Elizabeth Christian & Associates Public Relations Blog

Anyone there? Let me in!

You’ve decided you want a career in public relations, so now what? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of qualified applicants will exceed the amount of openings for entry-level PR positions. Translation: tough competition.

As a young PR professional, I constantly get asked by current college students and recent graduates for tips on how to land a gig in this sought-after industry. Listed below are some tidbits on how to transform your “go get ‘em” attitude into a career.

Work—Experience, experience, experience. Nowadays, one internship alone isn’t enough to get you through the door. Start getting experience early to help lengthen your resume and beat your competition.

Join organizations that you are passionate about and volunteer for opportunities that will help build your portfolio.  Volunteer to write a newsletter, start a blog, help plan an event or organize a fundraiser. Did you land your dream internship? Great! Now get another one. Experience is vital in getting your foot in the door.

Network—Join the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) and other student organizations that will help you network with professionals. They often have great meetings providing insight on the many aspects of the industry and present opportunities to meet executives. Introduce yourself to PR pros, make an impression, get their contact information and follow up. You never know if they’ll have an opportunity perfect for you right around the corner.

Prepare—Keep your resume updated, in sparkling shape and available at the blink of an eye. Utilize online resources and make an appointment with your college’s career center for advice and to help polish your resume.

Print out business cards with your contact information and college major to have on hand. You can make your business cards at home or use an online service. Business cards not only show that you are prepared and eager, but that you are polished as well.

Attack—Now it’s time to take action with your experience, network you’ve built of PR professionals, polished resume and snazzy business cards.

Research PR agencies and other companies of interest, and start making phone calls. No positions currently available at a company you’re interested in for employment? Plan an informational interview to introduce yourself and learn more about their work. Continue to keep in touch because you never know when a position might become available.

Use the network you’ve worked hard to build and send notes asking for advice over lunch or coffee. Executives are always willing to help out those who are eager, passionate and driven.

Most important advice of all—keep knocking! You never know when the right door will open.

- Erika Gonzalez

Give your fingers a rest and pick up the phone!

“Well, I sent an e-mail” may not get you as far in the ever-evolving world we live in today. Did you know that the average number of corporate e-mails sent and received per person per day is nearly 200? As you can imagine, reporters receive many, many times that number on a daily basis. A colleague once said, “If you want to be in the Wall Street Journal, you have to call the Wall Street Journal.”

While emailing, texting, tweeting, using Facebook, etc. (the list goes on…), is very effective and sometimes the most efficient way to contact someone, there is something to be said for audible communication. Whether in your personal or professional life, you can develop a relationship more quickly, and can catch the tones and other subtleties with a good old-fashioned phone call.

Consider the following:

Do they know you?—A phone call can go a long way in establishing trust, rapport and just a basic connection. Once you have established that relationship, when you do send an email there is a much greater chance that your email will be answered.

Sending it into cyberspace—Some of those spam and junk mail filters today liken to the strength of Fort Knox, so there is a chance that your email was never even delivered to an “inbox” in the first place. Even if it was delivered, as you can imagine, it’s one of only 1,000 emails they received that day!

Email overload—Whether communicating with the media, client or personal contact, consider that a two minute phone conversation could easily be the equivalent of 10 emails back and forth. If your conversation began with an email and has gone back and forth more than a couple of times, it’s time to pick up the phone! If it is a complicated or sensitive matter, explaining it over the phone is almost always the better option.

As PR professionals we walk a fine line between respecting a reporters contact wishes, but more often than not reporters have been very gracious and thanked me for the quick call since the email had filtered into spam, or let’s be honest, they deleted it along with the other thousand emails they received that day.

Don’t get me wrong, email definitely has its place, especially when wanting to save and document a conversation; however, next time you go to write an email consider starting off with a good old-fashion phone call.

- Meredith Michelson

Did you know? There's More to Social Media Than Facebook and Twitter!

As PR professionals, the latest topic we get asked about is how to best leverage Facebook and Twitter to spread our clients' diverse messages.

What most people don't realize is that social media doesn't begin and end with Facebook and Twitter. Social media websites are created almost daily and at a furious pace. Some of them are neat enough for you to think, "Bummer! Why didn't I think of that?" while others fill some sort of niche. A third and small set are simply cringe-inducing and we won't worry about those.

