Since my last blog (way back in October) I’ve worked with three fantastic teams who have all taught me various things about the world of PR and media relations that I had never considered in my pre-Edelman days. Since working with Digital, Healthcare and Consumer, I can honestly say that a Twitter feed is not just a Twitter feed, a drug announcement is not just a drug announcement and magazine coverage is not just magazine coverage.

In my time with Digital, I learnt how to write web copy for different clients with dramatically varying audiences (a Puma After Hours Athlete travel guide one day to a girlie music fan the next), gathered and presented social media insights for leading law firm Allen and Overy, online listened (yep, that’s a thing) for Shell and Covent Garden, helped out with community management tasks for the Dove Global Facebook pages and compiled a weekly newsletter for a global blue chip communications company. I also learnt the (very basics) of data and engagement insights and what they mean for a social media platform. Similarly, using Sysomos, Buddy Media and CoTweet on a daily basis opened my eyes to just how much work goes into maintaining a brand identity (and therefore a consistent brand voice) whilst increasing online engagement. My time with the lovely Digital team saw a visit from the guys at Facebook, many Knowledge Shares, a pub golf session, a karaoke-off, Krispy Kremes in abundance and a great event with a former Digital/Consumer client Best Buy where we, er, met Chipmunk. (Amazing!) 

Moving onto my time with Healthcare, I spent a great deal of time composing coverage reports for many different and dramatically varying Healthcare accounts such as Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, HIV drug Edurant, anti-depressant Seroquel, smoking cessation drug Champix, cystic fibrosis drug Vertex and coronary drug Brilinta. I also spent my time compiling case study research, completed a daily reports on Research and Development pharmaceutical news, learnt the importance of grammatical accuracy with daily CHAMPIX (the ever necessary capitals) reports alongside establishing a solid grounding of what consitutes ’client relevant’ news for the Global Vertex cystic fibrosis report. As the other grads have said, the not so healthy (but very, very lovely) Healthcare provided lots and lots of cake, a ‘classy pod’ Christmas decorating competition and lots of patient and friendly faces who made my Healthcare PR experience a thoroughly enjoyable one.

As for now, I’m currently in JCPR, Edelman’s consumer team who look after a range of accounts such as Puma, Xbox, Unilever and Shell amongst many, many others. To date, I’ve had lots of great varied tasks including sending out press samples, calling magazines to pull together research for speculative reader events, new business research for things as varied as researching historians one day to fruit baskets and Turkish food the next. I’ve also completed PureVia Media Relations, Xbox mounting, travel research, Unilever daily newsletters alongside many, many other things. From the music (last week we had a lot of Etta James, today drum and bass…) to the tasks, no two days in JC are ever, ever the same, something that most definitely works to their advantage.

However, the fun as an Edelman grad doesn’t just fall between the (non-existent) departmental walls, in the last three months we had an AMAZING Christmas party at Circus, numerous Gorkana breakfasts, an eye-opening training session in Crisis Management, a great one on one writing session with a former tabloid editor, a fantastic creative brainstorming session where we learnt to really get to the heart of a brand and a really great (I’m running out of superlatives…) training session with a Healthcare AD regarding best practice and managing client relations. I even brushed up my skills with an IT Power Hour (you should see my inbox now, I’m all over those rules!) and had a ton of online training to work through from My Edelman University (as of yesterday, I’m a black belt in social media….oh yes!)

I’ve also helped out at the Edelman Crystal Ball and Trust events and even got to meet some fellow Edel’s from Denmark and Germany who flew over to complete our worldwide TalentEd project (in which our campaign came second, yay!).

So, that’s the last three months. If you’re still reading and aren’t bound to me by birth, I’d take a pretty solid guess that you’re reading because you’re thinking of applying for the Edelman Scheme this year. Like I know Rosie said before, so much of what we experience as Edelman Grads really does make you feel incredibly lucky. You work alongside the best brains, on the best clients and get to see your awareness of PR and communications grow on a day by day basis. If you’re as lucky as us, you’ll also get a pretty great network in terms of your fellow grads who remain your constant lunch buddies in the whirlwind of being a perpetual newbie.

