We need to get rid of Integrated PR!

Now that I have your attention, let me explain this.

An 'integrated PR campaign' according to the CIPR is 'a campaign which demonstrates the integrated use of communications, including marketing and advertising, which is led by public relations in order to achieve its objectives'. Ok, fair enough so far. An integrated campaign consists of PR, Marketing and Advertising strategies. Brilliant! The point that is being missed here that this is reality already. The name 'integrated' is simply outdated.

The lines are blurring. What about the PESO model? Paid, earned, shared and owned media. Who is responsible for that? Marketing because of the paid part? PR because of the earned part? See where I'm going with this?

Source: www.PRweek.com

Plus, have you tried to find a job as PR Manager/Executive? Yep, it's difficult. Many job offers are called 'PR & Marketing Manager/Executive'. Now what? You don't apply to jobs that have marketing in it if you're a PR pro? Of course you do because the responsibilities are not that different!

Source: www.online-income.xyz

I am also currently working on a project with my former lecturer to analyse how the careers in Marketing, PR, Advertising and Journalism (yes!) are converging. We are building a database with all Solent alumni in the respective jobs from the last years. We then check which responsibilities (PR, Marketing etc.) these jobs contain. 

In the past I noticed that often PR and Marketing acted as opponents because the responsibilities were not clear. Many Marketing people want to see PR as a part of Marketing while PR wants to be independent from all this.

We have to stop this and start working together to achieve our best results for our clients and companies. This doesn't work as long as we have separate PR-, Marketing- and Advertising-departments. The solutions are 'integrated' courses at university (such as the 'new' PR Masters at Solent University which as of 2016 will be known as Master of 'PR and Multimedia Communications'). Integrated PR & Marketing Agencies will be the future.

Read more here.

PS. PR rocks! ;)

The Social Generation Gap aka. Do we need Social Media Education?

So the other day I met a fellow PR Girl I know from uni. As you would, we were discussing PR in general and quickly came to the topic of Social Media, in particular the Social Media usage of different generations.

As we're both way beyond our early twenties, we didn't grow up with Social Media. We were introduced to it in our late teenager years. I have to admit, we were both quite happy that we didn't have access to Facebook, Instagram & Co. back then to document our teenage drinking sprees and fashion mistakes. It is clear that we use social networks quite differently than young people nowadays do.

We both agreed that social media tends to make us narcissistic and, of course, we tend to share the super-polished version of us. Our holiday photos? Beautiful beaches and sunsets. No sign of cockroaches or dirty hotel rooms. Our latest updates that we found that awesome job. No mention of the dozens of applications we had to send out to get it.

This can lead to increasing insecurities and even depression with those who haven't quite understood that Facebook profiles do not depict the real life ('How can she afford to travel so much?' 'Why don't I have this perfect relationship?' etc.). This is not meant to sound derogatory; it is indeed difficult to see through all the 'perfect' profiles.

Source: 9gag

The discussion led us to the question whether we need more social media education. With social media being everywhere today, do we need to teach the right usage at school? This way younger people could learn how to deal with privacy and oversharing issues and maybe come to terms with their 'offline personality'.

Source: Pinterest

What's your opinion about this? Am I being old-fashioned?

FriedaGoesDotcom aka. How to boost your employability

I am a .com! 

You can find me now on www.FriedaGoesPR.com!

Source: www.reactiongifs.com

However, I am well aware that this is probably not worth a whole blog post, so I am also writing about how you can boost your employability.

I have always been quite lucky when it comes to getting jobs. The fact that, after six months after graduation, I am still not employed is due to some serious travelling (check out my previous post about what you can learn from travelling) and...well, that's a long story. 

So what can you do to find a job? I have to say that I love working in this industry because you can be so creative with your job application!

Corporate Identity

First things first. If you want to incorporate several ways of applying, you should think about a corporate identity first. Do you have a favourite colour/shape or are you even knowledgable enough to create your own logo? Perfect! If not, it's a perfect excuse to gain new skills!

