Week 1 — June 4-8th, 2012
Monday
Logitech Washable Keyboard PR Campaign
On the first official day, my team partner Jonathan and I were given the task of coming up with some social media tactics for a new Logitech product, code named the WASH keyboard. Logitech wanted a full social media campaign focusing specifically on sweepstakes and contests that could involve potential consumers.
Marketing Calendar Clean up/ Updates
I was given the task of updating the marketing calendar for the summer as well as adding social media conferences in the United States during 2013.
Olympic Ideas
Logitech reached out to us to come up with some ideas on how it can engage with consumers who will be watching the Olympics in the coming months and how Logitech products might be able to enhance that experience. Since becoming a client at Likeable, the organization has begun to focus on its relationships with its consumers and making its social media platforms much more engaging.
Observations:
I was very surprised on the first day that Jenna allowed Jonathan, who is graduate student at Emerson, and I to immediately dive into a client and creating campaign strategies. I was nervous at first, since I do not believe that I have been trusted with something like this, but realized after a few minutes that I had a strategy and models in my head that I had learned at Newhouse that I could utilize in a situations like this. Turns out I was able to teach Jonathan a few things. I found that a lot of information from my PR Research and PR Campaigns classes were really my best friend at this point in time. I think the biggest thing I remembered in all of the ideas that I brainstormed was, “What’s in it for me?” Why do consumers want to enter a Logitech competition? Why do young adults want to “Instagram” Logitech a photo of their dorm room technology situation? Logitech has to word it in such a way so that it appeals to the audience.
I knew there would be some receptionist type work when coming into this position, but felt that I was very efficient in the way that I handled the information, cleaned up the schedule and researched the social media conferences in the 2013 in a very timely fashion. Jenna seemed surprised when I had the whole assignment done in about an hour. Even though we didn’t discuss schedules and such in full detail in PR Management, I still felt many of the techniques and “features” of being a leader helped me with this project. Yes, it was a simple task and all done online, but it took initiative and confidence. I didn’t feel like I needed someone helping me through it or have a supervisor double check that I was entering dates and events correctly.
The Olympic ideas were a last minute item that had been sent to Jenna and Logitech wanted it by the end of the day in a Logitech template deck (powerpoint). As mentioned above, Logitech wanted to know how their products could enhanced an individuals viewing experience of the upcoming Olympics. Jonathan, Jenna and I all sat at a conference table coming up with ideas including how Logitech could use social media to engage with the olympic audience as well. It was interesting to see how many of our ideas were similar and that we all really walked into the brainstorm with the same mind set. Never having been a part of a full brainstorm before, it was really great to be a part of something 100%. I’m really liking that I get the opportunity to be thought of as an equal on the project and all ideas I have are weighed just as much as Jenna’s. A project like this was very vague, so it was really a chance to think outside of the box and be creative. At 5 pm when it was time to leave we had our main recommendations in a deck and Jenna emailed it to Logitech corporate.
Jenna made sure before we left that she thanked us for our work. In previous internships I always felt as if supervisors were saying thank you because they had to. Jenna was extremely sincere and said that we helped her in such a way that she now wouldn’t have to stay late either. Logitech really pushed the Olympic ideas on our team at the last minute, but we were able to get through it efficiently and quickly without any team troubles. I really enjoy that my main team is Jenna and Jonathan. We will be partnering from time to time with the team that focuses specifically on Logitech, but I look forward to the global and marketing initiatives when the time comes.
Tuesday
Hubspot Marketing Initiatives
I was asked to place together a deck with information about Hubspot trends and how Likeable Media can begin to use these trends to their advantage. Though Likeable already has an account with Hubspot, the goal is to see what the trends currently are and to improve upon those in the next few months. Based on traffic numbers found, it seemed as though the Likeable Media website was pulling in a fair number of viewers. It turned out that organic searches seemed to be the most valuable followed by direct traffic, social media, referrals, email marketing and lastly, paid search. This seemed to surprise Jenna, as a fair amount of the Boston budget goes to putting out paid search ads. I suggested that the target audience and the content being put in the ads be re-evaluated. I also suggested that many more partnerships should be made and to work with these partnerships to create more referral based relationships. Credibility will immediately increase and aid positive feedback through word of mouth. Email marketing seemed very low on the list, so I was curious and wanted to know how much time was being put into the newsletters and the content that was going out to clients and potential clients. I looked at keywords that were used to bring the Likeable Media website up on Google and the name of the company, Likeable Media was number 3 on the list! Somehow the word “summer” was bringing in a large amount of traffic. After some further research, a blog post that Jenna had written on “A Summer of Social Media,” a year ago, had brought over 3500 views to Likeable’s blog and website. It was surprising to see that the words that should have been higher were not, such as Likeable.com, Dave Kerpen (the CEO of Likeable Media) and Likeable Media New York or Boston. The suggestion became to boost the uses of the brand name and pull focus to those areas, rather than the blog posts created by Likeable employees.
While working on the Hubspot trends, I had the capability to see what parts of the website that visitors went to. I began to notice a trend that most visitors when trying to fill out the “contact me” form or to sign up for the Newsletter, were getting an error message over and over. It looked as though they all tried to repeat the process a few times and then gave up. I tested this on the website myself and received the same error message. I brought this up to Jenna and she had me make a phone call to Hubspot to discuss the problem with customer service. Once we had troubleshooted the problem, it turned out there was a communication error between the WordPress website platform that Likeable uses and how the code for the forms were placed from Hubspot onto the platform. Hubspot looked at the list of people who had attempted to use these forms and found at 75 percent of visitors trying to use the forms failed. This is a HUGE finding for Likeable. The headquarters in New York City needed to make the changes, but I was happy that I had found something like this
Likeable Global Call #1
Every Tuesday, Jenna, Jonathan and I will have a phone call with the New York office and the few offices Likeable has recently partnered with around the world in Mexico and Istanbul. This will give those firms an opportunity to discuss any issues they are running into transitioning to the “Likeable” brand and any other topics they want to discuss. This particular call there were a lot of phone problems. Though it was the first global phone call ever, I was very surprised that Likeable hadn’t figured out a better way to connect globally. Istanbul actually missed most of the call. I’m hoping in the future these calls will be much better and more information can eventually be discussed.
Observations:
I loved having the opportunity to work on the deck about Hubspot. Once again, I felt like I could apply the techniques learned in my courses at Newhouse. I was surprised to find out that Likeable is still figuring out how to reach out to its target audiences and that there are changes that can be made to what they are currently doing both online and off-line. I am really enjoying the fact that my suggestions are being taken into consideration. Based on what we have read in our textbooks, I feel that Likeable takes a much more creative and open minded approach to the way campaigns and strategies are made for its clients. Having a creative license and trying to think outside the box with every client is a truly interesting and educational experience. I feel like in the past two days I have already had such a boost in confidence that I am able to work and be successful in the field of public relations. I am waiting for a true challenge to come my way, but feel that Jenna will see the skills that I have by the end of this week.
The rest of the week to be continued, what are your thoughts?
From a Newhouse PR Masters Graduate 