I’ve absolutely loved my time at Edelman so far and would encourage anyone to apply this year.

When we started at Edelman, much of our training focussed on the importance of social media. In this day and age, traditional media coverage is no longer the only way to reach out to consumers and communicate a brand or idea. Whilst it is still important, and this is unlikely to ever change, social media has opened a new gateway for companies and brands. They can monitor, join in on and even instigate conversations with consumers, as well as being able to instantly announce breaking news about their products to a huge audience. Companies can see what disgruntled consumers are saying, and can openly respond to criticism in order to help keep their customers happy and protect their reputation.

One of my first tasks since joining digital yesterday has been to work on a monthly report for Dove. Although this may not sound like much to write about, it’s actually been a great way to begin my digital journey. The report consists of a lot of numbers (all of which I’m hoping that I will understand in the not too distant future!) which demonstrate Dove’s interaction with the online community. These numbers summarise the activity on the Dove Facebook page, showing where the brand is doing well, and where it perhaps needs to work a little harder. The report is collated using monitoring tools including Buddy Media and Facebook Insights. Both of these tools monitor conversations taking place on the Facebook page, showing how the brand’s different posts, comments and interaction ideas have fared against each other. The report also shows in which country Dove fans are the most active, and which posts and discussions people have responded to the best, thus helping to show how Dove can achieve the highest level of interaction with its Facebook fans.

Seeing the actual figures of how many people interact with Dove online gives proper solid proof of the power of social media: the Dove page has over 4 million “likes” globally. Where else would a brand be able to reach out to so many fans? Given that social media accounts for one in every six minutes spent online, it’s pretty clear that online communication is where it’s at.

I spent my last rotation in Spook (Digital) and today I am starting on the Healthcare team. 

In Spook, I got to work on global clients, take part in training sessions, brainstorms, research for new campaigns, copywriting and media monitoring. I also learned how to use some really useful tools such as Buddy Media, Facebook Analytics and YouTube Analytics. I never knew any of these existed before my time at Spook and it was briliant to be able to walk away from my rotation with a knowledge of these tools.

Spook also taught me A LOT about the art of evaluation and reporting! I am now an expert in click through rates, penetration rates, engagement rates and what a facebook ‘like’ really means for a brand. A lot of numbers, excel sheets and maths, but super interesting and challenging.

During my time at Spook, I was also able to sample the brilliant social life that working at Edelman offers you. The Edelman office was full of the Christmas spirit with Christmas songs blaring from almost every pod, and we even got mince pies and mulled wine one evening. We also got to attend the Edelman Christmas Party – which was amazing. Salon in the office, Edelman Honours, a top secret location and an alpine themed Photobooth! What more could you ask for?

Here’s to a great 2012!

So far my limited number of blog posts have all been quite “work” focused– but life at Edelman is so much more than that. Take last Thursday night for example. The ‘Edel-Spook X Factor Karaoke Competition’. My current department, Healthcare took on Spook, my old department in the karaoke competition to end all singing contests. Forget X-Factor, Edelman is where the talent is (well maybe/probably /absolutely not).  In a private room in a Chinese restaurant near our office, the finger food and white wine was flowing. All the classics came out from Spice Girls to Stevie Wonder to MC Hammer, and even I, who despises karaoke joined in on as many songs as I could and belted Bonnie Tyler until my voice had disappeared. Fortunately, no photographic evidence of the night has surfaced…yet, but watch this space in case it does!

It was an amazingly fun night and just another reason why I am loving life as an Edelman Grad so much; having worked with both departments I knew pretty much everyone there and had just as much fun chatting with my favourite intern as I did the MD. In and out of work the people and atmosphere at Edelman are second to none.

No one has the same opportunity us grads do to try so much and meet so many people. We’re pretty lucky I guess.

Some other quick examples:

Pedalo racing in Hyde Park with Spook:

Halloween Decorating Competition with Healthcare:

Now back to planning the next big night out working hard.

