Cover letter? Please!

As a senior getting scarily close to graduation day, the job search extravaganza is in full swing. Searching job banks, applications, interviews…most of the time I find myself sitting down at 11:00 p.m. and saying “Maybe I should actually make some time for that class work that is due tomorrow.” Job searching is a full time job itself!

After completing multiple job applications, I have discovered something: organizations and recruiters are getting creative! Gone are the days of simply submitting your cover letter and resume. If you are going into a field based off of creativity, clearly employers want to see if from the start. I have been asked to do a series of creative pieces of work to prove why I am worthy of an internship. The latest? Create a 30 second video answering four question related to your candidacy for our internship. Do you know how complicated it is to fit quality information into 30 short second of video, all while making it creative and memorable? Trust me, it is not a cakewalk.

That is only one example of the interesting assignments I have done for interviews. I have answered real tweets from company consumers. I have written essays around my quirky hobbies. Pretty soon I am just expecting to have requests for a full-fledged novel…

However, while I think these new interview requests are challenging, I think they are speaking loads about the companies that are assigning them. The public relations industry demands unique, creative, innovating individuals…why not test out the skills early? Plus, with some hard work, I find it gives applicants the true opportunity to shine. These applications might be more work. However, with some time commitment and effort, a little bit of extra creativity might just be your way into the office.

Do podcasts have potential?

After covering viral videos and blog posts, we reached another new medium of communication this week in social media class: podcasts. A specialized, small snippet of audio, podcasts offer an alternative to radio. As covered in both our social media class and David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing & PR, podcasts have a lot of benefits: they are cheap, portable, and simple to obtain. With a laundry list of benefits, podcasts should be the next big social media craze, right?

This girl is not convinced yet. I am skeptical for a two main reasons:

1.      Podcasts are supposed to be the new form of radio. However, how popular is radio as a communication dissemination tool? I certainly do not want to knock the radio industry, but figures show that radio is taking a hard hit. The 2011 State of the Media Report by the Pew Research Center showed that radio usage as a source of news for Americans fell by 6 percent. While podcasts are different than radio, they share the same qualities. Qualities that Americans seem to be turning away from in 2011.

2.      While podcasts may provide more topic specialization and ease of mobility than radio, they still require what I find to be a huge downfall of radio: time. I don not know about you, but I am on the social media boat because I can get my news quickly. Instead of sitting down and listening to a 30 minute news or radio program, I can check Twitter 3 times a day during the 10 minute break between my classes. Even with the ease, I may not have time for podcasts.

Take my opinion with large grains of salt. As a social media guru, I am certainly not naïve. Podcasts offer lots of the typical positive qualities of successful social media tools. However, I think a few of the downfalls of podcasts may prevent them from catching on as quickly as some of the other popular tools.

One for One: My TOMS story

Cute shoes. Creative brand. Heart-moving mission. Anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes talking to me understands that these three phrases describe my favorite brand, product, and overall organization: TOMS. A quirky, fun shoe company based out of Santa Monica, the mission of TOMS is as simple as it gets: with every pair of shoes you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. I’m part of the TOMS club on the ONU campus, and this past week was huge for our organization as we helped TOMS celebrate their One Day Without Shoes.

There are about a million things that TOMS does exceptionally well that we could talk about (creative shoe designs, community photo wall, active social media presence…do not get me started). However, there is a public relations aspect of TOMS that I believe every business organization should take a lesson from: the power of a story. Ask any person how they heard about TOMS, and I bet four out of five people would tell you they heard the story by word of mouth from a friend or family member. That is how it started for me. I heard about the organization through a friend. After months of telling everyone I knew how much I liked the shoes, I finally got my best friend to take the bait. A spontaneous road trip and too many design debates later, not only was I the proud owner of TOMS; I was a brand activist. The TOMS mission has heart and is rooted in the ideals of giving, caring, and making an impact on the world. How could you not want to share that?

You will even find that many of TOMS promotional tactics to spread their message are rooted in a story. A recent free giveaway sent thousands of blue and white string bracelets to individuals across the county. Every time someone asks me what my bracelet means, the TOMS story is told. The community photo wall encourages TOMS addicts to share where they wear their TOMS. Heck, TOMS biggest awareness event, One Day Without Shoes, seems to function as one big story itself. TOMS supporters go an entire day without wearing shoes to raise awareness. This diagram says it all:

Ultimately, TOMS has found a PR strategy for success: tell a story. A good one will spread like wildfire. Below is a recent video from their 2011 One Day Without Shoes campaign. Watch the video, be moved by the mission, and start spreading the story.

Agencies in Chicago: The trip blew me away

Alright. I am throwing up my hands and admitting something.

I think I am an agency girl.

