Marketing and Communications Department- Part 2

Hello all! It’s Anthony Ferrentino again reporting on the progress of my internship with the Marketing and Communications Department here at Bloomsburg University. For the past couple of weeks I have been very busy working on many different projects for the university. These projects have been significantly different from the usual ones I have been working on which is pretty exciting. I got to play the role of photojournalist the other day and sit in on a lecture with a camera during the L.E.A.D. summer camp. The camp took high achieving minority students from local high schools and brought them here, to the university, for a three day summer camp focused on getting these students into the field of primary, secondary and special education. The interesting and fun part however, came when I was able to have sit down interviews with two of the students I had observed and, using their testimony and photos, create a story for the magazine with everything I had collected.

I also worked on a few other pieces for the magazine, such as a piece on a possible new major coming to the university and a piece on an award that Dr. Presswood received over the summer. Besides direct university business, I also work with the social media of the university and have written recommendations for both movies and reading material on Pintrest.

Currently, I am working on a few things. The big one being the coordination of August CRQ, or the Communications Review Quarterly, in which I will be working on putting together most of the material created for the Communications Department over these past months and turning it into a report. It sounds pretty daunting but I think I’ll make the best of it.

For now, I’m just enjoying this experience and seeing what else lies in wait.

-Anthony F.

Penn Highlands Clearfield- Part II

So the middle chunk of my internship has definitely slowed down since my first few week. However there’s still been some excitement going on in the hospital.

Here’s a little background info: 5 years ago, Clearfield Hospital was bought and became part of the Penn Highlands Healthcare system. Had the hospital not been bought it wouldn’t have been able to keep its doors open much longer.

Most of the patients who are seen in the hospital have Medicare/Medicade and the hospital only receives approximately 30 cents of every dollar and the rest of the bill is being written off because the hospital knows the person isn’t going to pay.

Throughout this entire process the hospital has been very open with the public and has informed the public of everything that has been going on via press releases. The biggest shock to the town was the closure of the OB department in the hospital as less than 200 babies were being delivered every year and it wasn’t a department the hospital could afford to keep open.

What’s happening now: There’s a group of 3 women who volunteer in the hospital who call themselves ‘the concerned citizens.’ Without first contacting the hospital they have organized a town meeting to be held at the courthouse. This meeting has been called “Save the Hospital” and the bottom of their post says “Expect the Unexpected.” These women have also been mailing anonymous letters to people in the town as well as doctors inviting them to go; funny thing is they put one of the lady’s phone number on the letter and it wasn’t hard to figure out who the other two ladies were.

The hospital was not contacted throughout the time that the letters and posters were distributed all over Clearfield. The week of the actual town meeting there were also several letters to the editor in the local newspaper about how bad the hospital has become and for everyone to attend the meeting.

The hospital knew that we were going to get slammed because we did not attend the meeting. But they did not attend because 1. The ladies in charge were told several times everything that has been going on by the president himself 2. We were not officially invited or told about the meeting 3. The hospital did not agree with how the meeting was organized. Had the citizens gone to the hospital asking them to hold an open forum about what’s been happening that would have been awesome and the hospital would have done that.

The hospital was contacted by the local paper and offered to have a story published beside the one of the town meeting. However the hospital declined and because no one was going to the meeting the hospital opted to have a response article run the next day in order to allow the hospital to form a thoughtful response.

This is the quick version of everything that happened. Although it’s unfortunate that this had to happen, I’m thankful that I got to experience the PR side of it. I learned about responding to negative media attention. Also, I was taught about how to create talking points in case the hospital was contacted by the media such as a T.V. station. This consumed a lot of time at the hospital as it was all everyone could talk about for a while.

Something else I go to do during this time was take a day and go to DuBois to work with the graphic designer on a brochure. I created all of the copy and designed the brochure by myself and then the graphic designer helped me to put everything to together and edit on the computer system they have. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed getting to do something different for the day. We had a few hundred copies of the brochure I made created and they will be distrusted at a local festival to promote a new location that the hospital has opening. 

The Social Station- Round 2

Hey guys! My internship is quickly coming to an end so I figured I'd fill you in on what's been going on for the past couple of weeks.

Since my last post, my list of clients have exponentially grown. We have recently signed a chain of similar but differently owned and operated restaurants all along the West Coast. All of which include crab, prime rib, and signature items. Needless to say, I always look forward to lunch because I'm constantly hungry!

