Edelman Apprentice Scheme

#SocialMedia @EdelmanDigital

chaanahcrichton — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:43:14 +0000

I recently finished my rotation in the Digital Team within Edelman London.

Entering into the digital department, my first thoughts were:

Metrics… *what?*
Analytics… *what?*
Social media influence scores… *HELP*!

However, after spending five weeks getting my hands dirty, it was really fascinating to see how influential the world of social media has become. Numerous investigations are appearing that reveal how social media marketing, on platforms such as Facebook, are redefining communication in the digital and physical worlds.

Consequently, as a PR agency, it is important for us to stay up-to-date with online trends, and recommend that our clients do the same. For example, as studies show that more and more people are visiting social media sites on their mobile phones, we suggest to our clients that they update their website so that it is mobile compatible.

As a general idea of the kinds of services we offer, we provide clients with instructions on how to interact with people on social media platforms, in order to increase their brand presence and increase engagement. Once we’ve helped a client make the necessary changes (on platforms such as Twitter and Foursquare), we then study the data that is coming through from these platforms to see if more people are engaging with the brand. This might sound slightly complicated, but in essence, ‘engagement’ is how many people are directing tweets at the brand, writing on their Facebook wall, liking their photos etc.

As a social media initiative leading up to Valentine’s Day, one of our clients, Krispy Kreme, launched the Love Roulette campaign. The aim of the campaign was for people to use a Twitter hashtag (#) to match Twitterer with Twitterer in a doughnut fuelled haze of romance. This sort of creative social media campaign (working across Twitter and Facebook) increases the brand’s engagement as people are driven to the brand’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

To see how measurable these sorts of campaigns are, there are platforms designed to provide you with statistics and graphs so that you can benchmark how engagement has increased (or decreased) over time.

This is only a small portion of what is done in the Digital team, but it provides an insight into how integral social media is for brand’s in today’s world.

Techno PR

barneyevison — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:49:52 +0000

The Technology department was next destination, following Corporate. I lost the V-necks and smart shirts, donning jeans again for this team. I found the work to be a mixture of some of the things I had experienced in JCPR and Corporate, with the main and obvious difference being that all of the clients are in the Technology sector. These range from major global corporations to data storage specialists and telecoms operators. As a self-confessed geek, I enjoyed the excuse to read up on the latest gadgets and software.

Geeks are cool

The team is divided into several sections, each with its own expertise and roster of clients, including the Digital Entertainment, Rights and Technology (DERT), Enterprise IT, Clean Technology, Analyst Relations and Telecoms and Mobile. I was lucky to be able to work across the board, gaining a broad insight into the work of the department as a whole. Each team brings their own knowledge to the table, combining expertise to cover the entire industry and sharing this information regularly to keep everyone up to date.

I was in the department for the biggest global telecoms event of the year: Mobile World Congress , a 4-day mobile phone bonanza in Barcelona where all the major telecoms companies and vendors launch their new handsets and products. This is a major event for Edelman, with several of our clients attending, and was also a really good opportunity for me to get a snapshot of the telecoms landscape. As well as the many Tech team-members who were there representing clients, there was also a small Edelman delegation who reported live on the ground at MWC, offering insights on how to market mobile and suggestions of how to seize PR opportunities at the congress .

As well as helping with pre-MWC preparations, which mainly involved pitching in press briefings and putting together briefing documents, I was able to get involved in some work for the Technology Content team. Content is becoming an extremely important part of any PR agency’s offering, as Mashable noted earlier this year . This stems back to the Edelman mantra that ‘every company is a media company’, which in essence means that every company should be creating and distributing content in the form of branded text, video, and mobile device applications. Instead of going through journalists to reach their target audience, companies can start looking to package up their message themselves and go directly to viewers and readers.

In other content news, I’m pleased to announce that my Twitter feed peaked above a TweetLevel score of 40 last week. If you’re reading this, retweet me now please!

Getting my Public Affairs in Order

pollyswain — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:02:15 +0000

I have severely neglected my grad blog since Christmas – apologies. Here’s the first of my catch-up posts.

So after my 5 week stint in JCPR I opted for a relaxing 4 week holiday over the festive season – although this was lovely, admittedly, it made my first day back pretty daunting, especially as I knew I was going to be joining the Public Affairs team, the department where I feared I would feel most out of my depth. However, this of course was not the case, from the moment I joined PA I was made to feel welcome, I never felt intimidated by their seemingly endless knowledge of the political sphere, and was always made to feel like a useful contributor to the team and their clients.

PA is the smallest department of our six rotations, but by no stretch of the imagination does this mean they have less clients and certainly not less work to do! I felt I was given a great opportunity to really get stuck in and gain exposure to their vast range of impressive clients.

I was lucky enough to work on the following accounts (FYI – this isn’t even the complete list!) The British Virgin Islands, Sainsburys, CHPA, General Electric Energy, SNACMA, Diageo, Sedgemoor District Council, The Orbit Housing Group, The Open University and Microsoft. I carried out a range of tasks spanning the whole selection, these included, compiling stakeholder lists, contacting stakeholders, mapping stakeholders, carrying out plenty of desk research, reporting on which politicians have said what about which of our clients in government, preparing biographies of relevant MPs and peers and delivering media audits. On top of all of this, one thing that I really enjoyed while in PA was the opportunities I was given to interact with clients and sit in on their meetings and conference calls; this gave me a unique and in-depth insight into the work of the clients and the role the PA team take.

The PA team have a more extensive political knowledge between them than I thought possible, they are completely committed to what they do and are all active and engaged within their respective political parties. I learnt more about politics in the 4 weeks I spent in PA than in my whole life, and feel that I have gained a real understanding of the relationship between politics and business, the crucial role that communications plays in it all, and therefore the importance of the work of Public Affairs professionals.

The wonderful world of JCPR….

aprilhogan — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:52:08 +0000

Today is my last day in the lovely JCPR and I can’t believe we have just one more rotation after this. With over 60 people on the team, JCPR is one of the biggest departments in Edelman. They have tonnes of really exciting clients and the ones I was lucky enough to work on include J&J Acuvue, Hilton HHonors, Iberostar, Shell, Starbucks, Xbox, Pure Via, MOTOACTV, Johnnie Walker, London 2012 Merchandise and Paypal.

Out of all the departments JCPR was the one I was most excited about. All my previous experience was consumer and I couldn’t wait to get back to doing what I loved. JCPR is totally different to the other departments. Lots of big personalities, deadline after deadline, loud music and best of all – no suits!

My typical day in JCPR started with the papers. Here the team gather around and read the papers, pulling out client coverage, interesting news stories or anything that might be of relevant to their clients. Then it was back to my desk and my day would usually consist of media sell-ins, research, coverage reports, press watch, writing and general admin jobs.

One of the biggest projects I worked on during my time in JCPR was with J&J Acuvue. Here I got to see first hand how everything works in a campaign from start to finish. J&J Acuvue are an official partner of the Virgin London Marathon and this year they are hoping to make the Virgin London Marathon ‘spectacle free’. Their campaign is fronted by Jenni Falconer. I worked really closely with the J&J Acuvue team and was tasked with pitching Jenni in for interviews with the media, selling in images to media, helping to organise the photoshoot, product placement sell-ins and regional sell-ins. Other interesting projects I got to take part in included a press event for Starbucks, radio day for Hilton HHonors and media sell-ins for clients including London 2012 merchandise, Shell and Pure Via.

My five weeks in JCPR went very fast – next I move on to the totally different world of Public Affairs! I’m hoping the six weeks of politics I studied in uni will come in handy.

A Healthy Balance

rosiemorris — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:55:43 +0000

With the penultimate rotation of the Edelman 2011-12 graduate scheme rapidly coming to a close, it’s almost time to think about what’s next…a question playing on everyone’s minds at the moment. But first, a few reflections on my time in Healthcare!

Health is probably the department about which I knew the least on my arrival, and in which I anticipated that I would be the most “out of my depth”. I wasn’t sure my English and French degree would be particularly great grounding for this rotation, but actually, much to my surprise (and relief), I was wrong. In many ways, Healthcare is very similar to the other departments. Granted, the rules are a little tighter in terms of what can and cannot be said, the clients are relatively “niche” and the crises can sometimes have graver implications than in other departments, but the concept at the core of this team’s work is the same: building up, maintaining and protecting clients’ reputations.

During my time in Health, I’ve really enjoyed working alongside a team planning a media briefing at a conference which is taking place in Glasgow this week. The aim of the briefing is to alert the media to the implications of a certain illness, through a symptom simulator and testaments from a nurse, a patient and a doctor. The amount of preparation which has gone into the event is phenomenal – logistics, materials, media outreach and attendance…the list goes on. But now that the team are all safely in Glasgow, and my heart rate has calmed down a little, it seems like the ideal time to reflect on my experiences.

The majority of my time has been spent helping out with event logistics but also assisting with the collation of materials, in the form backgrounders on the condition and a hefty presentation deck, both with considerably more hefty reference packs! It’s been really interesting to see just how much effort goes into developing a two page document (let alone a 25 slide presentation deck) – I’ve learned a great deal about the way in which content is written, rewritten and perfected in order to tell the readers what they need to know in a clear, concise and interesting way. How is it best to present the information? How can the materials be developed to showcase the right point subtly? So my writing skills served me very well – working in Healthcare does not necessarily require a science background at all.

So what will I be taking away from Health? Apart from a bit of a belly (the treats really are notorious and genuinely do flow steadily most of the time…), I’ll be coming away feeling that the past five weeks have really helped towards my career in PR, whichever path I choose to take come April. Although Healthcare may seem to some to be very different to all the other departments, in truth it really isn’t. There’s an element of corporate – crisis monitoring projects come along fairly regularly – but often it’s also consumer-based too. For anyone starting a career in PR, it’s a great place to begin – I have worked on events, press releases, media sell-ins, crisis monitoring and research projects during my time here, all of which have honed skills which are also applicable to other departments. And along the way I’ve definitely improved my disease, illness and drug knowledge…so it really has been a great experience and I’m thankful to everyone in the department for making it such a welcoming place to be!

The social side of crisis

rosiemorris — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:37:28 +0000

During my last week in the Digital department, I found myself face to face with a major social media crisis monitoring project. I’ve always loved dealing with a good crisis (inside or outside out work!), and had never really considered the social media side of issues and crisis monitoring before starting my digital rotation, so I was really excited about getting stuck into this side of things.

I quickly realised the vital role which social media plays in news spreading when at 7am, as I sat at my desk (somewhat nervously) waiting for a company announcement to be made, one tweet appeared from Sky News. Literally ten minutes later, there were over 40 tweets, and as the next two hours passed, this number just went up, and up, and up until it reached well over 300.

At this early stage, the majority of tweets simply referred to the news which had just been broken, with little comment or opinion being shared. About 10 minutes later, the first article appeared on a traditional news website. It may seem like an obvious thing to say, but this instance highlights the influence which social media now has over our lives. There is barely a second between something happening and the rest of the world finding out about it, yet it wasn’t until those precious few minutes had passed that the news actually appeared on a traditional news site, as a full article. The same goes for any kind of crisis.

Conversations began to develop once the initial explosion had died down. Typically, when news breaks, social media activity consists of news sharing, rather than conversation. But, once this news has had time to proliferate, discussions between members of the general public, perhaps those who are some way affected by the news, are likely to follow. The key here is that these conversations aren’t always taking place in obvious places, but it’s so important that they are found and monitored. During this particular incident, the company involved were in the midst of trying to decide who would be the best person to address staff, in light of a significant job cut announcement. It became clear from forum posts and comments that there was a lot of negative feeling from employees towards certain senior members of staff. This is the kind of information which is invaluable for clients, as it helps them to understand what they may be facing, and how best to move forward without causing unnecessary friction with those involved.

Whilst the instance I’m talking about was anticipated, imagine dealing with an unexpected crisis. There would be zero time to devise a company statement between the incident happening and the news appearing all over Twitter. Strategies have to be put in place in anticipation of such crises, and this is an area which is so important and really interesting. Social media has completely and irrevocably changed crisis management – it’s more vital than every to come up with a strategy for even the most unexpected of crises.

I was reading an article on Mashable the other day which further demonstrates this point. The article – How Whitney Houston News Broke – and Exploded – on Twitter – proves that nothing can be withheld from the public for any length of time anymore. Whether it’s the death of an icon like Whitney Houston, or a company announcement like the one I was working through, there are now only seconds between something happening and the whole world talking about it.

Lesson learned: the power of social media cannot and should not be overlooked!

A Corporatised Twit(terer)

barneyevison — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:29:37 +0000

Having already offered some takeaway musings on my experience in the Corporate and Financial Department on Corporate Speak, the department’s blog, there isn’t too much left to say here on the Grad blog – click the massive button below to head over there:

As I mentioned in the post, it was a great time to be in the department with the Edelman Trust Barometer Launch and Davos going on around me. The department is a big one and there are so many accounts and projects always trundling along in the background that it is easy to feel a part of an important hub for UK business news and events.

The department is split into several different teams, including the Crisis team, the Strategic Media Unit and the Property team, all of which specialise in certain types of PR. The boundaries are by no means rigid however, and teams change and blur all the time as accounts change and new project briefs come in. This makes for an effective group, as people develop their own skills in areas that interest them. Once again I was made to feel very welcome and the end of the rotation seemed to come quickly!

In other news, I have at this admittedly late stage taken my first steps into the world of Twitter. Please help me increase my Tweetlevel score by retweeting the constant stream of witty, incisive comments @BarneyEvison.

The cat took up computer lessons in hopes of mastering its grip on a mouse.

chaanahcrichton — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:25:06 +0000

: Me.

: Technology department at Edelman.

After a fantastic Christmas break, I started my fourth rotation in the Edelman Technology Department. Before starting in this department, I wasn’t sure what to expect (cue cat chasing mouse), but having spent the last five weeks learning the ins-and-outs of the department, I’ve come to the conclusion that Technology PR is like Consumer PR except with tech clients. Tada!

Whilst rotating in the Tech department I was lucky enough to work on a huge range of clients, doing different things for each of them. However, as the other grads have already provided brilliant insights into the types of work that people do in Tech, I thought I would focus on one particular experience I had that is quintessentially ’PR’ – a media sell-in.

Media Sell-ins are an everyday task for people working in PR, and depending on the client you’re working on and who you’re pitching to, they can be as easy-as-pie or as difficult as extracting water from a stone. Nonetheless, when you succeed in placing a client in a story, the buzz of excitement you feel rivals hearing Christmas is going to come twice this year!

When embarking on a media sell-in, there are a number of basic strategies to get under your belt to help you succeed in getting your client some coverage:

1. Know your target media. Who is the reader (or viewer or listener)? What is the rhythm of the publication, when do the specific pages “go to bed”? What’s the editorial stance that the publication takes to particular topics?

2. Know your story. What is the relevance of your story to that publication? Can it be “topped and tailed” and made relevant to the locale?

3. Ride the news cycle. The media is governed by the news cycle and so it makes sense to be aware of that cycle and ensure that when your story or client converges with the news cycle then you are pushing on an open door when pitching in to the media

4. Provide evidence. Have you got statistics or an expert interviewee that can add to the value of what you are offering the journalist?

5. Timing. Choosing the time of day, or week or month to sell your story in is vital. Remember that morning conference is a key watershed moment in the production of a publication or broadcast platform. Approaching just before is often the best strategy

From Hollis PR

For the sell-in I was doing, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity somewhat handed to me on a plate.

1. Know your target media: There is an invaluable source for all PR professionals called Response Source which you can sign up to and get email alerts when journalists request sources / case studies for stories they are writing. In my case, a journalist was writing a piece for the FT, where they were looking for case studies on how employers use social media to recruit. This suited the client I was working for perfectly, so this immediately set off alarm bells in my head “CONTACT. NOW!”