I have definitely discovered a passion for social media and digital marketing that I never knew existed. When I see Facebook, I now see beyond status updates and photos of my friends. I see engagement analytics and insights. I have not only become a regular Tweeter but I actually enjoy it, those 14o characters a more powerful than I ever thought, those few words could make or break a brand or campaign in an instant. My LinkedIn profile is now up-to-date and I may even venture onto FourSquare and Flickr in the near future! I am truly a digital convert and I credit this to a number of things I experienced n this department that I just don’t have space to get in to but two in particular.

1. The wonderfully friendly, fun and helpful characters who grace Spook Media, First42nd and Edelman Digital from Account Execs, to my lovely line manager all the way up to the amazing team of Directors. They were all always there to talk me though tasks, answer my questions, get a drink with and in the case of TFI Fridays engage in a pedalo race. Digital creates a unique atmosphere that makes working hard all day never really feel like work.
2. The lengthy list of clients I had the pleasure of working on.  My experiences alone are enviable let alone the entire client list! This is a brief (well I tried at least) run down of who I worked for and a taster of the sort of tasks I was lucky enough to undertake.

• Leading Tech Brand: With a social media presence of over 20 million fans, it was a great learning experience to help manage, monitor and write content for this brand’s platforms and assist with pulling data to analyse and create insights about engagement rates, fan profiles, commerce drivers and so on for reports and conducting research into new strategies and general social media insights every week.
• Best Buy: A huge social media presence in the US, the UK are hoping to follow suit and I got involved with writing content for all their platforms and the admin for their ‘Thumb’s Up Price Down’ deals tab on Facebook.
• Allen&Overy: I would never have put social media and leading law firm together but as I’m quickly discovering digital marketing applies to anything and everything. For Allen&Overy I was responsible for running and reporting on a whole Twitter campaign for the launch of their 50 Degrees East survey. I wrote some Tweets, posted them daily, monitored and reacted to responses and pulled and analysed data which I used to report on the success of the campaign.
• Anglo American: This mining giant was another very unexpected client but they are in the process of launching themselves across several social media platforms and I helped in drafting ‘About Us’ sections for them and starting to build albums for Flickr.
• Ballymore: Yet again, a corporate client in Digital surprises me. For this property development company I helped conduct a landscape analysis which in (very) short involved looking at social media activity and conversation that could relate to this client and their purpose and drawing practical insights from what I found.
• Dove: As one of my all time favourite brands it was a pleasure to work on Dove. I assisted with building sections of the Dove Development Deck including a profile of ‘The Dove Woman’ based on fan data from Facebook and ‘truths’ about how the Dove Women (from their top 5 markets) engage on Facebook, and how they respond to different content. This was a really interesting task for a truly iconic brand that’s made me love Dove even more.

So, that wasn’t as concise as I hoped it would be, but I wanted to make sure I did my time in Digital justice. All that’s left to say is a huge thank you to the whole team, I loved every second. And here’s to my next rotation in Healthcare!

I love a good novelty and I love good make up. With this in mind, you can only imagine how impressed I am by the new palette from Urban Decay. The ultimate in girlie gadgetry, The Urban Decay Book of Shadows Vol IV not only includes a really lovely mix of bright and neutral shades but also brings UD well and truly into the realm of all things digital.

The limited edition palette includes a mini portable speaker to plug your smart phone into, alongside a pack of QR (quick response) codes which unlock five video tutorials using products from within the palette, all rounded off by a docking station that ensures your smart phone sits next to your mirror, so you can follow the tutorials as you go.

Despite this palette being pretty pricey (£46) I think this is a great example of how brands are beginning to think further and further outside of the box/their immediate function in order to make their products relevant and appealing to both existing and new customers. (After all, if you’re likely to spend £50 on what is essentially some well packaged eye shadow, chances are you’re already quite partial to cosmetics!)

Since beginning my placement with Edelman Tech and in my previous PR jobs and placements, I’ve quickly realised the importance of strong, additional content across many different sectors. Whether that’s ensuring that all formatting within briefing documents is 100% spot on, to researching the relevant publications to pitch content to, to researching news to create an engaging itinerary for a radio broadcast, it’s really interesting to see how exciting and resourceful content can both update a product and generate additional trust in a company, a brand and a new release.