Let's take a look at some of the better ones out there and how you can use them to your advantage:

1. LinkedIn--LinkedIn is now a behemoth of a website. Recently valued at $2 billion, the professional networking site has extended beyond its days of merely serving as a place where you can re-connect with former co-workers. You can now join different groups on different subjects and answer questions. By answering questions well, people will start to notice your expertise on the subject at hand. You can also update your professional contacts about what your clients are doing. The difference between doing this here versus on Facebook is that these people may actually care, as opposed to Facebook where your status updates about your client’s recent expansion only get praise from grandma and that one creepy cousin you met at that family reunion. Companies also use LinkedIn for recruiting. For example, an upper-management employee at computer technology giant Oracle got his job thanks to LinkedIn connections.
2. Foursquare—you may have already heard about this one: get your smartphone out, open the application and see what businesses are around you. “Check-in” to where you are and let your friends know by either posting to Twitter or Facebook. Having an event? Check-in and add it to the “tips” section so people nearby find your event and venue. Some businesses are incorporating promotions for users who check-in to a place the most (called “mayors”). Starbucks now offers, with some caveats, free coffee to its “mayors”.
3. MailChimp--OK, so forgive me, MailChimp isn't exactly social networking. It's an e-newsletter software that is simple and effective. Best of all, it's FREE if your subscriber database has less than 500 subscribers. It's also been staying ahead of its competitors in terms of its abilities to integrate your e-newsletters with your social media pages. It gives you an analysis of your campaigns even at the free level, so you can track how many people opened your e-mail, how many deleted it, etc.
4. Digg.com--Social bookmarking sites such as this one and its competitors, StumbleUpon and Reddit, are a centralized place to share your favorite links with your audience. Sure, you can do that through Facebook or Twitter, but these sites also catalog them so anyone who is searching for articles on a particular subject will see your bookmarks. Link your Digg.com with your Twitter and Facebook so people will also see who you are, and perhaps follow you on Twitter and/or like you on Facebook.
5. Tumblr—How would you like it if you could read a blog and access its Twitter and Facebook pages all from one screen? Meet Tumblr, an all-in-one site where you can blog, tweet and facebook all from one page. What makes Tumblr unique is that despite its highly customizable options, it’s still simple to use.

What about you? What are some of your favorite social media websites?

Welcomes All Around

If advertising and public relations agencies are the barometers I think they are, the local economy is strengthening notably. 

Too often, in a downturn, businesses think belt-tightening is best done by cutting out the “optional” expense of marketing, so they call their ad and PR firms and shut things down. That definitely happened in 2008 and 2009, but now, all over Austin, my colleagues in the marketing world are busier than they’ve been in a while.

I’m thankful that ECPR’s longtime clients kept us busier than ever during the Great Recession, and I’m delighted that new clients have been joining our roster—five in the past eight weeks, to be specific. A big welcome to the Children’s Hospital Association of Texas, Inova Labs, Samsung Austin Semiconductor, the Texas Access to Justice Commission and Foundation, and the Texas Radiological Society.

We’re proud that we made it through 2008-2009 without layoffs, but it sure is fun to hire again. We’ve just added three strong new staffers to our team: Lindsey Elbom and Meredith Michelson as senior account executives and Erika González as an account executive. Plus, we’ve promoted Andre Lenartowicz to the new position of media coordinator.

On behalf of our entire staff, THANK YOU to all our great clients. We really appreciate your business. And welcome to the new ECPRers! It’s going to be a busy—but fun—fall.

–Elizabeth Christian

Jack Nicklaus Visits Summit Rock

 

Source: Nicklaus Design

Jack Nicklaus recently visited Skywater Over Horseshoe Bay, a luxury residential community in the Texas Hill Country, to check on the progress at Summit Rock, his newest Signature Golf Course currently under construction. Summit Rock is set to open in Spring 2011 and runs throughout the unique terrain of Skywater.

ECPR was thrilled to be part of this site check and we brought Austin American-Statesman golf writer Kevin Robbins to accompany Mr. Nicklaus as he thoroughly inspected and adjusted the design and construction of each hole.

It was a hot and dusty outing but it's safe to say that fun was had by all! Personally, I couldn't have been more excited to spend the day with golf great Jack Nicklaus!

St. David’s Medical Center Fountain Dedication

 
Pictured left to right: David Huffstutler, CEO of St. David’s Medical Center; Jon M. Foster, President and CEO of St. David’s HealthCare; Jack Brown, former chairman and current member of the St. David’s HealthCare Board of Governors; Jack Campbell, former President and CEO of St. David’s HealthCare; C.W. Hetherly, chairman of the St. David’s HealthCare Board of Governors.

We enjoy working with our clients on a number of projects and events. Last week, we helped coordinate an event that was particularly memorable.

On Monday, June 21, 2010, St. David’s HealthCare and St. David’s Foundation leadership gathered to dedicate a fountain at St. David’s Medical Center (the dedication was made possible by a donation from a former employee).

