Agency VS In-House Experience

The chances are you’re probably going to get a lot of experience throughout your degree. I have undertaken placements and a year-long internship with various Leeds agencies throughout my time at university. Sorry to reiterate everything that’s always being preached, but it really is true – experience is invaluable to help you succeed in your degree and PR career.

Despite having a lot of experience under my belt, one thing I regret is not having undertaken a placement with an in-house PR department. I have always wondered how each experience compares and how they differ in developing an entry level practitioner’s skills.

This week I asked a number of course friends to comment on what their respective in-house/agency experience taught them. Adding to the comments, you’ll learn why I love agency work later in this article…

#Nomakeupselfie

The no-makeup selfie campaign has been a successful way of raising money and awareness for cancer support, with Cancer Research receiving over 800,000 donations and raising £2 million in 48 hours. This campaign is a great example of how social media can be hugely important for communicating important issues.

An Interview with Blogger Olivia...

Blogging has become a social media platform for the fashion gurus of modern society, but do we really appreciate or even recognise the hard work and creative posts?  It has given people like us, the encouragement to try different trends and venture away from the easy options, exploring more than one colour and unleashing that inner Gok.

Twenty year old and fashion fanatic Olivia, reveals her award winning blog: www.whatoliviadid.com, her journey into the fashion industry and “what Olivia did” to get where she is today:

The campaign that I love in February

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) launched the Blood Doesn’t Grow On Trees campaign on 21^st February, and the campaign is still running to date.  As a regular blood donor and a communication student, this campaign caught my eye.

Image sourced from blood.co.uk

The importance of SEO

For a long time now SEO (search engine optimisation) has been thought of as a dark art, black magic or an immeasurable formula. However with the growth of the internet age, this area of Public Relations is not to be overlooked.

Search engine optimisation in its simplest form is to try and make companies feature higher in Google’s rankings when entering keywords. It is important however, not to overuse these keywords as Google has the right to penalise and even take down your site off their search results pages. The ultimate goal of SEO is to increase traffic to a particular website in order to increase sales. A good way to measure how successful an individual is performing in his or her job role is to see the amount of hyperlinks they attain back to the company’s website.

Image sourced from Google

What is PR to me?

When I was younger, I always had a misconstrued perception of the world of Public Relations. People who worked in PR to me were glamorous socialites who drifted from celebrity party to record label office on a daily basis. They went for lunch at top LA restaurants and fraternized with the ‘In crowd’. This is because television and the media always represented PR practitioners in this way, especially our American counterparts.

The Spin Crowd TV show

Image sourced from Google

You’re the new tea boy

So it’s the first day of your placement at the PR agency that are willing to take you on as a first year student, you start to question what to wear, how to do your hair, am I good enough to be there, what happens if they don’t like me, what should I do?

Image sourced from Google

How to get employers (P)interested in you

We are all aware of how we need to act online. But as Public Relations students, we are advised on how to use social media as a platform, and as a way to promote ourselves like a brand.

 Whether you are using them to show off your antics from last night, or using them effectively as a way to build connections.Now more than ever lecturers, potential employers, PR practitioners and other influentials are taking to online networks to see how you behave on the sites.

Meet the Media: William Stewart, Times Educational Supplement

Two weeks ago, I attended an event along with fellow Leeds Met PR student, Bryony Czujko. The evening – organised by the CIPR’s Yorkshire and Lincolnshire regional group and the Education and Skills sectoral group – took the form of a dinner with William Stewart, reporter and features writer for the Times Educational Supplement (TES) and two-time winner of the CIPR’s National Education Journalist of the Year award.

It offered a chance to hear William’s interests and priorities as a journalist, what he and his colleagues are looking for and how they prefer to receive potential stories.

Times Educational Supplement journalist, William Stewart

Is our reputation the reason for a female dominated industry?

As a PR student, reputation management is a topic I cannot shy away from. However, the better I understand the Public Relations industry, the more inquisitive I become as to why we – as ‘PR people’ cannot seem to manage our own reputation. Not only this, but PR supposedly serves to create awareness and inform its public’s. So in light of this massively important function: how has my future industry become so saturated with the stigma of ‘fluffy females’ and ‘PR girls’?

Image taken from quicheisinsane under the Creative Commons License

For The People Who Voted Poppy

Students With Disabilities Officer 2014/15

This year’s student union elections were a thrill from start on finish. Two weeks of non-stop campaigning gives you a buzz that only competition brings. Everything that I stood for while I was running was of huge significance to me and to have people validate my passion for change was an amazing feeling.

Top Five Interview Tips

Placement interviews are always daunting and if like me, you’re a second year applying for your placement year,  I’m sure you’re fully aware of the stress that can come with it. However exciting being invited to an assessment centre is it is also extremely scary.

Image taken from Rilee Yandt under the Creative Commons License

Here is some advice that should help, whether this is for an assessment centre or a placement interview:

Updates from Lucy - Week commencing March 10th

NSS Reminder - Final Year

Could all final year students fill out the National Student Survey (link), more than half of the year group have yet to complete the survey.

Opportunity for Business students to get involved at Major Music Festivals

Apply today to attain UNIQUE volunteering/intern work experience and increase your employability in a role at a major music festival this summer!

In 2013, we gave over 750 students and alumni unique placements at music festivals, sporting spectacles and arts events.