Business Cards

During my Masters programme, I took the opportunity to go to different networking or other PR events and generously handed out my business cards. Everyone I talked to was - positively - surprised that I, as a student, had business cards.
You don't have to be an Illustrator or InDesign Pro to create a good business card (although it does help). I designed my own business card on VistaPrint with a design template.

Résumé

For one of our assignments at uni we had to create a professional profile. I really enjoyed this and in the process produced a résumé in form of a small brochure. Another benefit of doing this was that I taught myself (and also got taught by my skilled friend Susanna) how to use Adobe InDesign. Again, I handed out the brochure to a couple of people I met at an event (particularly to that one PR Agency director I admire) and, guess what, they liked it!

Front Page of my brochure

Homepage

This is my latest clue. I thought that nowadays people (who consider hiring you) want to have quick access to all information about you. What's easier than a homepage? So I spent the last week to create one. Although you can use helpful tools (I used wix.com), it turned out to be more complicated than I thought it would be; especially from the content and the SEO perspective. Well, I am still figuring out how SEO and SEM works. The plus side of this is I get to learn new skills.

Landing page of www.FriedaGoesPR.com

So all this stuff will hopefully help me to get a job. How do you like my new homepage? Do you have other creative ways to apply for a job? Let me know!

Some time off aka. What you can learn from travelling

You might have noticed that this blog has been awfully quiet lately. After I handed in my Masters Thesis in autumn I just needed some time off, away from everything. That's why I spent a couple of weeks in Australia (which is pretty far away from everything else).

My latest love: Sydney

Many people say that you mustn't have 'gaps' in your CV, that you have to have an proper, structural Curriculum Vitae. This suggests that you better start working right after you finish your degree or your previous job.

Let me tell you something: Life doesn't consist of consecutive jobs or your career. And just because you didn't work doesn't mean you didn't learn or weren't productive. This is why I want to give you a couple of examples about what you can learn from backpacking.

1. Flexibility

Something doesn't turn out like you expected? You can cry over it or you can work around it! During the MA programme Catherine didn't get tired of telling us to have a Plan B for everything, but sitting in a sh***y hostel in Rainbow Beach and realising that the trip to Uluru will be much more expensive than expected will make you want to challenge this contingency planning. After all, there's just one Uluru in Australia! Anyways, too expensive is too expensive, so let it go and familiarise yourself with the thought of scubadiving at the Great Barrier Reef instead (as if this was that bad...). Uluru will still be there at your next trip.

2. Work with what you have

As a backpacker, you usually travel wallet-friendly. That means you don't want to chuck away that lovely Spagetthi Bolognese you just made just because you're leaving town the next day (and of course, you don't have a nice Tupperware to store it in). There's where you have to get creative. See our solution here:

Not only did we get into a long conversation with some lovely people, you can also apply this idea to your professional life.

3. Humility

This especially applies if you travel to poorer countries such as in South-East-Asia. When she got back from South America, my sister told me that she was 'disgusted' by all this consumerism. You realise that you probably don't need these 20th blue jeans when in other countries people are dressed in rags and would be over the moon if they had ONE pair of trousers.

Although Australia is a developed country (where the people are probably richer than me), you do  realise that, in fact, it is not that much you really need to be happy (for me, it was but a couple of clothes and my cameras).

So think of the less unfortunate and be happy that you were lucky enough to be born in a rich country.

4. Tolerance

To be precise: being around other cultures or nationalities (hopefully) makes you more tolerant. I've spent 1.5 years in England and learned to be patient at the supermarket cashier (because you're just not as fast as we are). In another culture, you have to adapt, everything else will make you unhappy. Imagine standing at a zebra crossing in Thailand and being mad that people won't stop.


So these are my top 4 take-aways from travelling (apart from about 2500 photos and 20 hours film). How does travelling change you? Let me know in the comments!