Tag Archives: intern

January 31, 2013 · 6:44 PM

How To Network Using Social Media

Marisa Dockum

LinkedIn and Twitter serve as better networking tools than you might think.  The power of networking is endless, especially now with easy access to professionals via Twitter and LinkedIn. Here are a few tips to improve your online visibility and build a network:

  1. Never send a generic LinkedIn connection invite.  In order to stand out and make things personal, you must take the time to write a nice blurb on how you know them or explain why you would like to connect with them.
  2. Clean up your Twitter account to make sure it is appropriate before you begin attracting professionals.
  3. Don’t have full-blown conversations on Twitter.  Make an initial connection with a tweet, but then continue the conversation via email or direct messages.
  4. Use hashtags such as #intern, #internships, #HAPPO, #PR,etc. and directly tweet at companies or people who work there about news/events that are happening at those companies.  When you express interest in what that agency is actually doing, you will get noticed.
  5. Don’t get to the point right away, start by asking about the professional’s experience or for advice.  PR people love to talk about themselves and want to feel like they’re helping someone out from their expertise. So, allow them to do that and they will be more likely to then talk about a job or internship opportunity.
  6. Join Twitter chats, ask questions and share your answers.  Your questions could get noticed by a professional looking for an intern, and your active online presence will impress professionals.
  7. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date and error free at all times, especially before you connect with professionals.
  8. Utilize the LinkedIn headline in a creative way.  For example, “PR major seeking internship in NYC,” and be active in different LinkedIn groups.

As a pre-professional, it is your job to seek out professionals, companies, PRSA young professionals and alumni on Twitter and LinkedIn.  Let your personality shine online, and do what we do best: communicate.  Actively tweet about PR news, tweet at professionals and companies, use hashtags, and connect on LinkedIn with personal messages.  These tips will allow you to network with the industry and establish a solid online presence, but most importantly it will highlight YOUR brand.

Go forth young professionals, use social media networking to your advantage!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

August 4, 2010 · 11:43 AM

Embracing the red pen

Rachel Csaszar
Account executive, Bob Evans Farms, Inc.

We all know that moment when it seems like your life is over, everything you thought you knew is worthless, and the thought of “Who am I fooling?” crosses your mind as you get your printed work returned with a little more than it left with.

The page covered with your beautiful words has been splattered with red, like a fur advocate after a run-in with PETA.

You’ve been edited.

It’s hard to accept defeat, especially on your first day at a new internship and, for some, your first day in the real world. We all think we’re professionals on some level, even though we haven’t graduated college yet. Sure, we would never say we’re perfect writers, but let’s be honest…we’ve convinced ourselves we’re on our way to reaching that level of perfection that we strive for every day. Your first day on the job, you may encounter a friendly tour, a million handshakes, and if you’re lucky, an office with a desk piled high with media clippings. “I’m no longer a student,” you might think to yourself, “Now, I’m the intern.”

Well, that’s your first mistake.

We’re always going to be students. Even after we graduate, the minute we lose our student status, we no longer have the ability to keep up with the industry in which we work. Being a student for life allows us to grow and develop as writers and public relations practitioners. It’s essential to our survival in the industry, and we should always be ready for the next day’s lesson.

That includes taking constructive criticism. As an intern, you may interpret that sea of red on your work as criticism, lacking the whole constructive part you always hear, and you immediately think you’re the world’s worst writer.

Here’s your second mistake.

You are a better writer than many people, and you wouldn’t be the intern if you couldn’t form a coherent sentence. You were hired for a reason, and it’s important to remember that you are there to show your strengths and hone in on your weaknesses. This is your time to learn, and in order to do this, the first step is to embrace the red pen.

Your superior is not trying to make you feel inadequate or like a failure in the PR world. They are genuinely trying to make you better, and the red pen is just one tool used in their arsenal of many. There will be discussions, meetings, tutorials and finally, the inevitable edit.

In my own internship, I’ve realized very quickly, after the initial fear of failure, that I am simply becoming a better writer. The amount of red words gracing my work is slowly diminishing, and I don’t have to think so hard about style or sentence structure. Some of the corrections make me slap my forehead in disbelief that I missed them, but that is only making me a better editor. Some of the edits are things I truly did not know, so at the end of the day, I leave the office with at least one or two new pieces of information I didn’t have that morning when I walked through the door.

Embracing the red pen may be one of the hardest things for a student to do, but it’s essential to our success in the future. The next time the world slows down as your boss walks forward with your work dripping in red, take a deep breath, put a smile on your face, and open your mind. You never know what you may learn in that five-minute conversation that will help you for the rest of your career.

3 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , ,