PR, Marketing and Work-Life-Balance
Hi! My name is Claudia Leung and I recently graduated from the University of Manchester where I studied International Business, Finance and Economics. Although I have always known that I wanted a career in marketing, I’ve always been intrigued by public relations, hence I thought, where better than to learn about this industry then at Edelman, the largest PR agency in the world.
My position at Edelman is within the corporate practice involved in two teams – the internal marketing team and the business + social purpose. The tasks assigned included drafting press releases, creating pro-bono client event invitations, posters, packages and event proposals which I will be assisting in organizing at a later date. I have also experienced contacting media, updating media lists and reaching out to third party vendors. There are several upcoming activities that I will need to help and planning for a client’s event.
Social Media Content Calendar
As for my marketing role, I am given the responsibility of ensuring that Edelman’s social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and the intern blog are updated daily. With this task, I learnt how to create a social media content calendar. I understand the significance of why we have to prepare for a content calendar and here are a few points to share.
1. It can help us to motivate our audience and what interest them so as to make a connection to our brand.
2. It made the flow of content on social media platforms consistent so that we can maximize engagement.
3. It can highlight any gaps therefore, we could plan ahead of time to think of ideas to publish.
4. It can map time-sensitive content ahead of time and allows flexibility to any real-time activities to slip in.
My daily tasks involve exploring multiple global Edelman channels for interesting announcements, insights, blog posts or news concerning the PR & marketing industry. I also look through multiple Twitter accounts to stay up to date among Edelman offices around the globe – constantly updating the calendar content for the latest news/activities.
With this research, I prepare a weekly calendar of which I have to update daily in case new content arises. From the content calendar, I have to prepare a caption for what we publish and always keeping it in mind that we must understand our stakeholders and connect the content to them and their interests. The benefit of doing this is that it increases the awareness of the Edelman brand in Hong Kong and beyond.
I can honestly say that at Edelman, they definitely believe in giving responsibilities to their interns, treating them like full-time employees, which really makes this whole experience both worthwhile and rewarding. To help marketing the Edelman brand further is also a great achievement from my work.
On top of the responsibilities that Edelman gives their interns, they really advocate a positive training culture and invest in their interns by taking the time to train them. During my time at the agency so far, I have experienced several training sessions and also two sessions on time management skills which is led by our regional director of employee engagement, Shirley Dirkin. What these sessions taught me were how to prioritize, multi-task, schedule realistically and manage expectations. Shirley introduced us to the time management quadrant and I found the quadrant very useful because it presented my deadlines in a more visual and organized manor. This has helped me perfectly when planning for the social media content calendar.
Shirley gave us great advice on how to live a more balanced life and reducing the amount of pressure we add with work. She also asked us discuss what aspects of our life we thought we didn’t have enough of, for e.g. spending time with family or going to the gym.
Time management training by Shirley Dirkin.
Learning from Shirely, I found the time management skills are essential. This week is “Work Life Balance Week (26-30 Oct)” which provides a platform for organisations to demonstrate their commitment to work-life balance and raises awareness.
At Edelman, as the balance between work and play is deeply imbedded in the company culture. We have planned to have our annual Halloween party with lots of kids invited to celebrate together, dressing in costumes and plenty of candies as ‘treat’. I can’t wait to experience this when the whole office will be transformed to different theme by each team and piñata, haunted house and scary faces.
Photo from 2014 Halloween party
As part of the work life balance initiative, all employees are “free @ 3” on the last Friday of October and we can leave work early! Stay tuned on our social media platforms, we will share more.
Finally, I am very excited for the remainder of my internship as next week I have the second chance to speak at a university for a talk about PR industry and introducing Edelman, another way to market our brand further. I will be presenting on how to kick-start your career in this industry and my experiences as an intern at the top PR agency in the world.
Talking at Chinese University recently about PR & Edelman.