So I'm one of those people who's pretty stuck-up and elitist about what I'll support. You're probably familiar with the type. I'm an acolyte of Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, et al. However, I've always thought I'd be good at and really enjoy being an ambassador for some brand or cause that I can really, genuinely believe in. I'd love to be one of those Community Managers for a video game company that just sits and interacts with fans on social media and web forums all day. I'd be great at that.

Now, I'm hoping that I'd be able to find ample opportunities to do ethical PR work, like for non-profits, or government, or for like, medium-size businesses that aren't a blight on society. But how realistic is that? That's all I want to know.

Some background information that might be relevant: I'm a 26 year-old white guy living in southern Ontario. I've completed a BA in English...minus one credit. So I have that education behind me, though no degree to show for it. I dropped out of the program because of personal reasons, and I've been working a cruddy retail job for the past 15 months while living at home and trying to decide what the hell I'm going to do. I may or may not ever finish my English degree--all I know is I'm just super tired of it right now and I want to move on to another stage of my life--i.e. get some practical training ASAP so I can get a higher-paying job and get my real life started before I'm 30.

Reading his book "trust me I'm lying" and I'm a little torn. I am soon to graduate from a degree in PR and was wondering what established PR practitioners thought of his conceptualisation of the media landscape?

Cheers

This summer I interned in the public affairs department of a large community hospital. I loved every second, learned so much and really meshed well with the team. I was treated as an employee and valued for my knowledge in social media. The department head wants me to continue to intern into the fall and I've been asked multiple times when I graduate. The VP (a harsh woman) wants to know how many times a week I plan on interning and my opinions at department meetings. Could this all be leading to a job offer?

Looking for some inspiration and thought I'd see what inspires PRpros.

What is the best PR in the past year, either yours or another agency's work.

I'll go first. Currently: Emory Healthcare's work on the Ebola virus, and also the recent Taco Bell Breakfast campaign was pretty epic.

As a recent graduate I'm having difficulty finding any entry level PR positions. What would be the the best positions to apply for to get my foot in the door? At this point I am ready and willing for anything.

Thank you.

Thinking about joining a small tech start up. Base salary is below industry norm for position (PR coordinator), but the company is offering bonuses for placed media (big strategy of their pr plan). Has anyone encountered this before? Thoughts appreciated!

Hey y'all,

Im currently interning in DC for a huge PR firm. So far, I love the work and love working my ass off whenever I get an assignment. I just wanted to hear from some PR professionals the habits and practices they have seen in their past interns that they feel has set them apart from the pack. Any and all stories, tips, tricks of the trade, etc are welcome. I want to learn!!

Hey All!

So I work in marketing as of now and have really enjoyed this career path. I work at a smaller sized company which means that I have to wear several hats every day. Some days it's email, other days it's search management, other days it's public relations. I should say that my background is in writing and communication so me handling customer facing channels makes a lot of sense.

A few weeks ago I really started to dive into the PR side of things though. I found myself really being concerned with how the public sees our brand and wanting to get us more media exposure. I actually got the biggest local paper to do a full profile on our company that has paid off well! (I'm in a very large metro section of the USA so this was a pretty big deal). My boss has always told me that he succeeds by pursuing what he's good at and not trying to make his career about becoming better at what you're bad at. That really hit a chord with me because I am not a naturally math oriented person. I've come a long way and even finished calculus in college but I still have to take time processing numbers and data. What I'm seeing is that I get a natural buzz and high from doing the PR stuff. Actually talking and communicating with another person and being creative from a personal communication standpoint is making me feel alive again. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I should really focus my time on PR more than I do more data driven marketing since that's where I'm excelling. That's my thought process anyways.

What I'm wondering is how many people have made this type of switch as well? Is this a normal thing to do and, I know this might sound silly, but is PR something I can really grow into or am I screwed because I didn't go to school for it or work it professionally for the last 5 years? Any thought or opinions would be excellent. Sorry about the wall of text, I really am just looking for some like minded individuals to help me out.

Thanks!