After years of assuming that the crazy, hectic, competitive lifestyle of a public relations agency professional was not my destiny, I am strongly reconsidering my standpoint. I just returned from a trip with the Ohio Northern University PRSSA chapter to Chicago to tour four public relations agencies ranging in size, clientele, and employee atmosphere (a big thanks to Ruder Finn, Ketchum, Golin Harris and Weber Shandwick). Somewhere between massive amounts of artery-clogging deep dish pizza and sugar rushes from too many Sprinkles cupcakes, I realized that the agency playground might be the best place to put my education to the test and develop as a young public relations professional. Below are my opinions on why all recent graduates should consider checking out an agency:

1. Mentorship around every corner

Any public relations student knows the important of having close professional relationships to turn to for career guidance. In the agency field, there is always someone in the organization who was recently in your shoes. For example, as an intern, you can turn to the account coordinator who was just in your shoes for advice. Some agencies even have structured mentorship programs. Joseph Tateoka shared Ruder Finn’s mentorship program, where individuals are matched up with a company professional that shares similar interests.

2. Built-in job ladders

Agencies are all about commitment: if you put your time in, you can easily climb the organizational ladder. I heard story after story about individuals who started as interns, got hired on as account coordinators, and eventually turned into account executives. In a job market that is still relatively insecure, it is comforting to see that agencies like to keep their employees close by moving them along the path of promotions.

3. Pick your poison

I always assumed since agencies take on multiple clients, a career as an agency professional would be like eating one of those boxed chocolates…you never know what you are going to get. However, I quickly learned that is not the case. While agencies may have multiple types of clients, a professional often lands in a certain client category: healthcare, brand, B2B, consumer, etc. As a student who still enjoys exploring the field, I like the idea of trying different clients as an intern and then landing in an agency sector that best suits my interests.

Ultimately, the trip to Chicago opened up both my eyes and my career path. I am looking forward to exploring the possibilities of working in a public relations agency!

Get Personal

For those of you who may not know, I’m a recently turned coffee addict. When I need to get coffee in my hometown of Toledo, I refuse to go anyplace besides Plate 21, a small, quirky, locally owned coffee bistro approximately two minutes from my house. The owner makes individualized drinks, knows how your life is going, etc. The reason I like it? It’s personal.

Chapter six in Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers focuses on how small business can thrive by using blogs to get personal with customers and accentuate their individuality”

“One of the main reasons people do business with a small company is to get personal service. Blog are all about personality. If you bring a distinctive voice…people will feel like they know you. And that will make it easier for them to do business with you” said Gillin.

Small businesses face enough challenges as is: getting media attention, being financially stable, making ends meet. Therefore, a simple, inexpensive marketing service that allows small businesses to play off of their strong suit of personal service may be just the thing they need.

Powering through PaRtners

This week, my beloved Ohio Northern University PRSSA chapter successfully completed one of our largest challenges this year: hosting the 2011 Central Ohio PaRtners Conference. Sponsored by the Central Ohio Chapter of PRSA, PaRtners is an annual conference put on to help students connect with PR professionals and carve out a path in the career field. While ONU was certainly honored to host the conference, I will be really honest with you and tell you that honored is not a word that came to my mind often in the last few months. Cursed, overwhelmed, bombarded: those are words I felt when speakers cancelled, donations fell through, or registration websites went down.

Putting on an event is rewarding the day of and in the aftermath. But a fair warning to all aspiring event planner out there: it is short lived!  Furthermore, it is not glamorous. You will be hauling all the garbage out when maintenance doesn’t show up. You are not the center of attention. You will be running around behind the scenes fixing all smaller problems.

However aspiring event planners: if you happen to get lucky enough like me, there is one element of event planning that tops all the stressful scenarios and makes the whole thing worthwhile: a strong team. The dedication, energy, and creative enthusiasm my PRSSA team put into this event was phenomenal, making this whole experience worthwhile. Getting through out late nights and early mornings took us from friends to a family, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. That being said, here’s a shout out to my PRSSA polar bears; I would do this again because of you guys!

Shedding some skin: PR secrets from a snake

The few encounters I’ve had with snakes in my life usually involve the snake coming in one direction and me running in the opposite. However, I’ve been willingly following a snake for a week now. Ever since the now famous Bronx Zoo cobra managed to perform a sneaky jail break from its cage about a week ago, I’ve been captivated by the Twitter account for the slithery escapee launched by some genius social media savvy individual.

I would love to be looking at this snake situation from the eyes of the PR department at the Bronx Zoo. What started out as a potential breeding ground for a crisis communication situation Poisonous snake on the loose? No thanks!) turned tons of media spotlight on the Bronx zoo; and not in a negative way, in my opinion. People are flocking to the zoo to see the cobra. Companies are trying to cut promotional deals with the zoo (Venom Energy Drink offered a year’s supply of the product to the zookeeper who found the cobra). There is even a huge contest going onto name the crafty critter. The Bronx Zoo could have had an angry mob of ophidiophobes on their hands. Instead the nation simply fell in love with a toxic but terribly cute snake, and the Bronx Zoo did not have to lift a finger. Talk about a lucky PR break!

Social media tactics do not have to be detail heavy or carry a serious message…sometimes a few simple tweets and some humor can go a long way. Never thought I’d take PR lessons from a reptile, but this case seemed to be full of successsssssssssssssss…