This picture is from one of my new clients called "The Stinking Rose". Every single menu item is made with garlic in it. My new duties include going onto different review sites and saving pictures that reviewers have uploaded. I then put them into files and send them over to my co-workers who actually post the pictures. I went through all of the nine restaurants on the list and sifted through thousands upon thousands of pictures. 

My cravings for crab have never been worse. The next step was to come up with post ideas for our the other staff to post. With the sudden influx of clients, they were falling behind with content. My job was to create Google Docs of hundreds of status' of which included pictures, quotes, and hashtags. To be honest I was hitting a bunch of walls. I couldn't imagine how to describe these menu items creatively anymore and didn't know what to do. With a little guidance from co-workers, I was able to flip on my creative switch and get rolling again. 

My ideas came from various other sites such as other restaurant Facebook pages, Pinterest, Google, and various quotes. Finally, when I couldn't come up with any more content I switched back over to reviews. 

Row is still my top priority. I come in every morning and check the stream to hopefully see a low number of reviews to start off my day. After I go through and answer them all, I move onto the new clients. I was given access too ALL of our clients in order to respond to their reviews. At first this was completely overwhelming. Every day I would check the stream the numbers would look more and more threatening. The number would read in the hundreds, and I was already weary from working on about 23-30 Row reviews in the morning. Luckily the other interns were put to work on tackling the always-expanding section and the task seemed less intimidating. 

Recently I have come across the dilemma of having to tell my supervisor that my hours are almost up for the academic requirement. I enlisted the help of Dr. Byrum and hoped for the best. She ensured me it was absolutely acceptable to inform my employer of my dwindling time. I also added in the email to my supervisor that I loved working for his company and thanked him for giving me this opportunity, in hopes of being hired as a part time employee! I would love to work for this company beyond my internship. Hopefully it works out!

I'm still getting used to the whole working 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. instead of nights. Being off on the weekends is something I haven't experienced since I was probably 15. Now I'm able to get a taste of what it's actually like to be in a "normal" work environment. This past weekend I was actually able to attend my Great Grandmother's 94th birthday party. This meant more to me than she will ever know because I can finally take time to myself to spend time with the ones I love. The hours here are super flexible which I'm super grateful for. Every so often my Mom will bring me lunch and walk around the city with me, which is extremely nice. If this is what it's like to be an adult, then I'm in!

Here's an extra picture of a steak so you can understand how I'm consistently starving!

CBS Radio- 94.1 WIP SportsRadio

Hi Everyone! 

My name is Jennifer Bello, I am going to be a senior at Bloomsburg University in the Fall 2015. I am a Mass Communications/PR major with a minor in Marketing. This summer my internship is at SportsRadio 94.1 WIP working in the sales department and when help is needed, in the promotions and programming department. In the sales department there are 3 interns including myself and within the promotions and programming department there are 5 interns.

My first day was May 27th! When I arrived, I was greeted in the lobby of the 9th floor, where WIP is located, by Mike Brown who is in charge of all the interns. I received my pass for all of the doors and the elevator, was given a tour of the building and the various studio's and met all of the employees of the sales and promotions teams. At first I was super intimidated because there were so many of them, and one of me... with all eyes on me, but as I began to get to know everyone and attach a face to a name, my confidence level began to rise. Also another factor that was always on my mind was public transportation. I have taken the train before, but never alone. My internship is located on Market Street in Philadelphia, with rush hour traffic in the morning and in the evening, my commute would be over an hour. So to save time and money, I take the train and the subway each morning and evening. I finally have a full grasp on how public transportation works!

When I arrive at work on Monday I attend the weekly sales meeting with the rest of the sales team. Topics discussed in the meetings vary each week. Last week the meeting began with a quiz. Some questions include, what day do all players report to Eagles Training Camp? Based on the current IQP what of the WIP AQH make over $100K? WPEN has 12+ exclusive cume of 6,500 what is WIP's exclusive cume? Vince, one of the managers who runs the meetings, expressed how the answers to these questions were all selling points and topics of knowledge that would attract potential clients and leads. To end the meeting, we discussed a S.A.L.E.S strategy:
S (smile)
     - connect personally, engage, people do business with people they like, do not underestimate the          power of touch
A (ask)
     - what advertising have they done, what advertising do they plan to do in the future, what has              worked and what has not worked
L (listen)
     - hearing vs. listening, pay attention
E (evaluate)
     - THINK about the alternatives and deliverable's, have measurable goals
S (start)
     - Go out there and do it!

