Interning at the Top PR Agency

My internship at Edelman Indonesia has taught me a lot of soft skills and knowledge required as a Public Relations officer. This experience has also introduced me to a Public Relations agency’s working environment and how they operate daily.

I mainly helped the team with research, survey, translating, media monitoring, coordinating with media and influencers, assisting with plan proposal, and assisting the team during events. Although I was assigned to a team that handled an automotive brand, I also helped other teams, such as a team working for a travel system developer and a team pitching for a new client. The details of the work done during this internship program will be stated below.

1. Research

When researching, I did not only do desk research. Often times I had to find the contact person to find more required information, such as rate and availability. The information I found and compiled will be presented to team members for their consideration, and they complimented my researches. Some things I have researched about are:

- Communities, including their profile, partnership rate and availability. Some of the community categories I have researched include running communities, cycling communities, young mother communities, blogger communities, et cetera.

- Events, to find out whether it is suitable for client to sponsor or be a speaker in it.

- Influencers, including their profile, target audience, engagement rate, rate card, and availability.

- Researching event venues, including their rate and availability.

- Researching tourism destinations.

- Researching media to have partnership with.

2. Survey

I was asked to assist in compiling media surveys during events and making dipstick surveys. I also made the survey report in the form of PowerPoint presentations. The surveys I made including survey about general perception towards brand and automotive and survey about young mothers’ cooking behavior

3. Translating

Translating was almost a daily activity I did during the internship in Edelman. There were a lot of documents to disseminate that needed translation, whether it is from English to Bahasa or Bahasa to English. The documents I have translated included press releases, Non-Disclosure Agreements, content guidelines for influencers, customer kit, feature articles, et cetera.

4. Media monitoring

I was tasked to do media monitoring after every press release or feature articles disseminations. The media monitoring would be compiled in an Excel document and I would make the media coverage report, which would be updated to the client every day. In doing the media monitoring, I would do it using two tools. The first one is a search engine, such as Google. The second tool is Binokular. Each tools has their plus and minus points. Searching result in Google is more complete for online publications than Binokular, however it cannot show printed publication. Binokular will show printed publication, such as newspaper or magazine. I had also do a monitoring in social media such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, to find postings and discussions about an event.

5. Coordinating with media and influencers

In partnerships with media and influencers, I would be the one responsible to liaise, communicate and coordinate with them, starting from approaching, discussing, negotiating, assisting them during projects or events, relaying required documents, and coordinating the output, especially with influencers. For influencers, before they post stories, photos, and videos to their social media account, they would send me the contents first. I would review them, choose which one was best to be posted, and edit their captions. I would also ask them for the posting insights, to be reported to the client.

6. Assisting with plan proposal

My team trusted me to take part in making plan proposal for certain parts. For example, I was asked to complete the content guidelines, proposed influencers and partners, budget for partnership, and rearrange the research result into the proposal with a cleaner format.

7. Assisting the team during events

I have been involved in two events during my internship period. The first event was held in my first day of internship which was a media gathering during the Indonesia Electric Motor Show (IEMS) 2019 event in September 4th, 2019 at Balai Kartini. I assisted the team in media registration and collecting media survey. The second event was a test drive held in Karawang, which I assist also in media survey, recording the media’s view regarding the test drive, and assisting the media.

Working in Edelman was fun and a great opportunity to learn, however, there are also some challenges I faced during this internship. The time where I feel most stressed during this internship was when the workload from the company was overwhelming but I have to submit my thesis proposal revision. On top of it, there was some personal problems I faced which pressured me even more.

At that time, I feel overwhelmed, stressed, and panicked because I was not sure I could finish all my tasks on time. Finally, I started to make a list of things that I must do, and from that list, I put priorities of which ones were the most urgent and had to be done as soon as possible. I also rescheduled some of my plans in order to finish those tasks. Thankfully, due to putting priorities and managing my time well, I was able to finish both my work task and my thesis proposal revision on time.

In conclusion, I was very satisfied with the internship program I got to experience at Edelman Indonesia. I was tasked to assist with various project which enhanced my knowledge in Public Relations industry. I also got the opportunity to learn by doing, which was mentored by my supervisor and team. Edelman also has a dynamic and respectful work environment. They support employees’ well-being and work/life balance.