Jeanne Nagy, who served as CEO of St. David’s Medical Center from 1982 to 2007, made a donation for a fountain in the hospital’s new surgery center waiting area in honor of Jack Campbell, former President and CEO of St. David’s HealthCare and Jack Brown (of Jack Brown Cleaners), former chairman and current member of the St. David’s HealthCare Board of Governors.

During the “unveiling,” David Huffstutler, the current CEO of St. David’s Medical Center, said, “…a hospital waiting area is actually quite significant. It is our first opportunity to make a positive impression on patients and their families. Our goal is to make the waiting room a refuge—a place our patients’ families can spend their time in comfort, contemplation and companionship. There is no way around it—waiting is stressful. It’s our job to make it as easy on people as possible.”

He went on to say, “…it’s the little things, like a beautiful and soothing fountain, for example, that can make someone feel better on a tough day.”

I couldn’t agree more!

-Erin Ochoa

Tweeting at a Conference

Before Twitter took the internet by storm, we patiently waited for people to tell us about an amazing lecture they attended or about an awesome panel at a conference.

Attend any lecture or conference nowadays and I will give you a nickel for everyone that is tweeting. Three things will happen: I will be broke, you will be rich and we will both hear at least one person complain they could not tweet because AT&T's 3G network was overloaded with other iPhone users trying to do the same thing.

So, is this a good or a bad thing? It depends on who you ask. If you ask someone over the age 50, they will most likely say this is rude, and I can see why. Picture yourself in front of a room speaking to a crowd and a bunch of people have their head down. How are you to know they're tweeting about your amazingly insightful comments as opposed to having their head down because you're so boring they've given up paying attention?

On the other hand, these people may be providing a service to those could not be present. These folks can hop on Twitter and read real-time tweets about what is being said. In some cases, you can even watch the event from your computer, either live or at a later time.

Before you go tweeting at your next professional development event, however, be mindful of the lecture/presentation/panel's target audience and topic. If you're attending a lecture on revolutionary disposal methods of radioactive waste, for instance, there probably won't be many people on Twitter so you could be considered rude for engaging in social networking.

Cellular data networks have now allowed us to share information in real-time from virtually anywhere in the world so whether we like it or not, people will probably tweet at your event. If you see a head down while giving a presentation, don't worry, it will probably come back up soon!

Glass Half Empty with Oil

Let me start this blog by saying—I’m no expert on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I am continuously learning more about the problem through news stories, and have tried to follow new developments through daily news updates. 

Many people are frustrated with how BP has addressed the problem—specifically, why is it taking so long to fix it? A number of failed attempts to stop the leak have caused the public to become increasingly disappointed with the situation.

It would be easy to harp on what BP has done wrong in the public relations area—it seems I would have plenty to blog about—but allow me to take a more objective approach to this situation and examine some of the things the company has done right, along with what needs improvement.

Glass Half Full: Staying in Front of the Media
BP executives have appeared on countless news shows. Just this week, BP’s Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles appeared on three morning shows to deliver the latest update and acknowledge the public’s frustration. 

Those are things people need to see and hear—acknowledgement and humbleness. During a crisis of this kind, where a company has made a mistake and is trying to correct it, the public doesn’t want to see a talking head or be read a company statement. They want to identify the real people involved in the solution, and hear the plan directly from a decision maker’s mouth. The public wants to feel like their concerns are being heard and that the company knows there is a demand to do more.

Glass Half Empty: Transparency
Transparency is one of the hardest things to balance when you are in the middle of a crisis. In the beginning of the oil spill, more facts—and seemingly a deeper truth—spilled out as well. BP seemed to approach the problem optimistically at first, but may not have been as forthcoming to the potential dangers of what would happen if the initial plan didn’t work.

Even with the latest efforts, the company says it is 60 to 70 percent confident that the plan will contain the oil, but it’s hard not to believe the company is shooting in the dark at this point. Whether BP executives believe they are protecting the public by not creating more panic or outrage, it doesn’t do any good to not be completely forthcoming with the situation—especially in this day and age with 24-hour media and the high likelihood of the truth coming out eventually. (Just ask any number of the high-profile men who have had cheating scandals erupt around them.)

BP has said that the situation will improve, seemingly made promises to the public about solutions and even been misleading about how dire the situation is. In order for the public to trust you, you have to be upfront—even if you find yourself in a difficult and embarrassing situation.

Glass Half Full: Continuous Effort
I know the effort has fallen short of a solution, but let me explain this glass half-full section.

BP has made various attempts to stop the oil spill and has communicated its efforts to media and the public. The company has tried containment and a chemical dispersant, and will soon try a “top kill.” BP has publicly explained the plan every time it has taken a new approach.