Throughout the weeks thus far, I complete various tasks...
- making phone calls also known as cold calls, to potential clients in search of their marketing department
- filing paperwork and contracts
- creating fliers and advertisements
- researching various companies that could be potential leads
- contacting radio prize winners
- editing and writing radio scripts
- sitting in on phone calls with current clients
- reviewing proposals
- learning/developing CNA (customer needs analysis)

All of the interns are also reading a book by Dale Carnegie regarding public speaking and making connects. The book connects back to the underlying goal of sales which is creating relationships that are beneficial for both parties involved.

I have already learned so much through my time here and am very excited to see what opportunities come my direction as I advance this summer!

Marketing and Communications Department

Hello,
 I'm Anthony Ferrentino, a senior communication studies major here at Bloomsburg University. For my first blog post about my current summer internship I'm going to talk a little about what I have been working on for the past three weeks.
My internship is with the Marketing and communication department at Bloomsburg University. I spend most of my day working on a computer in the Waller Administration Building, but sometimes I have special assignments in which I have to go elsewhere on campus or into town. One of the first assignments I was given was to create a press release for a summer camp that the university is hosting. I also created two more press releases with the next two weeks; one of which is for the Virginia Woolf conference on campus and the other is for the official dedication of the Greenly center. Speaking of Virginia Woolf and the Greenly Center, I was also in charge of creating pitches to persuade the local media into covering the different events I was promoting. I also was tasked with traveling to the gallery in the Greenly Center and taking pictures to go with the articles that I had written. I found this to be quite cool as I almost felt like a photojournalist. Other than that, I have just been working with different aspects of the schools social media. I write blogs, recommend books and movies and monitor things like Pintrest in my down times before stories.

I'm looking forward to more stories to come.

WXTU/AMP Radio The Beginning

 

Hi guys!! I'm Erin and this is my internship blog!

 I am currently interning at 92.5 WXTU and 96.5 AMP radio, two very popular radio stations in Philadelphia.

I was hired as apart of the promotions team, and I am responsible, alongside 7 others for the following jobs.

On Site promotions
Off Site promotions
Sales/Marketing

My first day was on May 13th. I arrived at the station, to meet my other interns and the rest of my staff, and to complete the process so I could officially start. I then volunteered myself to stay after for a while to help get some things ready for the 31st Anniversary Show, which happened yesterday I'll talk about that later.

On the 13th I also got my first schedule, I couldn't find my name at first so I figured 'oh well maybe next week' when then looked a little harder and saw that my first ever shift with them would be working the Brad Paisley concert!!! I was so pumped, but also a little nervous.

On the day of the show we got to the station and headed down to the venue when we  immediately started setting up. After set up, I  got to go into the parking lot and interact with some fans, and take their pictures using our promo signs, that was definitely an interesting and fun experience!!!

After I was done in the parking lot I got to go into the tent and work a contest that was going on to win some meet and greets for the different artists playing the show, it was so fun talking to the fans and watching their reactions when they won! They were all so grateful, it was wonderful.

Once the contest drawings ended, I got to go take pictures of the fans inside with those signs I mentioned earlier, and people love having their pictures taken! Once that was done, we broke down our tent and then I was given a ticket to watch the concert from the Pit! Which was amazing! I was on picture duty so it was my job to take tons of pictures of the show!

After Brad, I didn't have any events until the following week. But I had my first promo day. Promo day is in the office, and that is where we assist our other staff members in their daily activities, such as getting things ready for shows, or other events that we are having.

After my first promo day and I got my new schedule, I was scheduled to go on ticket runs! Ticket runs are an annual event in which listeners and fans come out to different events and try and win tickets for our annual Anniversary Show.

How ticket runs work is that each individual is given a raffle ticket, if we draw their number, they pick a ball out of the tumblr raffle box, the color of the ball determines what seats they get!

These may have been my favorite events I got to work so far, like any other event it was great interacting with listeners and fans and making them happy!

Once the ticket runs ended for good, it was time for the 31st Anniversary show!

This years performers included Darius Rucker, Brett Eldredge, Kelsea Ballerini, Drake White, and Brothers Osborne, and A Thousand Horses. It was a great show!