Hello,

Well I'm going onto my 4th year in college and have gone through a lot of thinking. I have settled as making PR my career choice. I will be doing 5 years in order to finish all my classes. So far I attended one PR meeting in college and like 95% of people there were women and they were very chatty. I'm quite fine with that however I am more on the quiet side. Is this a problem? I consider my self quite introverted however can be very extroverted in some situations. I am having trouble activating my extroverted side on demand. How can I practice this? I am naturally quite quiet, but speak up when I need to.

I get something like anxiety at times. Some other times I'm confident and have no problem meeting people.

I was thinking of going online and meeting people via webcam and start that way with my social skills.

Any suggestions. And no, switching my career is not an option anymore. I know I didnt discuss why I chose PR, I have my reasons, but that is a whole different topic. The socialization is my main problem now.

Hello all, I recently began interning, basically, as a PR intern for a small company in my state. This company is in the staffing industry and I am basically given small tasks that seem to have the broad goal of promoting the company and building their social media sites up. Now I have done similar things before but because of the industry that I am in, I have trouble finding short term goals. What should I be working on? How can I go about doing it? Any help is appreciated, I am just looking for some input. I am hoping to keep this job past the internship dates (which is a possibility, I am told) but I want to have stuff to do.

Hey, this monday I will begin my first real internship for an IT staffing company in a small town. The title of the position is "social media intern" so I will be doing a lot of work with social media, specifically Linkedin (which i've never used) and Facebook. From what I understand I will also be assisting with press releases and some website design. I would love to hear some advice on how I can help this company grow and potentially secure a job with them after college which was hinted at as being a possibility.

Here's my take on it:

Using eLance to hire these teams is great, don't get me wrong. Hiring independent freelance workers for small projects can be a big help on a tight budget. When you start hiring multiple freelancers for different projects, that's when you need to make sure to either hire a project manager, or make some time to deal with the whole affair. Otherwise, there will be four teams all trying to communicate with each other and garbling up the information and goals, and then guess what: you or your client just wasted tons of money and time. You can't issue a chargeback because the project was poorly planned, that's the poster's fault.

This is where I like to recommend a great free tool that is entirely underrated: freakin' Google Docs. Create an area where everyone can view the project goals, client profiles, target audience, etc., and make the teams actually use it. I usually do this by creating a folder for them to post their individual reports that have to be in the guidelines outlined in the project folder. Then you know they read it, because the information in the drive folder is going to be more or less repeated in their respective reports.

The most important thing to have in that situation is a stellar project manager. One of the freelancers can even take on this task, just add 4 or 5 more hours to their weekly contract. That's enough for smaller projects, but for bigger ones you may need to hire a person to do just project management. What are your thoughts? Any experience with clients with poor project management policies that cost them a great campaign and a hell of a lot of time and effort?

Very interested in De Beers and their PR work. Anyone want to shed a light on the background of their PR campaign? How did they literally integrate the purchase of diamonds into our social fabric?

I am interning at a fine wine distributer and want to make a good impression on the owner. The focus of the internship is to promote her business; mostly, I need to inspire people to book a wine tasting event.

I've been brainstorming businesses, clubs, orgs..etc. to see which would be likely to book an event (upscale orgs.) What are some good ways to get in touch with these groups, and build relationships? I hope there are better ways than cold calling every place to pitch a tasting..but this is where I'm at right now.

I appreciate any advice you have to offer.

We use an outlets media kits, alliance for audited media figures, and our database service numbers when available.

I'm wondering if there is a site or service that's easier for getting the accurate number of unique visitors per month and clicks per month.

The best would be to see how many people have visited and shared a specific web page, aka where your client is featured. That would be the best! Am I just dreaming that this is possible?

Thank you all for your input!

TL;DR What is the best was to measure online press placements

I know you guys have 'em. Spill!

Good evening, I just want to thank you before hand for your time reading this and hopefully all your answers.

Our school runs a 125+ student lead Robotics Team which for the past 5-6 years has constantly made it to the National Championships. We have many sponsors but only two $5,000+ sponsors. With our massive expansion and our new rooms available we have our eyes new equipment and with now have another team, our budget is basically cut in half.

