NNR is Back in Full Swing

UNC Charlotte’s NinerNation Relations is proud to say we are well underway into our second semester of our student-run PR firm. This project began in May of 2014 and was spearheaded by Dr. Alan Freitag, APR, PRSA Fellow and also by UNCC Alumn Katherine Faulk.

We begin this new semester with a new CEO, Kathleen Duckworth and a new faculty advisor, Stephen Ward. Included in the team are nine additional team members: Seniors, Sarah Cain and Natalia Schiappacasse are Account Managers. Each Account Manager works directly with Account Coordinators Chloe Watson, Natalie McNeil, Jade Hudson, Wyatt Goodwin, Cady Ray, Dominique Yost and Samantha Kirby. The firm is split into two teams for the current projects we are working on which are for the University Research Conference and University City Partners.The team is excited to continue the fantastic work of the previous team and is hopeful in setting new goals for the future of the firm.

You can reach the team at ninernationrelations@gmail.com and someone will get back to you within 24 hours. If you have any questions about the services offered by the NinerNation Relations or would like to request a proposal, please send us an email or contact us through the “Contact NNR” page on this blog.

We cannot wait to begin working with you!

– Kathleen Duckworth, CEO

Kathleen Duckworth, Spring 2015 CEO

Kathleen Duckworth is the current CEO of NinerNation Relations and a previous account coordinator for the firm last year. This semester she has an internship with the Charlotte Museum of History as the Marketing and PR intern. Previous public relations experience includes public relations chair for her sorority and social media representative for Rent The Runway. Her skills include event planning, social media management and community outreach. 

My Experience at NinerNation Relations

I have always been a fan of joining a start-up, business, program, or organization. It has always been somewhat of a challenge for me to push myself to be as creative as I can. There is a huge difference in continuing on, what someone has already thought up and started, than starting something from the ground up. When I first received the Facebook message letting everyone know that there would be a student ran PR firm this year, I was elated. Now, although I am a PR major, I don’t necessarily have a passion for the field but I am very interested, as I stated earlier, in helping with a start-up. After submitting all the necessary documentation to be selected for the firm, I was finally selected and was ready to begin with a new project.

On our first meeting none of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into, I don’t think that any of us were looking forward to the amount of work it takes when working with a start-up. This semester NinerNation Relations had two main clients; ourselves, and the Undergraduate Research Conference. I was chosen to work with the Undergraduate Research Conference. At first I thought to myself, “Yes, an event this is my expertise,” seeing that I want to work in event planning upon graduation. Although excited, reality soon set in. The Undergraduate Research Conference isn’t like any other event that I have planned before, the event to say the least has a very strict background that doesn’t cause for a lot of wiggle room for new creative ideas. The goal of my group, (those who were also working on the Research Conference), was to find new marketing strategies to make this event fresh and exciting as far as promotion, the URC wanted to have the same guidelines to the conference but they wanted to spice it up a bit. It was our job to do that for them I had several different tasks that involved extensive research on different marketing strategies to make a rather “boring” event exciting and fun. Within the research I conducted I found several fresh ideas that will be implemented next semester as we grow closer to the actual event.

My time in the NinerNation Relations student ran PR firm was educational and at the same time gave me some real world experience on what clients will want in the actual PR sector. I am still a huge events planning fan, but I must say that this firm shed a new light on what PR actually is and the things that I would actually be doing if I were to pursue a career in PR. Outside of actual work I thought the idea of having blog posts and workshops once a month was a good idea as well. I’m not really a strong writer but I do enjoy a challenge so writing blogs was new and very interesting for me. I know that there will be great things to come of this class in the future and many will learn as much as I have if not more. Fall 2014 set the bar, it is now up to the semesters to come to hit the bar and knock it over. Go NinerNation Relations!

Post by Megan Patterson, 2014 Account Coordinator
Megan Patterson is a senior at UNC Charlotte graduating in December. She plans to venture off into the event planning field after graduation.

An Ode to Event Planning

Have you ever tried to plan an event and it seems like everything always goes wrong; some item doesn’t arrive on time, or the music is off, maybe even the decorations clash with the theme of the event or are just plain tacky? Well there are people out there who can help. Many people believe that event planning is easy and anyone can do it. As an event planner with almost 10 years’ experience, I can tell you now that that train of thought is completely wrong. There is nothing easy about being creative while at the same time completing ridiculous request from your client while all the while trying to make your vision and the client’s vision one. This blog post is titled, “An ode to Event Planning” because, as an event planner I don’t believe that we get as much recognition within the Public Relations sector as we should.

