A day in the life of a PR intern
Although PR is a forever changing industry with various different tasks that need to be completed, I still have a routine that I follow every morning. I feel that it’s important to have some kind of routine and to set daily tasks to complete, as these are the most important that I need to ensure get done.
When I arrive in the morning I open up the office, switch on my computer and make myself coffee. I log onto my account for the time tracking programme we use to log our time and track all our client activities. I then open up my emails and Skype to start the day’s work.
During the day, I can do anything from coverage capturing to developing communication strategy skeletons; it all just depends on the day and what tasks I have to execute before deadline. A few of my tasks include, but are not limited to the following:
Blog writing
As I am developing my writing skills, I spend quite a bit of time on blog planning and writing. Every Wednesday, I create my first draft for the weekly post. I send it to some of my colleagues for review and by Thursday afternoon I have my final post completed for publication on Friday morning. Writing for my blog every week is sometimes challenging but it is rewarding as I get to share my experience with others, possibly with some other interns.
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Media liaison
I enjoy media liaison as I get to communicate with various media representatives and I am learning a lot about how to engage with people in the correct manner. Media Liaison can be anything from sending out press releases to getting latest readership, advertising and editorial details for a variety of publications.
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Social media content planning
Content planning involves planning various posts in advance for MANGO’s social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. I ensure that there is a post for each and every day, including weekends as this shows how active our company is and how we engage with our target audience and clients online. Planning posts can be a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoy using my creativity for certain posts.
Meetings
We usually only have one team status meeting per week. This meeting is important as we can all sit together and discuss updates regarding each client and what we all should prioritise for the week ahead.
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Generation of Media Lists and Research
I work on media lists quite often, and it goes hand in hand with research. When generating media lists, I am required to ensure that all the information and contact details of each relevant publication is correct. Research forms part of media list generation when I look for other publications that we haven’t already listed, for opportunities for our clients to possibly publish their articles or advertise in.
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Although I am currently focusing on a few tasks, I will surely be exposed to other tasks as my learning journey continues. In the two months of interning, I have already been trusted with many tasks and I look forward to experiencing the other duties that are part of working in PR.