Communicating Abroad

The summer is officially in swing, vacations have been planned, study abroad semesters have started, and you might soon find yourself in international waters. Though time abroad should be spent enjoying and embedding oneself in a new culture, it is also a great opportunity to network with people who work in different cultural environments who can give you tips and tokens of information you won't learn anywhere else. The only obstacle, not everyone you meet will know English well or even at all, so here are some useful tips on how to overcome language barriers when networking and communicating:

Slow and Clear Wins the Race

Make sure that you are speaking slowly and clearly so that the other person can better understand you. By enunciating your words and slowing down to ensure that the other person understands, you can avoid miscommunication and lack of understanding.

Patience is a Virtue

Communicating between languages can take time. Part of being patient can mean checking that the other person understands what you are saying, and making sure to clarify if they are not. Though it might get frustrating at times, recognize that it may be frustrating for both parties involved. The outcome of being patient and finally being able to accurately communicate can be gratifying! 

Avoid Jargon and Idioms

Stick with the basics when communicating through language barriers. The more complicated the vocabulary you use, the more difficult it might be for someone else to understand you. Remember that jargon can also get easily misinterpreted and can cause unfortunate, though sometimes humorous misinterpretations.

And lastly, as always, be enthusiastic. Being able to spend time abroad is an indispensable experience. If you make the most of it and show that you are excited to be interacting with others, it can make communicating easier and will make others more inclined to communicate back. Buena suerte!

How To Keep Your Summer Job Relevant

As PR students, the reality of summer is that whether you have a summer internship or not, you most likely have a summer job to supplement your unpaid internship or to keep yourself busy. Though you might think your summer job is unrelated to your PR education, here are some ways to keep your summer job relevant:

1. Be familiar with the product you are selling

Whether you’re working in retail or at a restaurant, its important to know the product you are selling. Just like with public relations, you have to know what you are endorsing before you do so. Customers will be able to tell if you don’t know your product, and better yet, they will appreciate it that much more when they know that you do. 

2. Practice exceptional customer service

No matter what your summer job may be, chances are you’ll have some sort of customer interaction. It’s a given that public relations is all about communicating, so practice the skills you’ve learning about communicating with publics and public speaking when dealing with customers. Not only will it give you practice, but it will also make you a valuable asset to your job. 

3. Try your hardest

If it seems like it might be stretching it to say that your summer job is relevant to your PR studies, that’s okay. Trying your hardest and having integrity at any job you do will make you a better employee as well as a better job candidate in the future. Even if your job is unrelated PR, a good personal recommendation from any boss is always valuable and important. 

Do you have a summer job and want to share how you keep it relevant? Let us know!

By Rute Barkai

Interning At Events

As most of us know, being an intern in the Public Relations field can be hard. We don’t normally get paid, we often have tedious tasks to complete and juggling school with an internship can sometimes feel impossible. But there’s a reason we still do it, the experiences and opportunities internships open for us are second to none. As an intern at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I find myself experiencing new things and learning every day. Most recently, I was invited to help the Communications Department of the museum at a Press Advance Luncheon in New York City. At this particular press advance, the CEO of the museum as well as the curators of the upcoming exhibitions spoke to press about what they were working on for the upcoming year. Meant to connect New York journalists with PMA curators so that their exhibitions can be covered, it is one of the most important events the Communications Department produces. Here are some of the most important things I learned helping out as an intern for this event:

Connect

When working a press event, it’s easy to get caught up in the logistics. Whether it’s fixing the seating chart, making sure you have enough press packets or worrying about being on schedule, it’s easy to get caught up in the planning when you should really be worrying about the most important people there…the press. When working with the press, it’s your job to take the time to get to know them. The more you know about who they are or what kind of stories they write, the easier it will be for you to find leads and make the connections between the press and in this case, the appropriate curators to speak with.

Be Proactive

As an intern, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by an event and hide in the shadows of the chaos. But think of it this way, there is a reason that they want you there. Even if you are just an intern, you are a vital part of making sure the event runs smoothly. Be proactive and always ask if you can do more to help out. Whether its directing people from one room to another, chasing press to make sure they received press materials or just being an extra helping hand, you can always be of help.

Reflect

At the end of every event, it’s important to reflect back on how the event went so that you can better it for next time. Sitting down with all people involved and breaking down what went well and what can be improved on will help you find the strengths and weaknesses amongst your team, and will help you to start planning for the next event. Sitting down and reflecting allows you to be realistic about what you deliver with the resources you have, and makes for better events in the future.

Is there an event you’ve worked as an intern that you were able to learn from? Let us know! 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl staff member Rute Barkai.

