Posts Tagged ‘Digital’

Kaitlin
Doody

How to Land a PR Internship (and Take Advantage Once You Do)

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Spectrum’s new crop of interns starts today! (Can you tell how excited us junior level staff are?!)

Summer 2011 interns present their final project to staff

This time of year reminds me of when I first started working at Spectrum as an intern in the spring of my senior year in college. In some ways, I feel like I was more buttoned up with my PR know-how then. I had mastered Grunig and Hunt’s four models of public relations and I could outline an RPIE approach to a campaign in no time. However, after being out in the “real world” for a few years now, I know that PR cannot be so easily defined or broken down into four simple models, and I’ve seen that there’s never as much time as we’d like to R (research), P (plan) and E (evaluate) – which is unfortunate, really.

Securing a PR internship and capitalizing on the opportunity is one of the most important things PR students need to do to land a job after college.  It’s the time when you begin to learn those invaluable out-of-the-classroom lessons. Below is a list of ways for students to distinguish themselves from other internship candidates and leave an impression (a good one, that is):

 

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Kelly
Barrett

Five Common Sense Tips for Pitching Bloggers

Monday, October 24th, 2011

For a blogger-turned-PR-professional, there is really no feeling quite so sad (and comical), as receiving a seriously awful pitch email. You know ‘em when you see ‘em. They sometimes start out with “I found your blog, [insert full URL of blog] and truly enjoyed reading [insert arbitrary post], as well as [insert other arbitrary post].” They then go on to talk about an “opportunity” for you to cover something that’s really not vaguely connected to either of the two posts that they called out. I used to blog about cooking and sustainable agriculture, and once got a pitch about organic carpeting. That sort of thing.

I’m not saying that pitching a blogger is easy. It’s an art, and it’s foreign to many of today’s PR professionals rooted in more traditional outreach. As evidence of this challenge, we’ve been seeing all sorts of PR blogger pitching flubs arising in the news lately. And they go beyond just the run-of-the-mill boring pitch. Some of my personal favorite headlines include:

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Anthony
LaFauce

Digital Pharma East 2011 Day One

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

A big thank you is in order to my employer, Spectrum, as I attend Digital Pharma East this week. Day one kicked off with a great session lead by Takeda Pharmaceuticals Chad Ballentine who spoke about how to use a patient focused, multi-channel, customer relationship management (CRM) to really capitalize on your database to assure you are getting the right information to the right people…and of course increase sales.

Chad had a ton of good points but I was blown away by his simple, and spot on, key points on how to get the best value out of your CRM.

  1. Use digital [technology] to grow your database
  2. Use your database: Chad said that nearly 60 percent of marketers don’t actually use their DB
  3. Minimze duplication: With budgets scalling down, efficiency is key. If you have a high conversion touch point, make sure to increase your efforts toward that touch point and scale back those that don’t work well

Social Media & Pharma…it’s out there

As I sit here and type, drinking my coffee, Todd Kolm from Pfizer is on the stage talking about some of the great tools Pfizer is using to engage customers. Pfizer is taking to social media and positioning YouTube as an educational tool for consumers by using a blend of paid ads and search ads which link to channels with custom play lists.

As a lover of PR/Digital media I am constantly getting hit with, “oh Pharma doesn’t really do social” or “we don’t want to deal with the legal issues.” I am surrounded by around 700 people who see things differently. I am energized by hearing not what we COULD do but hearing about what we ARE doing.

Anyone else out there excited about this?

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Ricki
McCarroll

Blogging, Post-Its and Crayola Markers

Monday, August 29th, 2011

Last Friday, the Spectrum Digital Strategy team held a staff-wide workshop on the ins-and-outs of blogging. The workshop was low-tech, so to speak, with the use of HUGE Post-It notes as idea boards instead of a PowerPoint, which are now wallpapering my office.

So, how did we get the conversation rolling? The SDS team kicked off the interactive discussion with three questions:

  1. How do you get inspired to write a blog?
  2. What blogs do you read to get your information?
  3. What elements make a blog post absolutely genius?

Armed with Crayola marker pens, Spectrum staff then listed their answers with concerns, thoughts and tips to share on oversized Post-It notes around the room.

Here’s a little of what we came up with:

  • Use bulleted lists for the reader on the go (noticing a trend?)
  • Write on topics easily relatable to your audience
  • Take advantage of attending an event to gain inspiration and substance for a post
  • READ! READ! READ! Hit your Google Reader/Twitter feed to keep on the up-and-up…Here are a few Google Reader bundles to get you started:
  • Use hyperlinks/photos/videos to make your post interesting AND interactive
  • Be personable! Don’t be afraid to use pronouns
  • But what was the numero uno on the list? Writers block.

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Kelly
Barrett

BDI’s Social Communications & Healthcare 2011: Empowering employees to ‘play’ with social media

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Last Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending the Business Development Institute’s Social Communications & Healthcare conference in New York City. It was the third year that BDI has put on the conference but one of the first times the event has included such robust case studies from industry leaders.

It is unfortunate that in pharma, we really don’t have many social media case studies to look at, yet. And this isn’t just because social media is new, because really, it’s not that new anymore (and what’s new today is old tomorrow). The problem lies more in the fact that so many companies and agencies are doing innovative stuff that they aren’t yet allowed to disclose. Here at Spectrum, a number of our progressive social media-related initiatives are highly sensitive and stay confidential. However, in the meantime, it’s inspiring to see all the ways people are finding to best socially communicate.

BDI Wrap Up from Zemoga on Vimeo.

(Pixels & Pills covered the event and they provide a ton of great video interviews that you should check out. And New Millenium Research & Consulting has photos up on their Facebook.)

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Kaitlin
Doody

IHSMS: The right formula for successful healthcare communications

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

The evolution of Health 2.0 in our data-driven world calls for a shift in the way health organizations locate and communicate with their target audiences. While health challenges abound in local communities and on a global scale, so does the potential within the communication tools and technology that we hold.

Spectrum’s team of health communicators from across the globe will converge in Washington, D.C. on May 18th from 9-10:30 a.m. ET to present data and reveal insight from a global listening program. The listening program was conducted in 11 countries to assess the impact and conversation around malaria. During tomorrow’s event, the International Healthcare Social Media Summit team will discuss the implications for the data found, as well as offer insight into strategies for using digital tools to benefit national and international healthcare organizations today. For more information about the summit and to register, please visit the event page. You can also view live-streaming of the summit or follow the conversation on Twitter: #ihsms.

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