(Just to clarify : Urban Decay aren’t a Tech/Edelman client!)

If my rambling is too much for you…why not have a quick look at their PPT instead (or as well if you can’t be bothered reading this truly are interested)! http://db.tt/DFD0tBDE

A bit of background on Buddy Media: they are a CMS (Content Management System) that help manage and monitor client presences on Facebook and Twitter predominantly; the  content that is going out on behalf of our clients and the engagement that is occurring in return from our online communities.

Important things to know:

1)      Social Media isn’t a ‘new’ phenomenon’, it is just part of the ‘natural evolution of the web’ – just like so many other things in life, the web has simply evolved in order to meet the evolving needs of our digital society, new web companies and social media platforms launch and progress to meet our needs.

2)      The very element of being ‘social’ on social media platforms has had a disruptive and altering effect on businesses and the way business is done and…

3)      …this is seen through the relationship between social media and commerce

Buddy Media used Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to demonstrate this ‘natural evolution of the web’. I loved this (as a Human Geographer Maslow is right up my street), for those of you less familiar, check out the diagram. In short, as we evolve we become more sophisticated and our needs change from being fundamental (e.g. food and shelter) to a desire to be part of a community and then to express ourselves within that community and lead a fulfilling life. This theory can be actualized to the web, take  Google for example, they came along and took care of our ‘fundamental’ web needs, providing us with access to information that was meaningful, organized and relevant. However, our needs evolved and so did the web…step in social media platforms. First we wanted to share thoughts, then photos, then links and opinions etc etc etc and so as our desires became more sophisticated so did the capacity of these platforms. Social Media platforms became so efficient at meeting the needs of our digital society that they eventually became able to anticipate our upcoming online needs and implement them before we even know we needed them. Who can honestly say that they had a burning desire to check-in somewhere online and share it with the world before FourSquare and Facebook Places came along…now people can’t pop to the shop without telling their friends! It is social media that allows us to share anything and everything with everyone at once, super efficient!

What the key lesson to really take from all this (it’s worth reading on I promise!) is how the sharing core of social media impacts on business, a.k.a. our clients! Business design and aims are based on the wants and needs of their ‘most valuable consumer’. However, how this is defined has completely changed thanks to social media, so businesses need to change too. Before social media the most valuable consumer is: the highest spender, the consumer who brings in the most revenue. After: the ‘loudest’ consumer is by far the most valuable – this is judged on how active and interactivethey are, how big of a brand advocate and how much they like the company’s product or service, but most importantly, how much influence they have (no good someone with one friend in their network liking everything you post, that will get your brand message nowhere fast). This redefinition of what makes a ‘valuable consumer’ has to become a key element when designing a business in our digital society.

So, are you starting to see social media in a whole new light?

Believe it or not…there are even more layers to this. Social media hasn’t just impacted on how businesses are designed and run, but it also has a direct impact on commerce (this is the whole point of business after all-making money!). The relationship between e-commerce and social media can now be actualized with social data, this is a super important development and very relevant to the work we do. However, I fear it might all be a bit of information over load for now so I will save this part for a rainy day. Just to give you a quick idea of the importance of this have a look at what Mark Zuckerberg had to say…

“If I had to guess, social commerce is next to blow up”.

Told you it was interesting!

I joined the digital team as an avid Facebook user, rare Tweeter and occasional LinkedIn visitor and that was about it. Having spent 3 weeks with the team-all of whom are really friendly and always helpful, I have learnt more than I thought there was possible (cliche!) about all things Digital from social media content and engagement, to community management and monitoring, to Facebook and Twitter analytics, and not forgetting CMSs, IPs, RTs, QBRs, URLs, CTRs and CSOs (seriously, none of those are made up!) It’s been a very steep curve for me, but I’m so pleased and relieved that it hasn’t gone over my head, and that in fact it’s not only sinking in but it’s getting embedded in my psyche. Apparently I’ve loved Digital all along.