3 of the Best PR Moments of 2014

With 2014 behind us and 2015 officially in gear, it’s important to reflect on some of the most important moments of 2014. Every year, it seems as though there is a new batch of PR crises, scandals and campaigns that through reflection, can teach us as PR professionals for the future. Here is a batch of some of the best PR stories of 2014:

Ice Bucket Challenge

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge took the world by storm this summer. The Internet exploded with videos of people from all around the world dumping buckets of ice on their heads in order to raise awareness for the ALS Association. Each person who participated in the challenge was asked to nominate three people to pass the challenge on to creating a viral phenomenon. Helping to raise millions of dollars for the ALS Association, the Ice Bucket Challenge succeeded in creating a campaign that individuals were excited to participate in.

CVS Caremark

CVS Caremark’s public announcement that it was going to stop selling tobacco products is an example of how brands can use campaigns and communications to build awareness of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts. Not only did this further brand them as a business that has a higher regard for the nation’s health, but it also teaches other organizations and brands that taking a chance and making a bold choice such as this one can really pay off if followed by positive action.

The NBA

While other leagues such as the NFL seemed to be stuck in a crisis communications loop, the NBA and new commissioner Adam Shiner were able to act effectively on the Donald Sterling racism crisis that happened in the midst of the 2014 playoffs. Now ex Los Angles Clippers owner Sterling was caught making racist remarks during a private phone conversation. Silver took swift action and banned Sterling from the NBA for life, fined him $2.5 million and persuaded the other owners to force him to sell the club, which he ultimately did. By taking hard and fast action, Silver demonstrated how to not let a PR crisis get out of control. 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl staff member Rute Barkai. 

Lasting Lessons From A Part-Time Job

As college students trying to make ends meet, summers are often filled with summer jobs rather than beaches and sun. This summer, I worked at a restaurant that I initially attained to make some money on top of an unpaid internship, however, it supplemented my knowledge of PR in a way that I never thought it would. Nestled in an up and coming neighborhood in South Philadelphia, I was able to watch the restaurant grow and gain popularity before my eyes. Though you might not be planning on owning a restaurant one day, here are some of the things I learned that I believe are important to any industry or brand:

Building Networks

As a two-year-old restaurant, it was very important for the manager and executive chef of the restaurant to build lasting relationships with other people in the restaurant industry. With any new company, building these relationships is vital, because not only does it help you learn and grow, but it also helps build support and connections for further growth in the future.

Social Media

Though the restaurant hired a PR agency to handle most of their traditional PR, the restaurants General Manager decided it would be best if she took on social media. By doing so, she was able to give the restaurant a neighborly voice and interact with customers on a more personal level. Making sure your social media channels have a voice that your followers not only enjoy, but also trust in believe is can enhance and retain your social media presence.

Every Customer is Important

With social media constantly transforming, Yelp has become on of the most feared public forums for restaurant owners but one of the most loved for their customers. Customers trust other customers, so by being genuine and attentive to every customer, Yelp can turn more into an asset rather than a horror. 

What part time jobs do you do in your very little spare time?  Let us know in the comments! 

This guest blog was written by PRowl staff member Rute Barkai.

Lessons In Event Planning

If you search “Event Planning” in Google, you get flooded with links to hundreds of party planners and extravagant wedding photos. For the past year, I was given the opportunity to intern as a Public Relations intern for an office that puts on some of Philadelphia’s largest events, none of which entailed a wedding or your typical club-party. From Marathons to Mayor’s ceremonies to the largest free concert in America, I had the opportunity to work on a variety of events that taught me so much more about event planning than I could ever learn in a Google search. Here are just some of the things I learned:

Stay Calm Under Pressure

As much as you wish they would, the reality of events is that they never go on without at least one unanticipated bump in the road. Whether that means having to come up with an alternative solution, being thrown into a task you did not anticipate having to do or feeling completely lost, I have learned that the best thing to do is to stay calm. Staying calm helps others around you stay calm too, it makes it easier for you to come up with solutions and it shows that you can handle just about anything that gets asked of you.

Stay Organized

More often than not, an event won’t be taking place right next door to your office, meaning that running back to get something you forgot is not always an option. By staying organized, not only can you ensure that you have everything that you need, but it also makes things easier to find when you’re in the heat of the moment while working the event itself.

Be Prepared To Work Long Hours

Working in events for the first time, I never anticipated just how much work and just how many hours go into planning for and working an event. Whether it is pre-event planning in the office or early call-times, be prepared to devote a lot of time to an event. The plus side is, that though you may be working long and strenuous hours, there is no better feeling than watching your event come alive before your eyes and waking up the next morning (after your first full night of sleep in a while) and feeling extremely accomplished.

Keep these tips in mind, and you'll be on your way to event planning success! 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl staff member Rute Barkai. 

#SocialMediaCampaignsGoneWrong

 As public relations students and practitioners, we all love a good hashtag or social media campaign. Often, hashtags and campaigns can enhance your voice on twitter, broaden your outreach and begin a discourse with your followers. All of which is great, but when you are a big corporation or a largely followed twitter account, you have to remember that your followers have as big of a voice as you do. Forget this component, and you’ve got a social media campaign gone wrong on your hands.

Here are a few examples:

#MyNYPD

#MyNYPD was a twitter campaign run by the New York Police Department that asked Twitter users to post a photo of themselves with police officers using the hashtag #MyNYPD. Expecting positive responses, this campaign went horribly wrong when people began using this hashtag to send in pictures of police brutality and other negative responses.

#AskJPM

When JP Morgan asked twitter users to participate in a question-and-answer session with one of its executives using the hashtag #AskJPM, it seems as though they forgot to think about the level of distrust and anger people have over the role of big banks in the financial crisis. 7 hours later, JP Morgan canceled the campaign after questions like, “Did you have a specific number of people’s lives you needed to ruin before you considered your business model a success?”

#McDStories

Back in 2012, a McDonald’s campaign backfired when the company used the hashtag #McDStories to geet their followers to draw attention to the brand’s use of fresh produce. Extremely vague, the hashtag brought back results of McDonald’s horror stories. McDonald’s quickly pulled the hashtag after being active for less than 2 hours.

The lesson to be learned from these social media campaigns gone wrong is to realize that social media makes it impossible to control where a conversation or a campaign will go. Before initiating a campaign, it is vital to go into pre-Crisis Communications mode and create a contingency plan just in case your campaign goes wrong; realize that some negative comments will arise and consider sticking to traditional uses of social media if your company or organization does not fit the potential for a positive campaign.

Source: #MyNYPD: Why It's Impossible to Control Online Conversation

This guest blog was written by PRowl staff member Rute Barkai.

Don't Get Lost in the Shuffle

Have a pitch or a press release but don’t know who to reach out to or how to make sure it gets covered? Though we often know what to pitch, we are left with this lingering question. Faced with this problem myself, I created my own list of tips based on an article by PR Daily. Follow these tips to make sure your pitch doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

Bright and Early: Between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. is the best time to send pitches to journalists. Not only will yours most likely be one of the first emails they see when they open their inbox in the morning, but it will also ensure that their newspaper or air-time spots won’t be filled by the time they read your pitch. Sending pitches in the morning also allows for your press release or pitch to be discussed at morning editorial meetings, increasing your chance of getting covered sooner rather than later.

Tuesday is the New Monday: If you send a pitch email on a Monday morning, chances are it will get lost in the shuffle of weekend emails. What isn’t breaking news, most journalists will leave in their inbox until Monday morning. By waiting until Tuesday, your pitch has a greater chance of being read and getting covered.

Build Mutually Beneficial Relationships: Build relationships with the people you are pitching to. If you have a pitch that is either time-sensitive or not as news-worthy, these reporters that you have either helped in the past or befriended are more likely to cover your story. If you’re pitching to one reporter frequently, you can also ask them when they personally prefer receiving pitches.

Cover All of Your Bases: It never hurts to pitch to more than one contact. By sending your pitches and press releases to both reporters and the news desk, if the reporter is busy covering another story, the editor might assign your story to another reporter who isn’t!

Do you have any of your own tips about when and how you think is best to pitch to journalists? Let us know! 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Staff Member Rute Barkai

Instagram Direct: What Does It Mean for PR?

Whether you like it or not, social media is one of the fastest growing platforms for public relations students and professionals alike. With a community of over 150 million users from around the globe, Instagram is one of those social media platforms that has grown to monumental heights over the past three years. Instagram can be great for PR students and professionals because it allows them reach out to an audience creatively through picture and video sharing. However, avid Instagram users have most likely noticed the small change on the top-right side of their Instagram screen.

Recently, Instagram introduced a new feature: Instagram Direct. Instagram Direct allows you to send a picture or video to up to 15 Instagram users simultaneously. Within this direct message users can track who has seen the message, start a conversation, and like the photo or video. But what is the use of this feature for PR professionals?

Instagram Direct may not be great for getting your message out to a large audience, but it will show your followers that you care. If there is something that you feel as though may be more relevant to a smaller group of people, this feature allows you to send that image or video to a smaller number of avid or important followers, and allows for marketing strategies such as contests or prizes that become exclusive to certain followers. 

Another approach to Instagram Direct is to use the feature to pitch to journalists and bloggers. Though it may be difficult to pitch with the brevity of just a photo or a 15 second video, if done right, you can really be able to pitch a great product or story to these users.

Though Instagram has a very “user-first” mentality, PR students and professionals can use this to their advantage. By connecting to more personally to certain followers, and pitching to journalists and bloggers, Instagram Direct can open a brand new portal of opportunity.

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Staff Member Rute Barkai.