Anyways, we all arrived at the venue at around 8 a.m. and got right to work, we were all assigned to different tasks though out the day, for the most part I was bannering all day, which consisted of putting up our banners all over the venue, and making them look presentable. Once that was over, I got to go to the Comcast tent and work with them, they were promoting their new products that I got to learn about and that was pretty cool! And I was taking raffle entries for fans to win an autographed guitar signed by artists at the show. When I was done with Comcast, I got to go to the ACME tent, where they were giving away free samples of products and free t-shirts if you showed us a ACME receipt.

It was really awesome to be able to work alongside other companies and organizations, I even got to network a bit and make a few connections with people in the industry.

Once I was done that I got to head up to lawn seating and upgrade some lucky listeners and fans into better seats, which was also really fun, their reactions to being upgraded to better seats made the whole entire day of hard work worth it.

After that, I was done for the day and got tickets to go watch the rest of the show, which was incredible.

I have learned a lot in the past three weeks, things like:

•  Different aspects of marketing and promotions
• How important it is to maintain a good image for the company you are representing.
• How to network
• How to have fun, while still successfully doing your job!

I also learned that I definitely want to work in the field of event planning and promotions when I am done with school!

So much has happened in the past three weeks, I had to share all of it!

So excited for the rest of the summer!

I added some pictures I took at the Brad Paisley Concert and The Anniversary Show!

The Social Station

I really can't believe this summer internship is already a few weeks in. It seems like just the other day I was freaking out over not being able to obtain one for the summer, and now here we are.

My summer internship is for The Social Station. We handle social media accounts for all sorts of businesses from salons, to restaurants, to hotels. Our clients range from high end resorts to hotel lobby restaurants and everything in between. My title is technically a "Social Manager". Eventually I will be given clients to handle on my own. This will include generating content, providing posts, responding to reviews, and making sure all of the social media platforms are running smoothly. As of now, I have't been asked to get anyone's coffee or pick up dry cleaning... so I guess you could say I'm off to a good start.

http://thesocialstation.com/

We are located in downtown Allentown in a better part of town. It's been a challenge to get used to city driving and finding a place to park. Recently the city has been under a huge renovation project in order to revive the city. Our office is in a beautifully renovated and refurbished building called Velocity. Our break room is filled with complimentary K-Cups, which honestly is amazing for staff to keep going through the day.The building is filled with start up businesses like us and has a primarily young clientele.

Mainly I am in charge of the hotel, Row located in the heart of NYC. I come in every day and write responses on the hotel's behalf regarding reviews on all sorts of travel sites. We utilize a specially constructed platform which was created exclusively for Social Station employees. It pulls all reviews, comments, tweets, and anything remotely similar to Row into a server so we can analyze and respond to them.

http://rownyc.com/

The server is extremely easy and convenient for us. It neatly places all of our content into separate tabs so we are able to access it at a later time. Mainly all of the reviews are pretty much similar. Being in the heart of the city, space is limited. I have to come up with ways to apologize for the lack of space, but highlight all of the other fabulous amenities of the hotel. It's a rough balance, but you must ensure future guests you know what you're talking about, even though you've never stepped foot in the hotel.

Writing responses to reviews has already greatly improved my writing skills. My first day I was instructed to write a response to a review and have it looked over by my boss. I thought I was doing fantastic, until told otherwise. The responses were genuine and wording was right, but the personality was not there. I realized I was being super generic and not putting any real heart into it. With a little guidance and instruction, I was off again to write more responses. Within a day my writing had skyrocketed and my boss was impressed to see how much improvement I had shown. It truly was a great feeling to know that with a little help I was able to succeed.

All of my co-workers/interns are super friendly and relaxed. My uniform is whatever I feel like that day because I don't meet with clients personally. We are allowed to take lunch whenever we would like (within reason) and have a really relaxed vibe when coming in to work. Alex, my boss, has informed us that he believes we will work more proficiently if we are comfortable in our workplace. I definitely agree with this statement, because I love coming in to work every day.

I've never really had an experience with a job where I willingly hopped out of bed every morning to get there early. The workplace is so enjoyable that I find myself arriving early and staying later just so I can learn more. This experience is everything I hoped it would be and more. I definitely think I chose the right company to work with for my internship. Being a part of a start up company was scary at first, but watching it grow is inspiring. One day I can look back and say I was a part of the beginning stages of such an amazing company.