So far I’ve had the pleasure of getting involved with 3 completely different clients, doing totally varied tasks for each. From a host of content and engagement related projects for an amazing leading tech brand (so amazing I can’t even divulge that much), to building fan profiles of The Dove Woman, (Dove are one of my all-time favourite brands and are part of the Unilever account), to launching and monitoring a Twitter campaign for Allen&Overy, a top law firm. As you can tell I’m now very busy and important (I wish) so I should get back to it, but watch this space for all the ins and outs of my lessons learned and clients covered during my days in Digital.

Think outside the box

 CREATIVE THINKING                                                                                                                         

 By simply walking around the office, you gain an understanding of the importance of how to think creatively in PR. There are easels for brainstorming sessions, ‘break-out’ areas in the form of Egg Chairs and music blaring or floating, depending on the mood.

Furthemore, there is consistent encouragement to look-out for and recognise brilliant marketing or PR campaigns that have been fuelled by a creative flair.

WEIRD, WACKY AND WONDERFUL CAMPAIGNS

Even just over the last week, I have come across or been shown some brilliantly creative campaigns, whose successes largely rest on the unusual or fantastical ideas that they are based on.

Take for example, the Nike McFly shoe. 

Nike has come up with a new concept shoe based on the 1989 cult film, Back To The Future. By using old images and footage from the movie, Nike has immediately associated their shoe with the future, innovation and what’s cool.

McFly\’s Closet YouTube video

Another example is the PR stunt that has been conducted by George Lucas and Blu-Ray to release Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

The party is due to take place at the top of the BT Tower in the heart of London’s West End, where Anthony Daniels the original actor who played C3PO will switch on a one-day only ‘blue ray of light’ at the top of the tourist attraction thus turning it into the ‘world’s largest lightsaber’.

From JCPR Blog

One of the major clients for JCPR is X-Box, and the X-Box team here are equally as zany with their campaigns. Whilst I can’t disclose exactly what is coming (it takes place on Monday), the team have put their noggins together to promote a new game that is being released. All I can say, is Londoners, keep your wits about you!

Game launch teaser...

When it came to crunch time a couple of weeks ago, I was swinging in roundabouts. One day thinking ‘yes definitely x department’, the next day ‘no that department’, the following day ‘but what about this department’ – you can imagine how this continued. I’m normally a pretty decisive person, but this was ridiculous! The factors I considered were a) client accounts b) future progression and c) the people. The thing with Edelman is that each department has exciting, big name clients. The other thing with Edelman is that each department considers your future and will help you in career decisions. The third thing with Edelman is that each department has amazing people…you can see my problem here! The people I must say are talented, dedicated, intelligent and truly welcoming. As a grad you are lucky enough to learn from some of the crème de la crème in the industry.

So what were the highlights of my eight months?

• Working with some Digital pioneers in Spook. The world of communication is changing with the advancements in technology, and what better place to learn about the importance of social media than in our very own award winning Digital team. Try exciting campaigns such as Levi’s® Shape What’s To Come and Puma’s After Hours Athlete
• Meeting Boris Johnson at an event I helped organise on behalf of Douglas&Gordon whilst working in Corp&Fin. Actually hilarious! A point to note about Corp&Fin is the variety in work – a dream for any graduate. From issues and crisis management, to CSR platforms, award ceremonies  and of course the all important media liaison
• My first ever red carpet event at the Xbox Halo: Reach launch, working with some consumer PR gurus to organise a celeb-tastic event and then watching the fantastic pieces of coverage appear
• Pitching for new business whilst in the Public Affairs team. Understanding the insights which are essential in forming strategy, context and desired outcomes
• Working in a global hub at Tech was priceless. I was lucky enough to be involved in brainstorming and then implementing campaign ideas both on a central and local level
• Improving a weakness in Healthcare. I’ve never been a perfectionist and sometimes attention to detail can suffer. To work well in Healthcare you have to study the small print and this was the ideal opportunity to put my weakness to the test and sort it

Any conclusions? Yes….the graduate scheme is truly invaluable. The tools it equips you with, the friends you make and the interests you pick up can only but increase your employment prospects and that’s the whole point, right?