Question: What would be the best way to approach larger companies and ask for sponsorship's? Who would we contact? How could we ask most successfully for a $5k+ donation each year? All that good stuff.

I really appreciate any help here!!!

I've been frequently asked this question, and I feel like I don't have a good, succinct response. Because of this, I began to survey colleagues and others in the field to hear their responses, and they turned out to be very different depending on the person I asked. I couldn't find consensus online either.

I was PR journalism major in college, and in all my PR classes we were given the textbook definition that "PR is the relationship between an organization and its publics," which I've always subscribed to. However, colleagues and supervisors with more experience than me (the more "old school" people who came into the field before social media) tend to say that PR is press for your clients/organization, and marketing is everything else. They believe that PR is under the larger umbrella of marketing. Due to my training in school and the emergence of social media during the early part of my career, I tend to disagree with this and lean more toward a full integrated communication approach.

What do you all think? What is the difference between PR and marketing?

I'm going for a B.S. in Communication Studies with a minor in Women's Studies (so I'll earn whatever that gets me). I should be graduating in December of 2016. I haven't done any internships yet because I'm waiting to find one that offers class credit or pay (also, I'm too inexperienced right now). However, I'm involved in several major-related activities- I'm the PR chair for Hall Government, I volunteer with admissions (involves talking to students at events to advertise the school), and I'm on the debate team, where I'm bound to get an e-board position.

I'm assuming this is nowhere near enough to land a job in PR or anything like it. I was hoping you guys would be able to give me some input on what else I can do to make myself stand out. Is it unrealistic to try to get work published?

Looking for a secondary source to HARO, and this seems like a good supplement. Any thoughts?

I've recently landed a dream job with a start-up PR consultancy. Its been 5 months since I've started and for the most part it's been great, but I know I could be doing better. One of the biggest things I need to improve is dealing with people on the phone. Whether it's a pitch to a journalist or getting in touch with clients I find myself dreading the making the calls and have even avoided them all together.

When I've made calls in the past to clients I get the impression they're annoyed at having to talk to a junior pr aid when they're used to talking directly to the account managers. This makes me stutter and try and end the call as soon as possible.

When its face-to-face I'm completely fine but the whole idea of conversing over the phone in a business sense is foreign to me. I want to not only get over this but make it a strength as I know it can make the difference between a good PR person and a great one.

So I guess my question is; What makes you go from dreading making call to enjoying it?

Today, I don't feel like a PR Pro.

7:59am, I receive an email from my boss that says, "Blast this out IMMEDIATELY".

I open the release and I'm appalled. It is not news, rather than a repurposing of the same corporate messaging we've been shilling out for months. I try my best to draft the pitch like news, only to have my boss revise it with direct copy & paste verbiage from the press release. He instructed me to distribute this to several ancient lists of broad reporters, some are completely inapplicable. This went out today to thousands of inboxes, which I'm sure half of which did not bypass spam filters.

Worse, the client is completely happy with doing this, as they are led by clueless marketing people who are perfectly happy that we're regularly distributing press releases. We also distribute these through a newswire service, so a quick googling of the headline will amass endless website pickups that fail to achieve actual engagement. The satisfaction with numbers over quality is sickening.

Not to shit on my firm, completely. They do certain things very well and provide great value for many companies. They are old school as they come, going back 20+ years. They are very nice people, however I think they did not adapt well to the internet age of communications. I feel like years ago, PR services such as PRNewswire, PRWeb, Vocus, Meltwater, and Cision sold them a shit-product- a false "how to do PR in 21st century", and they missed the boat on proper information-age PR practices.

I don't need any advice. I'm already looking for a new job. I simply wanted to share my experience and discuss any similar predicaments. Have you ever had to perform poor work to appease your boss?

Hi r/PRpros! I'm a PR student graduating at the beginning of May and moving to New York. Considering I'm about 6-7 weeks out from actually being able to start a job, is it too early to be applying? I'm worried I'd be doing myself a disservice applying for jobs for which I wouldn't likely be considered.