Throwback Thursday: How My Time as a College Newspaper Editor Prepared Me for My PR Career

As a recent graduate of Saint Joseph’s University and a newbie to the public relations industry, I often think about my time spent in college and how it prepared me for working in this field. While my classes and extracurricular activities provided a solid foundation, nothing helped prepare me more to work in the “real world” than my time as the features editor of The Hawk, my alma mater’s campus newspaper.

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It’s Not What You’re Not

It’s what you are.

According to Wikipedia, a not-for-profit agency is an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals rather than distributing them as profit or dividends. That doesn’t sound like a description of what something is not to me. It sounds like what it is!

“Not-for-profit” is a bad way to describe what these organizations are. Nonprofits exist for a purpose. They’re pro-mission. They do all kinds of good things for society and in the world. Not for nothing, but there’s a need for some re-branding here.

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The Oft-Overlooked Boilerplate

This week’s blog post comes to us from our friends at GroundFloorMedia, PRGN’s Denver affiliate. Amanda Brannum reminds us of the importance of the boilerplate.Buchanan Public Relations

I came across this wonderful reminder about the often overlooked and under-appreciated boilerplate today via Ragan.com – “The Secret Formula for Writing Boilerplate.” So often, people want to include everything and the kitchen sink in their company’s boilerplate – or, as Russell Working points out, they want to fill it with flowery-sounding jargon. However, as PR pros, we need to remind clients that boilerplates are meant to be simple, straightforward company descriptions that tell what your company is and what it does.

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The Importance of Building Your Personal Brand

Recently, a few of us at Buchanan PR had the opportunity to travel to one of our client’s offices in Pittsburgh to perform a LinkedIn training session. We spent countless hours analyzing employees’ existing profiles and preparing customized guides for each profile to become fully optimized. But why is taking the time to enhance a social media profile so important? Because it’s part of your personal brand.Buchanan Public Relations, Philadelphia Public Relations Agency, Megan Keohane, LinkedIn, personal branding

Using social media is just one example of an easy (and often free) way to build a brand around your expertise. As professionals, we so often get caught up in bettering the company or the client that it’s easy to forget the importance of the people who make up those organizations.

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