Name: Becky Johns
Title: Account Executive, Agency Communications at Cramer-Krasselt / Freelance Photographer
Website/Blog: http://becky-johns.com
Location: Chicago, IL
Tell us about your educational/professional background.
I graduated from Michigan State University in 2009 with a bachelor’s in Advertising and a specialization in Public Relations. I spent my college career dabbling in different areas of the communications field through classes, jobs, and internships. I’ve always been a writer with a natural knack for communicating and I really found a home in the PR world. During college I worked for a PR agency, a media planning company, and selling advertising for the nation’s largest collegiate newspaper. After graduation I worked in corporate communications for a large insurance company and after that joined C-K in January 2011.
Tell us about your current job.
My role in Agency Communications is to promote the work, the people, and the thinking of the agency. Basically, I help out when we’re announcing new business wins, new client campaigns, publishing guest columns or industry-related articles, placing our staff in speaking gigs at conferences, working with the trade publications for the industry, and about a million other things. Most people know about agency PR work on behalf of clients. I do PR on behalf of the agency.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I cruise the news in the morning and send a daily email to our entire agency staff across all offices with helpful articles and links to any coverage C-K is getting, to keep everyone in the loop of when we’re mentioned in the media. That’s really the only consistent part of my job. There’s always a handful of projects going on whether it’s writing press releases, working with writers covering our campaigns, taking photos at agency events, doing research or prepping PR strategies for different agency happenings.
What kinds of documents do you produce?
Press releases, research summaries, content for our agency website and media room, drafts of articles, and much more. In my free time (if you can even call it free time) I write posts for my own blog, guest posts for others, write a weekly column on networking for young professionals, daily articles for Ragan’s PR Daily and freelance articles here and there for other websites.
What communication skills are needed for your job?
I need to be able to communicate well with my boss. We’re a team of two handling efforts for four offices, so she and I need to speak clearly, take good notes and stay on top of email, to-do lists, and keeping each other filled in. It’s very helpful I’m a good writer since I’m communicating with people both internally and externally every day, mostly via email. Media relations skills are essential, knowing how to get the right information to reporters and be helpful to them when they’re looking for information about C-K’s work or clients. It’s also really important to be a good listener and have the ability to gather information from a lot of different people and think about the big picture.
How did you prepare for your job?
I made a big transition joining the agency world. So, I did my best to research the history of the agency, read up on the agency world, and just generally try to soak up as much information as possible during my first few months here since a lot of my colleagues have so much more experience.
List three of your favorite professional resources/references/tools and tell us why they’re your favorite.
- I read Ragan’s PR Daily (and not just because I’m a contributing editor) and Spin Sucks everyday because they’re both really solid resources for PR pros and keep me current on industry trends and issues. I also check the New York Times Media page, Ad Age, and Mashable a couple times throughout the day to make sure I know what’s going on in the industry.
- My Twitter feed delivers me the best news, blog posts, and articles. I don’t follow everyone who follows me, but the people I do follow are constant sources of info-rich links. I’ve spent a lot of time really narrowing it down to the right people. I also have a few private Twitter lists categorized for different types of content: tech stuff, photography stuff, ad industry writers and groups of people in Chicago, Detroit, New York and a few other markets I like to keep tabs on.
- HARO (Help a Reporter Out). It’s three emails a day with queries from reporters all over the world looking for sources for their stories. I’d say at least four times per week I find a query I can respond to, I can flag for our client account teams or I can forward onto a friend who would be a great source. Anyone who works in PR needs to be signed up.
How do you stay up to date in your field?
Keeping current on the news everyday for our daily staff email, my Google reader, and my Twitter lists and friends.
How would you define professional writing?
If someone pays you to communicate a message through the written word — and you do it effectively — you’re a professional writer.
Do you have any tips to share with other professional writers/editors/designers?
Be a student of your industry. Read/look at as much work from others in your industry as you can to see how the pros are doing it. Start some kind of “inspiration spot” where you save photos or links or samples of things that inspire you so you can reference them later. But probably the most important thing is to just get out there and create something. Write a blog, take photos, redesign ads or publications you like, just practice your craft and set it free for others to see. You’ll learn the most when you have to stand behind content you’re creating.
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