Engaging Our Summer Intern

This summer, we've decided once again to engage an intern to assist us with some of our many client projects. It's a win-win, with an extra brain and another energetic presence added to the Campbell mix, while we offer meaty projects for a college student to gain experience in his or her field.

This summer, it's her field, with Jessica joining us from Oregon State University where she has been studying communications and Spanish. Jessica is eager to learn the PR and social media ropes, so we've designed a calendar of projects that will expose her to all that we do. She'll post calendar announcements online for our neighborhood, tourism and brewery clients and develop tweets and Facebook posts to support their events. She'll brainstorm creative ways to engage the media in causes near and dear to our clients' (and our!) hearts. She'll draft press releases which we'll edit as part of her learning process. And she'll sit in as we media train clients we're preparing for on-camera interviews with TV media. A lot to tackle in one short summer, but Jessica is clearly up for the task!

And, with Jessica in the thick of her communications studies at OSU, we're sure to be learning from her as well. After all, it's her generation who uses social media most prolifically, and she's taking classes that teach the very latest nuts, bolts and nuances of this rapidly changing part of the communications field.

It's going to be a great summer. Welcome, Jessica!

Delivering Short, Powerful Answers

One of the best parts of our job at Campbell Consulting is when we get the news that a reporter wants to tell our client’s story. But sometimes, landing that feature spread is just half of the work: what clients say and how they say it can really make or break an interview. Here are a couple of tips we tell our clients to follow when talking to the press:

Tip #1: What You Say (HINT: Keep it Short and Sweet)

One of the biggest problems I encountered back in my reporting days was interviewees that knew too much about what they were talking about…and wanted to share it ALL with me! As a general rule of thumb, at least in broadcasting, most sound-bites will only run between 5 and 15 seconds long. Reading a newspaper, you’ll rarely see quotes longer than a couple of sentences.

If you don’t keep it short, you may get cut off, or worse, not get your entire message across.

Here’s a link to an article written by former journalist and now PR Pro Brad Phillips, with a very useful exercise to help deliver short, yet powerful answers to any media question:

http://www.mrmediatraining.com/index.php/2012/05/03/an-easy-tip-to-help-you-deliver-short-powerful-answers/

Tip #2: How You Say It

When being interviewed, you want yourself and the services or products you’re selling to be relatable to the reporter’s audience. This can be achieved with colorizing your statements.  Use specific, colorful details and examples to bring your story alive and make it relevant to each particular audience.  Don’t be too general or sound too “official."  One trick I learned back in my TV days was to write the story like you’re telling it to your mother.

For example, I interviewed countless cops as a TV reporter, but most of my interviews sounded the same: “The suspect fled on foot but was apprehended at 0-900 hours.” This would make a much better sound bite: “The suspect ran away but our officers caught up and arrested him at 9am.”

If you come across as enthusiastic during your interview, you’ll grab people’s attention, and they’ll listen.

Campbell PR Is Looking For A Summer Intern!

Campbell Consulting Public Relations (http://www.campbellconsulting.com) located in beautiful Bend, Oregon is looking for a confident intern ready to tackle the PR world.

This is an exceptional opportunity suitable for rising stars. Forget making coffee runs! With Campbell PR, you’ll be gaining the real world PR experience necessary to landing a position post-graduation! Candidates with previous internships or volunteer positions related to PR/marketing are strongly preferred. 

This is an unpaid, part-time, three-month internship beginning in June and spanning through August 2012. Because we realize you also have to make a living, we are flexible in determining the hours and days you’ll work.  

Below are the responsibilities and qualifications we’re looking for.  If you think you’re up for the job please send a brief resume and cover letter in response to this post (please, no follow up calls). Also, because this is a creative industry, feel free to include any of your writing samples including past press releases or pitches you’ve put together. We love people who think outside the box!

Thanks for your interest, we'll be in touch!

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Primary Intern Responsibilities May Include: 
o Building and managing media contact databases
o Conducting client and industry research 
o Tracking and reporting client media coverage 
o Drafting press materials
o Conducting industry and trend research
o Assisting with social media accounts
o Participating in creative brainstorms and strategy sessions

Qualified Candidates Should Have:
o Strong grasp of the PR industry and equally strong desire to continue on a PR career path
o Base level communications knowledge; candidates majoring in PR, Marketing, or Communications are strongly preferred 
o College experience; upper lever students or graduates preferred 
o Strong writing skills 
o Creative thinking skills 
o Willingness to ask questions and suggest alternatives when you have ideas to share 
o Desire to contribute to a team environment 
o Upbeat attitude 
o Ability to multi-task 
o Knack for paying attention to the little details, while not overlooking the big ones 
o Ability to think on your feet 
o Proficient in all Microsoft Office applications - Word, Outlook, Excel and Power Point 
o Laser-sharp research skills 

TEDx Take-Aways

 

Two days into a busy post-TEDx Bend week, and I'm still feeling the positive effects of Bend's first TEDx event.

My key take-aways are:

1. It's never too late to realize a dream. The NAACP's first female chairwoman, Myrlie Evers Williams, gave a moving speech about breaking barriers and seizing opportunities. Certainly that qualifies as realizing her dreams. But then she was paid a surprise visit by Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini. He's helping her make a childhood dream of performing her music at Carnegie Hall come true. And man, can that guy rock a piano!

2. If you show up with passion, others will respond. Mosley Wotta did just that. He got a relaxed and settled weekend crowd of conference-goers to actually raise fists and sing. Loved that.

3. Little efforts make a big difference. Malerie Pratt, fresh out of high school, went to Zambia and instead of staying safe and cloistered behind security walls, stepped out and got involved with local orphans. Her courage alongside her belief that the problem was not too overwhelming to tackle, have contributed to her forming an orphanage and truly changing children's lives. 

And that was just a snippet from the first half of the program! 

What did you learn at TEDx?

When you look at what’s made news in Central Oregon over the past decade, some rather bizarre headlines come to mind: a pregnant man, another guy who tied a lawn chair to balloons and flew from Bend to Idaho, and what about when doctors discovered a Redmond woman had been living with a 140 pound tumor, after she’d been told to “put down the fork”? Her story made it all the way to Oprah. The others made rounds on Jay Leno, ABC’s 20/20 and Good Morning America. But before the national media firestorm hit, our own Amy Sharman, PR Specialist on the Campbell team, brought those stories to Central Oregonians in her former life as a news reporter for KTVZ.

Amy says that selling the twisted tales didn’t make much effort; the scripts practically wrote themselves. Amy says, “These stories stood out because they didn’t need words to get their message across. It’s pretty hard to beat video of a man lifting off with nothing more than a lawn chair and giant balloons. As a reporter, I saw several examples of stories not given the air-time they deserved, or disregarded altogether because they didn’t have the visuals to match.”

Unfortunately most reporters, TV and print, are underpaid and overworked, often lacking sufficient time to let their ‘creative juices’ flow.  So when I came across the article, Reporters Want More Than Story Ideas, I knew I had to share it, because every single tip is so true, and should help reporters tell your story to more people!
http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/7d8c3ab3-015c-4b29-a194-2ae0179d5d29.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

In addition to the tips listed in the link above, here’s one more: depending on the story you’re pitching to TV, still pictures can be substituted for video. Using simple editing software, a reporter (or their editor) can create a slide show from photos you email them. However, if you go this route you’ll need to provide high resolution photos, and tons of them. A common rule is that unless history is unfolding in front of you, you generally don’t want to stay on any shot longer than 4 seconds. I’ll let you do the math on figuring out how many photos you’ll need for a 90 second piece. And make sure the photos are a variation of close-ups and wide shots.