This year we are providing festival volunteers and interns in a variety of roles at Hove (Norway), Latitude (Suffolk), Leeds and Reading Festival.

Roles include:

·         HATs Team Manager

·         Media and PR officer

·         Press Tent Office,

·         Assistant Production Manager (4 weeks including festival),

·         BBC Introducing Stage Manager,

·         Security Crime Mapping Intern

And many more…

For more information, roles and to apply (before April 11), please visit;

www.leedsmet.ac.uk/partnershipvolunteering

An audience with Erik Kessels - Creative Communications Director, Thursday 27^th March 2014

Leeds College of Art would like to invite you to the next Creative Networks event, ‘Strong Ideas allow you to Blur’ with Erik Kessels.

Kessels is a world-renowned Graphic Designer, Advertiser, Photographer, Curator and Artist and in 2012 he was elected as the most influential creative of the Netherlands.

Erik is Creative Director of communications agency KesselsKramer and works for national and international clients – such as Diesel, Heineken, Oxfam, Nike, The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel, J&B and has offices in Amsterdam, London and LA. KesselsKramer is one of only a handful of advertising agencies producing work that rises above the level of consumerist background noise, often witty almost anti-advertising.

Join from 6pm at Blenheim Walk on Thursday, March 27^th, 2014 for drinks - prior to the talk there will be a range of goods on sale from local independent art and design bookstores Colours May Vary and the Village Bookstore.

Booking is essential as places are limited so please click on the Eventbrite link www.erikkesselsindustry.eventbrite.co.uk and follow the instructions as soon as possible to reserve your seat. There is a £5 refundable deposit required to confirm your place but this will be refunded the day after the event once attendance has been noted.

Book Review: How To Get A Job In PR

How to Get a Job in PR

Sarah Stimson

CreateSpace, 2013, 216 pages

How do you really get a job in PR? Academics, practitioners and students all have different perspectives, and there is no right answer. We spend three-four years at University, gaining invaluable experience in essay writing; presenting; working in teams and – for us studying at Leeds Business School – a healthy portfolio at the end of it.

Five Mistakes Made by PR Students Past and Present

We’re all human; mistakes are inevitable within every walk of life. Being a second year public relations student I’ve certainly made and witnessed a few! Here are my five mistakes made my PR students past and present...

Changes to the PR Industry #PRAnalytics

PR Moment’s annual #PRAnalytics conference took place last week at Ketchum’s London office in front of a packed audience.

Chaired by the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication’s (AMEC) Executive Director, Barry Leggetter, the event’s speaker line-up consisted of eight of the most influential opinion leaders on the PR industry’s Achilles’ heel – measurement and evaluation.

Meaningful objective setting is key

The importance of SMART (smart, measurable, aligned, realistic and timely) objective setting was the order of the day, with every speaker reinforcing the view that the use of analytics should demonstrate how PR activities are helping to achieve broader organisational objectives.

Updates from Lucy Week Commencing 2/3/14

Survey Season: 

Please don’t forget to complete the National Student Survey (Final year students!) and the Student Survey (first and second year students)... Link here!

It’s really important that you give us feedback – both the good and the constructive!!  Final year students will begin to receive calls from IPSOS Mori for failure to complete so please don’t wait to get hassling calls – click on the link above and log in to the student portal.

Volunteering: 

A huge charity event will take place on Saturday 8th of March at the John Charles Centre for Sport, LS11 5DJ, and it is going to be an official Guinness World Records attempt.

Become a volunteer and make your CV look better. Just send an email to powerleeds@gmail.com or info@pillowfighting.co.uk 

The title of the event is "Pillow Fighting for a Good Cause" and you can find more information about it through the links below:

Website: www.pillowfighting.co.uk 

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/poWEr.Official.Page 

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/296577230489761/ 

The aim is over 5000 participants and everyone will receive a certificate of attendance and for breaking the record! All participants should bring their own pillows. There will be music bands, competitions and awards!

A lot of celebrities are already supporting the event, like Jeremy Clarkson and James May, and local sports clubs!

Registration:  www.pillowfighting.co.uk 

Placements: 

John Lewis short term placements: anyone interested should contact ali_laurie@johnlewis.co.uk with the usual cover letter / CV. 

Calling all first years: Student Wire is seeking a new editor for next year, to take over from Hannah Palmer who is doing a fabulous job but going on placement to Porsche next year! Well done Hannah! 

Focus Groups: 

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the focus group that took place on Monday. A great deal of useful information was exchanged with some immediate actions to take forward by the course team, as well as by students.   

Business Start-Up at Leeds Met Courses:

Research and Business Planning- Wednesday 5th March 

Develop your business strengths and minimise potential weakness whilst learning how to identify your target audience and understand your customer’s needs.  

Marketing & Selling- Wednesday 12th March 

Become a marketing and selling maestro! Clout Marketing & Media will help you jump start your strategy whether you're a new business or in need of fresh ideas.

CIPR's Commitment to Better Student Relations

In response to an email sent by Lucy Laville asking: ‘How well does the CIPR engage with student members’, I replied ‘not very’ (obviously written in a more eloquent fashion, synonymous of a PR student!)  As a consequence, I was asked by Lucy to represent Leeds Met at a CIPR led student focus group.