The company has also pledged money to continue the Gulf cleanup even after the oil is contained, and has promised educational programs in the aftermath. It’s a hard line to walk when a company or person has created harm and money is promised as part of the solution. No, throwing money at the problem won’t solve it, but money will definitely be needed to rehabilitate the Gulf, and BP is the entity that will owe it.

Glass Half Empty: Tension Between BP and the Government
Whether or not you believe BP should bear sole responsibility to contain the spill, the open back and forth between the company and the federal government has not helped the public’s confidence. This tension has only been increased by political personalities and media coverage, but a more unified front between the government and BP would go a long way.

There was even a quote from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs who said the government was going to put its “boot on the throat of BP” to make sure they do all that’s necessary to contain the spill. Really? So the government is a middle school bully who hates the oil company and will beat it up to ensure that it does the right thing? That makes me uncomfortable. 

As a company or public figure, the trickiest time for public relations is when you are in the midst of the catastrophe or controversy. Every move you make will be scrutinized and people will be evaluating whether or not you are doing enough. It’s important to learn from past mistakes and be forthcoming with the public. Most importantly, public relations strategies must continue to evolve and adapt to the current situation.

-Levente Smith

Intern Investment

Last week, we said goodbye to another “round” of outstanding interns. This week, we are welcoming a new batch of future communication professionals to our firm.

Once again, I will be serving as an intern mentor. (This is the fourth time I have assumed this role.) At Elizabeth Christian and Associates Public Relations, staff members are matched with interns as a way to ensure that the interns have a meaningful experience during their time here.

As a mentor, my role is to make sure the interns are given the best opportunity to learn from their experience here by answering any questions they may have, providing feedback (about everything from their writing, professionalism, and even their attire), giving them career advice, and helping them with their resumes and such.

This is not something I’m required to do; rather, I do it because I see the potential benefit to both ECPR and its interns. For ECPR, interns can be a valuable resource if we invest the time to teach them properly. They can help us just as much as we can help them.

For interns, it is our hope that they will leave here with valuable public relations skills that they can use to build their careers. Whether they learn industry writing skills, observe media interviews or just pick up on the ins and outs of a PR agency office, it will give them insights they cannot gain by taking college courses alone.

If you look at the big picture, it also helps the communications industry as a whole. The only way to ensure this industry remains one of skill and integrity is for each of us to reach out to those who will be working in this profession before they begin their professional journey.

Read what some of our former interns have said about their experiences with us, as well as the wonderful things they have gone on to do!  Best of luck to our current interns, Sarah, Kate and Laura! Welcome aboard!

-Erin Ochoa

Are you thinking of applying for an internship or a first job?

As application packets for summer intern candidates are beginning to come in, I’m reminded of a few suggestions:

1. If you are asked to submit a packet of materials, send in the requested packet as soon as possible. If you can’t provide something at the time that is requested, be sure to mention that in your cover letter and include when you will be able to send in the items.
2. Proof your written materials and then have someone else proof your work. If for some reason you need to handwrite something, use your very best penmanship.
3. Change the voicemail message on your phone to a more professional message. When you speak with a company representative, be as professional sounding as possible.
4. You will also want to be enthusiastic and appreciative of the call. There is nothing wrong with letting a call go to voicemail if you are not in a position to answer the phone. When you do call back, be sure to have your calendar handy.
5. Be sure you are clear on where and when your appointment will be and how many people will be interviewing you. If you are not familiar with the location, try to drive by prior to your appointment. And, allow enough time to get to your appointment. It’s also best not to arrive too early—five to ten minutes ahead of the appointment time is best. If you have extra time, wait in your car or building lobby and think about what you would like to say in your interview.
6. Be sure to dress professionally. If you are not sure what that means, then ask a trusted adult advisor. Jeans are still not considered professional in most settings. Depending on the corporate culture, I would strongly suggest you remove any unusual piercings and cover any tattoos. You can get a good feel of that by reviewing the company’s Web site to see how those employees are dressed. Do not bring parents, significant others, pets or children with you… even if they are going to wait in the lobby.
7. Research, research, research the firm and make sure you have 3-4 good questions to ask. And please remember, you should show the company staff members what you can do for them—don’t focus too directly on what the company can do for you.
8. Be up on current affairs, especially in the market you are looking for employment. If you are not reading the local newspaper and watching the local news, start now. This will familiarize you with your media market.
9. Bring enough resumes to give everyone. If writing samples have not been requested and you have some examples, then bring some with you to leave behind. Be sure you have followed all instructions thoroughly.
10. Once you leave the interview, send a handwritten thank you note to everyone involved in the interview. This goes a long way!
11. With all that being said, take a deep breath, have fun and let your personality shine through. You won’t always get the job, but hopefully you learned something in the process.

Remember, the deadline to apply for a summer internship at ECPR is April 12.

--Kathleen Smith