Best-selling author David Meerman Scott has a new book and a new mantra: “Real Time Marketing and PR”. Down with the New Rules. Up with the Real Time. The book doesn’t come out until November, but it’s already on my “must buy” as is anything this man puts out. His ideas are always winners.

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The other day I got a note from Devon, the Spring intern. She was telling me how her summer and fall were shaping up work-wise and thanking me for the opportunity to work with me and learn on the job. Devon has lined up internships with two PR firms and is on her way. I’m so excited for her. Devon composed a letter for our readers and I wanted to share it with you.

My Internship Experience at Mopwater and MLMG

How much do you really learn when you copy your notes off a powerpoint presentation?  A lot of students sit at their desks, staring at state-of-the-art projectors on the wall, without even attempting to grasp the concepts that their professors are trying to share with them.  There is only so much you can learn from inside a classroom.  Real, hands-on experience is the only way to learn the ropes of the industry and get a head start on your professional career.  This became apparent to me during my first public relations internship.

In the classroom, I had written countless press releases and public relations documents for fictitious companies.  In most cases, just writing the average inverted pyramid style news release was enough.  As a student, it was easy to write a press release without worrying about the outcome.  I mean, who was going to get hurt if I got a B instead of an A on that one assignment?  The company did not exist and therefore they suffered no economic loss or failure due to my inability to sell their product or service.

My internship with Miller Littlejohn Media Group opened my eyes to the real pressures of the industry.  I immediately panicked after I got my first assignment to write a press release for Amanda’s event in January, Twitch!: Public Relations in the Age of Social Media. This was no longer a press release that would be read only by a professor; instead it had to grab the attention of every journalist who glanced at it.  I remember the first draft I wrote was plain to put it nicely.  Amanda met with me after I sent her the first draft to explain the undeniable importance of an “angle”.  “If you want a journalist to read what you have to say, then you better be giving them something that is essential to the lives of their readers,” she told me.

This was just one of the many invaluable lessons I learned while working for Miller Littlejohn Media Group.  Sure, I had been told this in the classroom, but I never saw the consequences.  The business world was no longer an image of my imagination, rather I was part of it and Amanda and her company were depending on me to complete certain tasks and to complete them well.

While working alongside Amanda, I gained knowledge of the skills necessary for the job, as well as how to find and keep a job in public relations.  Most importantly, she taught me the importance of being able to sell “me”.  While selling a product is extremely important, you must first prove that you are a valuable asset to a given company or firm if you want to survive and thrive in the PR industry.

Personally, I never learned these lessons from sitting in a classroom.  The knowledge I have gained from working for a real company is the reason for my current success. I know that my education and my career would not be where they are today if I didn’t have this internship.  I am grateful for the opportunities Amanda gave me and the lessons she passed on.  If I could give any advice to other students out there, it would be to dive in head first and learn the industry from someone who has mastered it.

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Looking for a PR Internship? I am  looking for a few resourceful, mature, hard-working, social media savvy interns in various locales. Email info (at) millerlittlejohnmedia (dot) com for more information.

Sometimes when launching a PR consultancy you’re forced to adopt the strategy of “taking what you can get” in order to make ends meet. Whether you love the project or client, you learn to love it whether you’re passionate about the topic or not. But after a few years of consulting one must ask themselves a critical question:

Does the Work I’m Doing Reflect My  Brand?

I personally asked myself this question, and my own answers required some changes be made. So I recently made the decision to retire a longtime client because the bulk of the work I am paid to do for this client doesn’t match what I want to be known in the industry for. I’d been with this client for over two years and the scope of my services had evolved over that time but due to the nature of the organization, we weren’t able to always tweak the contract to reflect how my suite of services had changed.

As other clients came on board and I launched the Twitch! series, and began doing more speaking engagements, social media trainings, etc. through Mopwater, I began to realize how much of a time drain this client was becoming on my business and creative energy. What if I could focus those hours each month on developing my social media trainings, or planning for events in other cities, or finding other clients who need and want what I offer?

I bounced the idea around to a number of people. Some said don’t throw away a guaranteed retainer that doesn’t require a ton of mental energy or work for the unknown. Others said simply “go for it”.

Free from the obligation of this great relationship that was amazingly nurturing and wonderful, but ultimately inconsistent with my brand, I have been able to focus on what I want the rest of this year to look like for me in terms of my business and clients. I already knew that I would be focusing on expanding my event series, making more time for speaking and writing opportunities and doing social media trainings. However I discovered that I want to spend more time pubbing what I love, so I’ve decided  to focus more on the systematic pursuit of clients in the arts and cultural sectors as well as creative women business owners. This strategy has already yielded two new projects that are absolutely in line with my brand. I am more focused, and excited than ever before.

From What I Can Get to What I Want. Here are the steps:

DEFINE YOUR BRAND. Decide what you want to be known for. Fashion PR, Beauty PR, Small Education, Non-Profit, Business Marketing, etc.

Conduct a BRAND ALIGNMENT AUDIT. What services are you currently offering and to what organizations? Are you doing what you want to be known for or not? How can you get closer to doing more of what you love?

CREATE A TIMELINE to phase out the projects that aren’t in line with your brand and bring on projects that are. This may take one month, three months, six months or even a year.

IMPLEMENT. Just do it.

At the end of the day, in life and in business, there is a finite amount of time. Do you really want to spend your day working on projects that you don’t particularly love? If you are a public relations professional it may be time to make the transition from projects you can get, to projects you want. You totally deserve to love what you do.

