Campus Life & Future Careers

Nothing compares with your online resume. You own it. You have total control over the information contained in it. It gives you so much exposure within your industry, not to mention the effects on your reputation and credibility.

Lately, some successful platforms such as LinkedIn have developed tremendous SEO tools to keep you on top of the list when you look for new challenges. LinkedIn offers to build up your reputation and contact or be contacted by decision makers with basic and free features, and others, more advanced, at a fee. To pay for some added features is entirely up to you since LinkedIn offers tools that help you manage your information in real time and build up your contacts. The time you spend and accessibility might improve if you take your wallet out.

Personally, I have not paid a cent since I started using it back in 2009 but let me tell you I invested a lot of time!

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   On my previous blog post I wrote about how difficult it is to reach an editor or journalist via email and how sometimes it’s better to call them and pitch your idea over the phone.  I came across an article the other day about some of the biggest PR mistakes ever, and one of them being to never ever ever call an editor. Seriously?! It’s true that editors and journalists receive hundreds of emails per day and calling without to asking if the journalist or editor is on deadline is a no no, however PR these days is different. This industry has changed from five or ten years ago. But to never call and being able to make a verbal connection seems a little drastic.

I’m somewhat surprised to be reading that we should never call editors. Speaking from experience, I’ve called editors since I wasn’t getting a response through emails, and I can say calling is sometimes better. Like mentioned above you can make a verbal connection with the editor or journalist and they can easily get a feel for the story you are pitching them. As someone who just started in the PR field and still has a lot to learn,  I can say that pitching over the phone isn’t the easiest thing to do, however being confident with what you are doing goes a long way.

The art of pitching! Pitching is one of the things I do during my intern, which will eventually be part of my career. Drafting the perfect pitch is not something that is very easy, especially for someone who is just starting in Public Relations. When I first started my internship I was very excited to have this as a mandate, however as the weeks went by I felt very discouraged, since my pitches were left unanswered.

Since I’m not one to give up that easily, I needed to figure out another way to get through editors, bloggers and journalists. Why not call them? While this may seem like a very bold move especially for a beginner, I told myself the worst that can happen is receiving “no” as an answer. With this in mind, I started calling up the journalists, bloggers and the editors, and to my surprise it was easier than I thought. Here are 4 steps to follow to develop a  good phone etiquette when you call!

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