What is Public Relations Anyway?ー A Peek into a PR Internship

As an MCC major, it’s hard enough to explain what it means to be studying Media, Culture, and Communications (see ‘How to Explain MCC to non-MCC folk’). So, once that’s explained, the next logical question becomes, “Well what can you do with that?”. And the answer is quite a lot actually; we can pursue advertising, marketing, public relations, public policy, editorial, entertainment industry, market research, or the media tech sector, and that’s straight from the MCC official website. That’s part of what makes MCC so great –  there are so many options, and for someone as indecisive as myself that’s exactly what I needed.

That being said, when I decided to study abroad, I also opted to apply to the NYU Academic Internship Program where you’re placed into an internship based on the interests that you provide. When asked about my interests, I essentially listed the entire list of career options above and a few weeks later I was placed at Red Agency, a multi-award-winning PR agency throughout Australia and New Zealand. “Great,” I thought, “...except what exactly is PR?”

A little over two months into my internship, I finally understand what goes on in a public relations agency. I have gained some valuable insight on what to expect if you are interested in PR or have no idea what you want to do and are looking to explore something new.

Tasks of a PR Agency:

• Promote clients (brands enlisting their help) to create and maintain a positive brand image thus encourage the purchase of their product(s)/service(s).

  • How?

  • Write press releases to be sent or “pitched” to major media outlets (journalists, producers, editors, etc.) which are hopefully enticing enough to encourage the outlets to write and publish stories about the brand

  • Organize events with either the public, media influencers, or both, designed to promote the brand (luncheons, social outings, trips, etc.)

  • Complete competitor audits to see what is either successful or could be done better or differently for the brands they represent

  • Create thoughtful campaigns to get people talking about a brand (think #shareacoke)

  • Create strategies to gain new customers and maintain loyal ones (eg. giveaways, contests, real-life brand ambassadors)

  • Whatever other means necessary to get a brand name out and keep it there, looking sparkly!

What to Expect from a PR internship:

• Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, and more spreadsheets

  • So much of public relations is creating and maintaining media lists, which contain contact information for journalists, producers at news outlets, influencers, etc., who might be interested in telling your stories or participating in your events to promote your clients. For every client and campaign that a PR agency has, a media list is created of key people to be pitched to, who would potentially be interested in getting your story or the brand name out there. These lists done on Excel or Google sheets (in my experience), include the name, outlet, title, phone number, email address, and any other key information about each person. Often times, it is up to the interns to either a) find this information or b) make sure that the information is up to date, as the industry is constantly moving around.

  • Another part of PR is coverage reports, which tracks the progress of media stories that have been published about clients to see when they were published, how many hits they’ve received, how many outlets have published it, etc. and all of this information is also logged into a good ‘ole spreadsheet.

• Social media “stalking”

  • Okay so when I say stalking I don’t exactly mean the same type as looking for the girl you had first period art with freshman year of highschool, but another part of PR that has to do with curating the media lists that I mentioned above, is finding the information to populate the spreadsheets. There are some databases that exist that have the information of people working in the industry (journalist, editors, producers). However, as with any other databases, sometimes the information that you need just isn’t there but that doesn’t mean you stop looking. If an idea is to have a bunch of instagram influencers at a luncheon hosted by a brand, someone has to first find which influencers will be invited (along w/ follower counts across their several platforms) and then find their management or contact information. I have spent mornings looking for fitness bloggers and influencers within the area and their contact information, or searching for pictures of a company executive based on just their name for a cheat-sheet for an event, and trust me, sometimes your ultimate insta-stalking skills will have to be put to use.

• Writing

  • Probably the biggest part of PR is writing because it is a constant cycle of pitching ideas to both potential and current clients,  journalists, and other influential voices in media. Press releases are written that are hopefully both interesting and informative enough to get people to want to talk about you (or the brands that you represent). Where I work, pitches and press releases are saved for the more experienced staff, but good writing skills are a must, so they have writing exercises for interns to turn in to make sure that we are getting experience with the type of writing necessary for PR. Writing is also important for reports written to clients that sum up campaign strategies, timelines, outcomes, goals or anything else that needs to be communicated.

• Research

  • Finally, research is a major part of a successful PR company. Research is important to see what strategies brand competitors are up to (eg. how do they implement Instagram stories better than us?). It is also useful for coming up with campaigns or ideas in general. If you are doing a campaign for a car company, maybe you want to find trends of how many people use their cars to get to work, or how many cars of a certain price range are sold within a year. Research trends are really important for understanding how to market things to consumers and to find out what people like. Anything from articles, to academic journals or research papers may be required to get this sort of information.

Overall, PR is a mixed bag, but it can be a lot of fun and incredibly fulfilling when you see the efforts that you’ve made have paid off. Sometimes you’ll be asked to stalk dogs on Instagram, and other days you’ll be logging spreadsheets for what seems like the rest of time, but it is all very necessary work for the success of the company. I hope this article clarified what PR is and has encouraged someone to either give it a try (or stay as far away as possible). Either way, at least now you have an idea of what you’re getting into beforehand!