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Mopwater PR + Media Notes is proud to be a media sponsor and official blogger for the 2010 Vocus Users Conference in Washington, DC on June 10-11. I’ll be bringing you my take on the sessions and live tweeting under the #vocus hashtag. You can follow me on Twitter at @amandamogul.

If you’re not familiar with the Vocus conference, it’s a pretty big deal and boasts some of the biggest names in the PR 2.0/social media game namely, the man who coined the term and wrote the book (literally) on PR 2.0 Brian Solis and the lady wrote the book that made me fall in love with this facet of online communication, and wrote the foreword to my book-Deirdre Breakenridge. David Meerman Scott is also giving a keynote. Both will be playing big roles in the conference as they did last year.

A couple of the sessions I’ll be attending, covering, tweeting and blogging:

The New Age of Blogging and Twittering (a keynote address by Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz); From PR’s Past to Social Media Power; PR’s Role in the Integrated Marketing Process; and Integrated Marketing Communications: Engaging Audiences Online.

Sound tempting? If you haven’t registered for the conference, there is still time.

The good folks over at the National Black Public Relations Society have invited me to present  their April Web Cafe Webinar, today from 12:30-1:30pm EST. My topic is Essential Social Media for Communicators, and I’ll be talking about the top social media tools you have to be using if you’re in PR.

I only have 4o minutes to talk so I will be talking about my top social media tools for PR and how to get the most out of them. Did I mention the webinar is free?!

Register here.

Here’s the PR for the PR talk, so to speak:

Essential Social Media for Communicators
How to Use Blogs, Facebook, and Twitter for PR

By now you’re using social media tools in your communications matrix, right? If not, you’re missing a tremendous opportunity to leverage popular and inexpensive online tools to get the word out about your cause, gather valuable feedback about your brand’s reputation, and build relationships with media and your target audience. These days, everyone is online, so if you’re not, you will inevitably be left behind.

in this webinar, we will

• outline the basic tools you HAVE to be using for communications, and HOW to use them
• offer valuable case studies of organizations who are using social media effectively for PR
• show you ways to reach out to journalists using social media, and
• give you simple tools for measuring the reach of your social media program

If you’re on listening and on Twitter, use the hashtag #NBPRS

Please leave comments, feedback etc. about the webinar on the Mopwater PR + Media Notes Facebook Page! (And uh, can you become a fan if you aren’t already?!)

You know the feeling. You’re working on a new project and you’re in the zone. Your brain is rapid firing idea after idea; you’re drowning in a deluge of creativity. You’re thinking to yourself, “Wow...this client is doing some amazing work in the community,” or “This campaign is briliant; it’s so cutting-edge, the PR element needs to be over the top…” Especially when you have a new client whom you are trying desperately to impress, it seems that the ideas just keep coming and coming; you’re ready to produce the YouTube video and tie the Twitter campaign to a creative giveaway. PR superhero to the rescue!

Not so fast. Hang your cape back up on its hook.

If you find yourself working on a project and the scope seems to grow in medias res, take the time to solidify the details of your compensation before you continue doing your work. It can be nearly impossible to do for those of us who tend to get inspired and want to just do the good work. But a big part of our jobs as communications professionals, frankly, is communicating these evolving scopes with our clients.  Educating the client on how long things take, what steps are involved and how much things cost is all a part of that communications challenge.

Should you find yourself ready to rush to save the day, keep these things in mind first:

Don’t Squeeze: The same way you wouldn’t try to squeeze size 8 thighs into size 2 jeans, don’t try to fit a 2-Year campaign Into a 6-Month Contract. When you do, you’re setting yourself up for failure. If your client has limited time and goals that would normally exceed the time frame, let them know that in the future they should plan ahead so that everyone has the time to do a great job. And then let them know what in your professional opinion can be successfully achieved in the time they have left. Read the full story

I recently got an e-mail from someone who is moving to the DC Metro area and wants my advice on landing a writing or public relations job here.  The person requested 20 minutes of my time to sit down and chat.  Fittingly, said person attached a resume for my review.

After  I took a look at the resume, I realized that I need to speak to this person about revamping it before we can go any further.  The person has obvious  communications and writing experience, but I only know that because I have held some of the same types of positions mentioned and can read between the lines on this resume.  A general HR manager most likely won’t be as knowledgeable about the nuances in communications job descriptions.  Nor will they be generous enough to spend time reading between the lines.

Before you ask someone to help you out with your job search and connect you to their very valuable professional contacts, make sure you have an outstanding resume for them to distribute on your behalf.  A personal introduction or recommendation can only go so far; once you get your foot in the door, make sure your resume is so dynamic that it gets your butt in the interview seat.  Here’s how.

1. Think “My Resume=My Brochure”. Your resume is your #1 marketing tool.  It tells a complete stranger why they should bother to invite you in to discuss a job opportunity.  Make it  shine!  It can be tough for you freelancers and consultants who might not want to “toot your own horn.” But trust me: this is the time to toot. Use adverbs and adjectives to glowingly describe yourself and your past work. If you’re doing a professional profile at the head of your resume, don’t be  modest. Call yourself what you are: award-winning, proven, strategic and experienced.

2. Give Hiring Managers What They Ask For. If you’re responding to a job listing, please look at the description to find out what the hiring manager is looking for. Even in the communications field I’m surprised by how many people don’t put two and two together on this point.  If  the manager is looking for someone to “handle media relations, respond to inquiries, and pursue proactive media activities,” be sure to list in your experience where you’ve done just that. Include your most successful freelance or consulting projects; projects where you garnered great media hits to show you know a thing or two about media relations.  Show that you’ve not only done this before, but you’re proven. Take it a step further by listing the outlets or programs where you were able to score coverage. Read the full story