For the past few months, I have been interning at Knox Marketing. I primarily work for one client, Wood County Hospital (WCH), but I get to be involved with various of the agency’s other clients. I’m able to sit in on brainstorming sessions between clients and the agency, learn the processes behind a marketing agency and better understand the relationship between client and agency.
Specifically for WCH, I manage all of its social media accounts, newsletter, website and internal news. I was specifically hired to help them with rebranding on social media and its brand-new website. It’s been a fantastic experience, and I have honed skills I never thought I would have, like graphic design. The teams at both Knox Marketing and WCH value my opinion and getting to see so many of my ideas come to life has been rewarding. This internship was also my first one in person, so having the experience of coming to an office and getting to know my fellow employees face-to-face has made me so excited for what’s to come after graduation.
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During my internship at Destination Cleveland, I aided in all earned media efforts as the PR/Communications Intern. From writing press releases and media alerts to tracking media mentions and message inclusion, I touched nearly every aspect of the earned media process. One of the two things I am most proud of is writing a late summer press release that resulted in a media interview and a physical bucket list in the visitors information center. The other is writing a press release about culture in The Land, which took the least amount of time to complete and had the fewest edits.
This internship allowed me to invest time in myself both personally and professionally. I networked with everyone in the office, as well as anyone I met outside of the office. I got to explore Cleveland through the Cleveland Leadership Center, interacting with peers and professionals while learning about civic engagement and development throughout the city and it’s neighborhoods. This internship gave me the chance to see Cleveland as a place to live, work and most importantly, have fun. During my time at Smithers-Oasis, I have learned many pieces of valuable information in the world of Global Corporate Marketing. The first and most important takeaway from this experience is how important it is to work as a cohesive team. This was something that I felt extremely prepared for because Kent State’s PR program is very group project based and hands-on. However, implementing collaboration and teamwork for a legitimate global outcome was an amazing experience in my professional career.
From working internally with the Corporate Marketing Team to extending communication to different global branches, I have worked with many different types of people with diverse backgrounds from various countries. These experiences have allowed me to experience different work styles and helped me become more adaptive to who I am working with. My advice from this takeaway would be to be adaptive and open-minded when communicating and entering a new work environment. In addition to teamwork, learning the specific operations of how a global headquarters operates was extremely interesting and beneficial to my professional development. Working hands-on with the Corporate Marketing Team and assisting with various projects gifted me with many skills I will carry with me into my future career. Some of the most notable projects I worked on this summer included developing the Global Corporate Marketing Newsletter, analyzing the brand guidelines, monitoring social media posts and developing strategies, assisting with the development of a new product/organizing field testing for said product, updating the corporate website, creating other miscellaneous marketing graphics, researching and helping to develop a new sustainability claim and auditing carton designs to ensure they adhere to brand guidelines. Overall, I am extremely grateful for this internship and would advise people to intern in corporate if they wish to have authentic, professional experience. I have worked as a public relations intern at Stow Munroe Falls City Schools since August 2023. My role requires me to serve as a main content producer for the district, using multiple social media tools to tell our story across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I’ve gained hands-on experience using Buffer, a social media management tool, to track our performance and produce analytics informed content. I’ve also tapped into trends and video content to spread our message.
I also lead the creative vision for the SMF monthly newsletter, the SMF Scoop. For this publication, I shine light on exciting education updates throughout the district and design a layout that appeals to a diverse audience. I’ve been lucky to develop my photography skills in this position. I invested in a camera over winter break, and this internship has given me so many opportunities to practice. Recently, Mackenzie Bart from Fox 8 Cleveland came to speak to SMF highschool students and I took pictures to share on social media. This role provides the flexibility for me to develop whatever new skills I want to pursue. The district is looking to pass an operating levy and this has been a fantastic learning opportunity for me. This has increased my community relations skills, requiring me to understand the scope of the issue and the potential challenges it presents. To work on a project that has the potential to bring beautiful, new education facilities for SMF students is such a rewarding process. I cannot wait to see what the rest of my time at Stow-Munroe Falls City Schools brings! Mackenzie Bart: https://www.instagram.com/smfschools/p/C220OWbp5oW/ Video: World Kindness Day: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzmJ5d_t-78/ Video: Football Game Reel: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cw-TUTPMtyw/ Chania Crawford (Kent, Ohio) - Public relations is a field currently dominated by powerful women who own their practices and have made a name for themselves in this industry. While this is a positive for women who had to fight for their rights to be able to hold such prominent positions in the workplace today, we still see a need for racial diversity. According to Data USA, an online comprehensive visualization of U.S. public data, in 2021, 64.2% of public relations professionals were women, and only 35.8% of the workers were men. Out of all the professionals working in 2021, only 8.85% identified as Black or African-American. This poses a major problem in the field: without proper representation of various cultures, how are future aspiring public relations professionals of different cultures supposed to see themselves in the field? As a Black-American woman growing up, I didn’t know much about what a public relations professional did. Like others, I had many misconceptions about what a public relations professional does. Most of my knowledge was from the hit ABC TV show “Scandal.” The TV show is about a Black-American public relations professional, Olivia Pope, and her crisis management firm in Washington, D.C. Pope was previously a media and communications director to the President during his campaign and first years in the White House before she decided to change directions and open up her firm. She was often referred to as a “fixer,” as Pope and her team manipulated and blackmailed their way through crises for their high-profile clients. While the show presents a Black woman in a leadership role, it doesn’t often discuss the issues she faces being a woman of color in an almost all-white space and community. After researching the show's origins, I learned about Judy Smith, the inspiration behind Pope’s character. Smith is a world-renowned Black-American crisis manager, lawyer and author. She is the founder and CEO of Smith & Co, a crisis and strategic communications firm, and has worked with several high-profile clients ranging from politicians to celebrities. Smith also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Press Secretary to President George G.W. Bush in the White House. Smith is well known in media circles for being a “fixer” in a more ethical and truthful way than her character portrayal. Smith majored in Public Relations at Boston University and then went on to attend law school at American University, where she was the first Black woman to serve on the executive board of the Law Review. Influential women like Judy Smith are the reason I decided to major in Public Relations. Seeing her with her own firm with high-profile clients, writing books and being a renowned public relations professional allowed me to feel like I, too, can achieve success and reach new heights while working as a public relations professional. |
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