2. Know your story. I had studied a variety of case studies for my client, so immediately knew of a case study that would suit this request.

3. Ride the news cycle The journalist had posted his deadline on his blog, so I knew that the time frame was tight and called him straight away.

4. Provide evidence My client has a wealth of up-to-date and relevant statistics that we can use to show journalists and I was also able to offer a spokesperson to provide quotes and other insights.

5. Timing As the current economic climate is somewhat tumultuous, using social media sites are becoming more and more relevant. Therefore, this was the perfect time to pitch my story.

By following these 5 steps to selling-in a story, you will be on a solid path to securing coverage. However, it is important to remember that everyone is busy and everyone has their own agenda, so being PR professionals, our job is to facilitate the dialogue between a journalist and our client, and to make this process as easy for them as possible.

The final result for me was an FT article mentioning our client:

Employers face online challenges

Going through this experience of selling-in was definitely a learning curve, and combined with all of the other skills and insights that I learnt whilst in Tech, I went from:

CLUELESS CAT

TO...SUCCESSFUL CAT

A huge ‘thank you’ for everyone in Tech for their support and pedagogical prowess!

A halfway house.

charlottelander — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:11:37 +0000

As I begin to write this, it has been a whole 4 months, one week and two days since we started the Edelman Grad Scheme in which time, I’ve blogged three times. Uh-oh, I have some catching up to do!

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.

A Political Christmas

barneyevison — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:42:33 +0000

From JCPR, I was thrust into the world of Public Affairs. It seems that 5 weeks (the length of a single grad rotation) is exactly the amount of time needed to get to know people and settle in to a department, so every new rotation feels like a bit of wrench from what has become somewhat familiar! But change can only ever be good…

The PA group is the smallest of the main departments in terms of staff, although its client list seems to be one of the longest. I was exposed to a huge range of accounts, from Anglian Water to the British Virgin Islands, to Sainsbury’s and the Open University. For these accounts I carried out a range of tasks including monitoring governmental committee meetings and the media, compiling stakeholder lists, contacting stakeholders, carrying out desk research and preparing biographies of relevant MPs. I helped out at a couple of events, one of which took place in the Lord Mayor’s Parlour in Westminster City Hall.

Public affairs or lobbying, as it may more commonly be known, involves a huge amount of political intelligence. It seemed to me that the foundation for all the work the PA team does is up-to-date information about what is going on in Westminster – as well as in the parliaments of Berlin, Paris and Brussels. The team are a fount of political knowledge of who is doing what where. What’s interesting is how engaged each member of the team is personally – all are members of a political party and are usually active within them – and are thus stakeholders themselves (partisan politics are however confined to inter-pod repartee and all-group emails!)

I learnt more about politics in 5 weeks than in the last 5 years, and I enjoyed making sure I kept abreast of current affairs. The amount of IP coming ceaselessly from the PA team is remarkable – they produced several items while I was there, such as a report on the Autumn Statement , analysis of the London Mayoral Election and the EU treaty veto, the Edelman Capital Staffers Index and multiple breakdowns of parliamentary meetings, bills and reports (such as the Portas Review). The speed at which these documents are put together is impressive; there is so much going on that much of the skill lies in stripping back the irrelevant information from the essential.

In keeping with tradition, every member of the House of Lords celebrated the festive season by dressing up as Father Christmas

The penultimate week before Christmas was particularly fun-filled for me, as it covered both the all-group Christmas party and the PA trip to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. The Edelman Christmas Party 2011 kicked off at the office with an internal awards ceremony (The “Edelman Honours”) – which included such prestigious accolades as the messiest desk and the worst use of PR jargon (the extent of the latter’s incomprehensibility means I will never be able to repeat it) – then continued onto a night club in Covent Garden where we were treated to food, drinks and circus dancers. This was a great chance for us grads to be able to chat to all the people we’ve met throughout the office and it was lovely to see everyone relaxing in social context. We were greeted with bacon and sausage sandwiches for breakfast the next day, which made the run-up to Christmas all the sweeter. I was off for the PA team afternoon and dinner on the Friday and managed to time my leave nicely taking the final week off.