PRSA International Conference in 2014

When you hear the words event planner most people think of weddings, birthday parties, and concerts. But there are so many more types of events that we plan within a day. I have planned everything from team building programs for organizations to corporate events and conferences. Many PR firms and other companies utilize event planners to complete the events and programs that they don’t have time to deal with. Most companies don’t have event planners on the pay role to help them with each event that they need to put on for the public or in-house. What many people do not know is that many PR firms and agencies actually have event planners on their staff to help with each client’s needs. Just because someone is an expert at putting together a campaign doesn’t mean they are good at planning, designing, and implementing a successful event. Although I am graduating from this university with a degree in Public Relations, I will always consider myself an event planner first and a PR practitioner second. As Johnathan Wickham beautifully puts it;

Event planning is a relatively new career field. Although the job itself is not new, many colleges and universities are beginning to offer event planning as a major or field of study. Event planners are trained to handle special events. If you are in inexperienced employee assigned to handle an event, you can spend most of your time just trying to find a good caterer or a good venue. Most professional event planners are invaluable for their contacts and lists of approved caterers, venues, entertainment, décor, etc. Many event planners are also trained to handle budgeting, advertising, and marketing of the event. They are also responsible for the planning of the event as well as on-site coordination on the scheduled day. If planning an event is in your company’s future than an event planner will be an important asset.- Jonathan Wickham

Post by Megan Patterson, 2014 Account Coordinator
Megan Patterson is a senior at UNC Charlotte graduating in December. She plans to venture off into the event planning field after graduation.

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Source:

• http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Importance-of-an-Event-Planner&id=3534883

An Ode to College

As a graduating senior with only a few weeks left of my collegiate career, I decided to take a moment to reflect on the college experience, and why it should not be overlooked as a crucial milestone in any person’s life.

College is mainly about obtaining a higher form of education and making you look as appealing as possible to future employers, but it is also about learning how to step out of your comfort zone and blossom as a person. Colleges understand this and will put incoming freshmen in closely compacted dorms allowing these new students to meet others like them and learn how to live away from the comfort zone of their hometowns. By forcing college students to live in these undesirable living conditions it helps students build lasting friendships. I never personally lived in a dorm, but instead started my collegiate life living with my brother in an apartment. I never understood college life, and didn’t grow socially as a person by doing this. It eventually hit me during my junior year that I wasn’t growing socially and I needed to explore the college lifestyle more. That was when I decided to join Greek life, which ultimately replaced the social skills I would’ve obtained by living on campus.

Jordan is graduating from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte on December 13th.

One the only regrets of my college career is not getting out and doing more on campus. As a senior I understand how being active on campus is important, which I never did early in my college career. Lately I have been attending philanthropy events for my fraternity, sporting events showing school pride and even hanging out on campus when I’m not studying or in class. I have found my college experience has increased substantially just by being around campus more and connecting with my school that I so proudly represent.

By becoming more a part of college lifestyle I have found my college experience has made my time at school extremely better. Meeting new people, whether it’s through student housing or joining Greek life, and being active on campus has helped me grow as an individual while I also gained my education. This is why I believe every student should follow these two steps when they decide to leave their comfort zone of their hometown and come to college. I can promise incoming students will not regret becoming a part of their schools college life, and by the time they’re in my shoes, they will feel their time spent in college was the best time of their lives.

Written by Jordan Morris, PR Specialist.
Jordan Morris is a senior at UNC Charlotte with hopes of venturing into sports public relations upon graduation in December of 2014.

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Image courtesy of: http://epic.uncc.edu/news/join-us-caper-research-planning-workshop-september-19-2014

Building and Sustaining Client Agency Partnerships

Client partnerships are essential when building and sustaining your public relations career. The first agency-client meeting creates a perfect opportunity for both parties to establish a culture between the two. Once you establish a good fit then the relationship begins. Make it your business to know your clients, their values and beliefs, and it’s competition. You also need to study past documents to understand the voice of the organization and how they like their material written, or if that needs to be changed.

Adopting your clients’ communication channels instead of forcing them to use yours helps build understanding and reinforce that you are an extension of them.

It’s very important that your client can reach you any time of day or night. Having face-to-face meetings regularly to go over activities, themes, messages, or just to check-in can save time in the future. Important messages or points can often get lost over email. Multiple contact numbers or email is essential in gaining trust in this relationship. Your relationships should be thought as partnerships, so the scope of works should be general giving you the flexibility to serve without worrying about if it id out of your range.

Public relations professionals should think of themselves as connectors and should apply that skill to their clients. Clients will truly appreciate when you give them access to your network.

Keep and open mind and go with the flow. Client-agency partnership can only be successful of both partners work together to achieve a common goal.

Written by Chelsea Waddell, Account Coordinator.
Upon graduation in December, Chelsea hopes to find employment at a public relations agency or in entertainment PR. If you want to see more of Chelsea you can follow her Twitter page, @_allaboutchels and connect with her on LinkedIn.

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Sources:
http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/5_tips_for_building_a_great_clientagency_partnersh_15806.aspx
http://soloprpro.com/5-tips-to-build-client-partnerships/

Image courtesy of:
http://lab.agencyaccess.com/blog/bid/52516/Ending-Toxic-Client-Relationships-on-a-Positive-Note

From our CEO

It is hard to believe that seven months ago I began the journey of establishing NinerNation Relations. From conception to execution, so much went into establishing the firm and getting it up and running.

None of this would have been possible without the support of Dr. Alan Freitag. His connections, knowledge and expertise were crucial to developing the firm and getting it up and running on campus. His advice and guidance helped not just myself, but also the other staff members throughout the semester.

Keri Drake was also instrumental to helping me develop as a leader. Her advice early on in the semester guided me in knowing how to manage eight of my peers. It is hard to go from working together in class projects to having structured work relationships but it is definitely a skill I can take into the workforce. Keri also helped me secure an interview with Steve Luquire which was one of the most interesting and beneficial conversations I have had.

L to R: Katie Goode, Cady Ray (Spring 2015, AC), Dr. Dean Kruckeberg, Katherine Faulk (Fall 2014, CEO), Natalia S. (Spring 2015, AM) at PRSAICON

 

Another person who deserves thanks for helping NinerNation Relations get off its feet is Dr. Dean Kruckeberg. Dr. Kruckeberg allowed us to invade his space during the semester in order to have a physical office.

Lastly, I want to thank my staff for working so hard this semester and making NinerNation Relations a success. I enjoyed working with you all and appreciate all your dedication to our clients and the firm, itself.

NinerNation Relations had a great semester. Many staff members expanded their opportunities and continued their professional development. From securing interview with CEOs to meeting with university councils to hearing from a wonder array of speakers, staff members soaked up PR and career knowledge.

Picture from “After the Bell Tolls” workshop with PRSSA

I cannot wait to see what things the spring 2015 staff are able to accomplish. Kathleen Duckworth, former Account Coordinator will head up the team as the new CEO. I have the upmost confidence that Kathleen will lead the staff to amazing successes. Kathleen will be supported by Natalia Schiappacasse and Sarah Cain as Account Managers. The new Account Executives are Cady Ray, Samantha Kirby, Dominique Yost, Wyatt Goodwin, Chloe Watson, Jade Hudson and Natalie McNeil. The new NinerNation Relations adviser is Stephen Ward.

Good luck and congratulations to all the new staff members! I hope you learn as much next semester as we did this semester.

I hope to look at the firm in five years and see it grow into a university and community staple.

-Katherine

Post by: Katherine Faulk,  CEO
Katherine, a Memphis native, will be joining INK PR in Austin, TX upon her December graduation. She has held three internships and various leadership positions on campus.  To connect with Katherine, visit her blog, follow her on Twitter, @kattals and connect with her on LinkedIn.

Tech PR and the San Francisco Bay Area

Fall break is not really a break. Two days are not enough to go on a proper R&R vacation. Somehow between midterms, school projects and work schedules rapidly colliding at this one point in time, I made it work! For five great days, I found myself on the west coast.

 

Picture of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Most people decide to visit family or go to the mountain or the beach for fall break. Generally folks travel no more than four hours away from campus. Instead I decide to go to the other side of the country! It was the best vacation I had in a long time. When school and work take over, vacations are hard to come by.

So, I went to San Francisco to visit my cousin and see the city that I might be living in after graduation. The job hunt is taking me out west, and I’m not complaining. While I was there I didn’t do too many touristy things, instead I experienced the city like I was already a resident there. I ate, walked around the city, went to a bluegrass festival and ate some more.

As I learned the city I also learned that PR is big there, specifically technology PR or tech PR. So what is tech PR? Tech PR is simply public relations within the technology market. Ogilvy PR (hyperlink: http://www.ogilvypr.com/en/content/technology-more/). describes the technology market as “a creature of rapid change, but now the media and influencer environment surrounding that market finds itself mirroring that same rate of change and evolution.”

As this world to more technological advance, the technology markets need marketers and PR professionals who understand their market and tech. With major tech companies in San Francisco, like Facebook and Google, tech PR is becoming more prevalent. Cities like San Francisco and New York are becoming the home base for the tech PR agencies and professionals.

PR professionals in the technology market can help the tech companies with: reputation management, consumer marketing, CSR, environment communications and much more. Like how Edelman (hyperlink: http://www.edelman.co.uk/what-we-do/technology/) states tech PR “has seen a radical transformation over the past decade, reflecting the extraordinary impact of technological development on business, society and communications.”

What does this mean for the PR professional within the industry? With the tech industries moving fast, we will move faster. It is expected that we stay ahead of the trends and be relevant. We are moving more to social media and mobile communications in order to engaged the people. I’m excited to see how PR is going to be different in the next five years. Hopefully I get to experience that shift while I’m living on the west coast.

 

Written by Justin Taylor, Account Manager.
Justin Taylor is a senior at UNC Charlotte. He is currently a Manager and Marketing Team Member for Chick-fil-A. As an NNR account manager, he is responsible for managing multiple accounts, and developing and maintaining relationships with clients. Follow him on Twitter: @justintayl0r.

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Image courtesy of: http://www.babson.edu/academics/undergraduate/academic-programs/pages/semester-in-san-francisco.aspx
Image courtesy of: http://www.holmesreport.com/agencydirectory-info/7/Ogilvy-Public-Relations-Worldwide.aspx
Image courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edelman_Logo_Color.jpg

Differences Between Public Relations and Marketing

 

Most people believe that public relations and marketing are one in the same. But before venturing into public relations, it’s important to understand the difference between the two. While public relations and marketing are interested in brand development, they both have distinct goals to maximizing the development of a brand. PR News published a great article on public relations versus marketing. The following is a summary of the points of interest:

Public relations is all about building and maintaining relationships. It focuses on the relationships of the publics of an organization and uses two-way communication to evaluate its strategies. PR is public oriented and evaluates the public’s attitudes towards an organization. PR also uses the media to improve brand awareness. It is important in PR to develop a population around a product and to understand how the world sees your product or organization. PR is focused on both the attitudes/behaviors and the statistics of the public’s opinion. PR also focuses on the execution of strategies.

On the other hand, marketing focuses on the product and the sales responses of the product. It uses persuasive and content-oriented messages. Marketing tends to use one-way communication and is sales oriented. Marketing is intrigued with the selling of a product. The focus is more geared towards sales numbers instead of attitudes and behaviors. Marketing is intrigued with the developing a brand strategy.

Public relations and marketing are usually confused to be the same. As a PR professional, it’s important to educate others on the difference between the two. Neither is wrong on how it develops a brand, but working in either career will be a different experience from the latter.

Summary by Nathalie Lopez, Account Coordinator.
Nathalie is graduating in December and is ready to see the world while developing a public relations career in Charlotte, NC.  Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter (@natlopez23) or follow her blog.

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Sources:

http://www.aboutu.gr/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/marketing_vs_pr-300×164
http://www.prnewsonline.com/water-cooler/2014/09/04/the-difference-between-marketing-and-pr-its-all-in-the-inflections
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Public+Relations+Vs.+Marketing&FORM=RESTAB#view=detail&id=
330A856C9B40EB5DCBF51B128E2DD2DD9AA0BD37&selectedIndex=28

Perks of Being a PR Professional

Working as a public relations professional is not an easy task. To get in the field is much like any other profession; it takes time, education and of course networking. Once in the field, it becomes increasingly harder to stay climb the ladder and advance further into this challenging field. With all these factors weighing against an individual, what would make someone crazy enough to jump into this field?

• The key to public relations is talking: If conversing comes easy to you then you will enjoy being a public relations professional. From the little experience I have so far in this field I have learned that in order to be successful in this field you have to talk to everyone, shake their hands and most importantly get comfortable having a conversation with them, because chances are they can help you in one way or another.

• Networking: Adding on to the first perk, networking is a bonus of working in the public relations field. Meeting and talking to clients becomes second nature to any public relations practitioner, so in the process of talking to clients a practitioner is also networking with them. That is crucial because like stated in the first perk, you never know how that individual could help you in the future.

Image Courtesy of Boston College.

• Free Stuff: This may not take place at every PR job, but a good deal of them do offer free stuff to the PR practitioners that are working on their accounts. For example if you work at a PR agency, chances are whichever account you work on will either give you their product to try for free or give you a major discount on purchasing it. The clients want their account executives to know and be familiar with their product, which means they will make it easy for you to obtain it.

• Lots of hands-on work: If sitting behind a desk all day bores you then chances are you will have more fun being a PR practitioner. Again using an agency as an example, most companies will fly their account executives out to a product showcase or some type of event where their client is being offered to customers. During that time, the account executives will get a hands-on feel for how their client wants to reach potentially new customers, which will remove them from behind the cramped desk. A PR practitioner could travel all over the world as they help their clients reach new audiences. Also, this perk will contain perk #3 as well. At these events the company you work for will pay for your hotel, an allowance on food, as well as more free merchandise from the client.

• Lastly, being a PR practitioner doesn’t get boring: Obviously this can be viewed as a biased opinion but from my experience I can tell any rising PR practitioner that this job will keep you guessing. Every day is a new challenge, and there seems to never be the same job day after day. On any given day a PR practitioner can be flying out to a product showcase, on the phone talking to new clients, building statistic sheets for client presentations, writing press releases, constructing new graphics for their client, or even just shaking hands and talking to people. Every day I come to work I feel that there will be something new and different awaiting me on my desk. There has never been a time where I wished I was doing something different.

These five perks keep me driven in the public relations field and should be factored into any potential new PR practitioners decision upon entering the field. Being a PR practitioner is what I love to do, and I would not change my job for any in the world.

Image courtesy of Cision.

 

Written by Jordan Morris, PR Specialist.
Jordan Morris is a senior at UNC Charlotte with hopes of venturing into sports public relations upon graduation in December of 2014.

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Image courtesy of:  http://www.cision.com/us/2012/01/pr-experts-answer-how-would-you-define-public-relations/

Image courtesy of: http://www.bc.edu/schools/csom/undergraduate/careerservices/networking.html

Position Spotlight: PR Specialist

Hello, my name is Jordan Morris and I am the PR Specialist at NinerNation Relations. As the specialist it is my job to help coordinate with the two Account Managers to help make their jobs easier. Mostly, I have been asked to handle the graphics and visual aspects of their two accounts. Some of my work includes the Niner Nation Relations company logo, the letter heads that is visible on top of any news release, as well as other projects that will be coming out soon such as the new Undergraduate Research Conference logo that will be unveiled before their conference at UNC Charlotte this fall.

In this blog post I will reveal a few secrets to mastering image editing software. Now if you have never played around with Adobe Photoshop or any other form of image editing software, don’t be afraid it is really not that hard.

In today’s technological world, any tutorial from “How to tie a tie” to “How to parallel park” can be found very easily using YouTube or Google. Still to this day if I do not know how to do something on Adobe Photoshop, I can quickly figure it out using either of those two sites (mainly Google…I’m not sure why). Between those two sites you can quickly get your feet wet in image editing.

Once you have gotten the basic background of the software, I have always found it easiest if I just play around with the software for a few hours. Yes a few hours does sound like a long time sitting in front of a computer, but believe me when you’re sitting there having fun editing your Facebook pictures or designing logos, the time flies by.

There has been countless number of times that I have been working on a project and thought “Man this would look so much better with a drop shadow or a better outline.” and not been able to do it. To learn how to do something like that I would go through every drop down window and every toolbar until I found the option. Or if that didn’t work then I would resort back to step one and search Google. There’s always an easy to read step-by-step process to doing what you are looking for.

The latter step is by far the best way to familiarize you with something such as Adobe Photoshop. Being a hands-on learner, I have always found it easiest to play around with a program until I figured it out. I never had training in Adobe Photoshop but still surprise companies with my work I am able to accomplish. This is why I think through perseverance and time you can master any form of image editing software.