should “fish where the fish are.” This means you should use listening to find communities, and then start conversing in them. You don’t need to go out and create a new community if one already exists. There are several examples of companies trying to create a new community, only to fail, because it is competing with an existing one.
Colin Moffett, Weber Shandwick, and Falkow both talked about using your listening tools to understand influencers. You need to do your homework and understand what a blogger is writing about before you engage them in a conversation. Bloggers are often pickier about how and when you communicate with them then are traditional reporters.
Lastly, as listening moves into monitoring, you should use it for media content analysis. Your analysis needs to be based on your campaign goals. Most of the speakers felt “favorability” or “sentiment” should be consistently illustrated in most measurement plans. Falkow and BurrellesLuce’s Johna Burke both emphasized doing human review of the sentiment, because a computer can not understand nuances or sarcasm.
The take away for these recent industry events: listening needs be a part of your strategy from beginning to end of your campaign.
What are your “how-to” tips? Do you have any listening tips?
As interns head into the office for the first time this fall, eager to make a good impression and begin a successful career, wouldn’t it be nice to be given a reading list…a list of books that hold the secrets and lessons to give you that extra advantage? I decided to ask a few leaders in the PR industry, “Is there a book you’d consider ‘required reading’? Something you wish every new hire read prior to their first day on the job?” Here are their responses:
