Congratulations on the job… But seriously… What do you do?

This was originally posted on my personal blog 95toThe5.com, but I thought it would be interesting to the readers of this blog as well. Read the entire post here.

In my last post, I attempted to explain the public relations profession in a little more detail since everyone that I know always asks me what it is that I do for a living (except for the people who studied or currently work in public relations, of course.)

Since this blog is supposed to give you a little glimpse of my life here in California, I thought it would be great to give you specific examples of what I’ve been doing for the past month at my job. Like most Americans, I spend the majority of my life at my job, so this is a great way to give you some insight into my daily life. I currently work as an account coordinator at a public relations agency. You may be more familiar with the term “publicist,” but PR practitioner, publicist, account coordinator/account executive, media relations coordinator, public relations manager, etc., are all pretty much synonymous. We all are PR people.

Matt likes to tell people that I do for my clients what Kris Jenner does for the Kardashian sisters, which is a semi-accurate example, and a concept that may help the average person to understand what PR is. Kris Jenner is also a manager for all of her children, so her work is a little more involved than what most PR people do. But the aspects of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” that involve Kris communicating with people at magazines, newspapers, television, etc., to coordinate interviews, feature stories, photo shoots, etc., for her children, and the episodes when Kris goes into crisis mode when Khloe was in jail, when Kim had her public divorce, etc., are all good examples of things that PR people may do. It is actually because of Kris Jenner’s hard work as a publicist that this family has become so well-known, despite many of the scandals that this family has been associated with. Kris has the ability to get this family seen everywhere, and she can quickly divert negative attention away or spin things into something positive. Of course, now it is much easier than before, but she definitely played a major role in shooting this family into stardom. If you recall during the first season, this family was not really well known, so Kris worked hard during those years to make a name for them. That is exactly what publicists try to do for their clients everyday.

While as I discussed before, there is no “typical” day in the life of a PR practitioner, some of the things that I have done in the past month of working at a PR agency include…

Read more of “Congratulations on the job… But seriously… What do you do?” on my personal blog 95toThe5.com.

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Who Came Out On Top of the #BrandBowl 2012?

Check it out now: Who Came Out On Top of the #BrandBowl 2012 and stay posted to the Ideal Publicity Blog to discover a day in the lives of a young, savvy, innovative PR agency.

Written for Ideal Publicity, Who Came Out On Top of the #BrandBowl 2012.

“Since the 1970s, high profile commercials have been affiliated with the Super Bowl. The live broadcast reaches more than 90 million viewers worldwide. With a hefty price tag attached, this is an important time for PR and advertising professionals to reach large audiences for their clients. This year, NBC charged an average of $3.5 million for each 30 second spot. So which companies will benefit the most from their multimillion dollar investments?

Many different research companies and news outlets do their own tracking of consumer responses of the Super Bowl ads, but one of the most popular recent tracking systems has been the #BrandBowl on Twitter. In its fourth year, Mullen, Radian6, and The Boston Globe partnered to coordinate and analyze consumer tweets under the hashtag #BrandBowl during Super Bowl XLVI. With their intricate system in place, they ranked the top brands that consumers were positively tweeting about.

A few of the commercials we enjoyed were: Chevrolet (Chevy Sonic skydiving), M&Ms (“naked” dancing M&Ms), and Doritos (sling-shot baby). We enjoyed these for their creativity, ability to evoke a positive consumer response, and entertainment appeal.

Here are how our favorites were ranked immediately after the Super Bowl: Chevrolet was ranked at #5, M&Ms at #6, and Doritos at #2. What were your favorite brands and do you agree with their ranks in this year’s #BrandBowl? Check out the results at www.brandbowl2012.com.”

Check it out now: Who Came Out On Top of the #BrandBowl 2012 and stay posted to the Ideal Publicity Blog to discover a day in the lives of a young, savvy, innovative PR agency.

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What is PR?

If you are a PR student or professional, one or both scenarios might be all too familiar:

Scenario #1
Person: “So what are you going to school for?”
You: “Public relations.”
Person: “Okay,” laughs, “…And what are you going to do with that?”

Scenario #2
Person: “So what do you do for a living?”
You: “Public Relations.”
Person: “Oh okay, so you plan events and stuff? You go on TV? It’s basically glorified customer service, right?”

With PR professionals being portrayed by characters like Samantha Jones from Sex and the City and television shows attempting to show the ins and outs of the industry like SPINdustry and Spin Crowd, it is evident why the general public has the wrong view of what public relations actually is. People think it is about planning events, being on television, and being a socialite. It really irks me when people laugh and question what kind of living one can make out of PR or when they try to define PR to me when they have no idea.

Interestingly enough, I chose the field of PR by mistake, but it happened to work out for me.

I initially wanted to go into broadcast journalism, but I wanted a more stable career path to success. My father suggested I look into PR. He said something along the lines of, “Well, we have a PR person at my job, and pretty much all they do is go on TV and act as a spokesperson for the company. So it’s the same thing [as broadcast journalism], but at least you’ll be working for a company, so you don’t have to move around a lot with different TV networks.”

Now, I realize that being on TV has little or nothing to do with the job of most PR professionals. In smaller companies, it may be the case that there are only a few members of a PR department (or possibly even one person that encompasses all that is PR for the company), and thus the person writing the script may also be the one on-camera. However, the majority of PR jobs have little to do with being the on TV.

To be successful in PR, a person must be a great writer. Writing is much of what PR entails – from writing copy for brochures, websites, social media, TV and radio spots, and press releases to writing pitch letters to potential clients; ghostwriting speeches, op-eds, letters to shareholders from corporate executives; and employee newsletters. Everything that a PR professional does involves writing. In fact, a textbook definition of PR may define it as conveying cohesive and concise messages from organizations to their publics. How do we usually communicate these messages? Through writing. And who are these publics? The organization’s publics are both internal and external. Its internal publics may be executive management, employees, and shareholders. Its external publics may be its target audiences, consumers, communities, and the general public can be just a few of an organization’s publics.

I am lucky because I fell into this field, and I happen to love writing. It worked out for me, but if you think PR is all about the glamour and glitz of planning events, being on TV, and mingling with socialites, you may want to pick another career choice.

If you are a PR student or professional, what would you define PR as?

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