Hi Everyone!
I conducted an interview with a Public Relation’s Professional to increase my knowledge about the real world of Public Relations. The PR Professional I chose to interview was Allie Burrow. Allie graduated from Georgia Southern with a degree in Public Relations. Allie is currently a Marketing Coordinator at Parkmobile USA, Inc.
A typical week for Allie involves a regular schedule of arriving to work by 8 a.m. Once Allie gets to work the first thing she usually does is check her Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn. She replies to all social Media and updates what Parkmobile is doing for that day or for the upcoming weeks. Allie also checks the City Bid lists (the city sends a bid out for parking services, meters or anything to do with parking.) Allie gets the City Bid List emails and fills out forms to be recognized for those bids.
Parkmobile has a lot of conferences coming up. Allie’s job includes booking the conferences and trade shows. Since she is registered as a Parkmobile member, she can book the hotel rooms, schedule booth pickups and get all press materials ready. For this specific week, Allie is writing four press releases. The press releases are for different cities that her company is being launching in. Allie also coordinates radio remotes for Parkmobile Albuquerque launch that will be in April. Allie will be in charge of booking tables to promote Parkmobile in their current cities/Universities and getting ready to announce the company’s Mobile App on iTunes!!! Overall, Allie’s week entails working with a lot of social media and making sure that her company is ready with PR materials and press kits for all of their upcoming launches and conferences.
Allie is especially proud of figuring out how to write in html to insert Static FBML on facebook. To keep current in the PR industry Allie lives, eats, and breaths Twitter and Facebook. Allie said that without those two tools she would not even have a job. She also claimed to be extremely active on PRSA’s website. She follows all of PR’s major people including Barbara Nixon, Scott Monty and other influential PR pros.
Allie was surprised by how broad the field of Public Relations! Allie said that it is not all “Samantha from Sex in the City” and that you have to do a lot of behind the scenes work! Allie also wishes that she would have known just how much she would be writing and using Twitter and Facebook. Allie believes that writing is important part of her career, but not as important as being able to use current social media.
Allie’s three tips for future PR Professionals would be to stay connected, due as many internships as you financially/physically/mentally can, and know how to write in AP Style.
After interviewing Allie, I am more likely to want to have a career in Public Relations. Allie seemed excited and passionate about her job. Allie expressed that she enjoyed her field of work, and really takes pleasure in working for her company. Allie likes PR because it is different than having an ordinary job. Allie says that PR allows you to be creative and think outside the box and that it’s never the same thing every day. This made me realize that I would love to have a career in Public Relations.
In my Senior Seminar class we watched the movie Hancock. It was a good movie, and I had not seen it until that day in class. The movie was pretty good. It was a story about a troubled super hero. The star superhero uses a PR Professional (Actor Jason Bateman) to help improve his image and become accepted in society.
