24Pages of detailed information about

personal achievements in four

years

poskutedesign

portfolio

skills

experience

This portfolio will outline skills and personal

attributes gained during four years at the

University of Central Lancashire.

In this document you will find a detailed

work experience in the PR industry as well

as examples of the tasks carried out during

before and after placement year.

Greta

poskutedesignGreta

A little bit about me...

I’m an ambitious, bubbly and all things PR passionate recent graduate from University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) who is looking for work experience in the areas of media relations, marketing, internal communication and social media.

With an extensive background in all of these areas, I managed to gain a number of new skills relevant to the PR industry as well as enhance the existing ones via studying BA (Hons) Public Relations course.

It is also worthwhile mentioning that the set of skills was boosted after a year in the industry and completing a number of different internships. I was pleased that the right mixture of theory and relevant work experience led me to unearth that PR is definitely my cup of tea.

When I am off from work (and the University at the time), I find myself enjoying grasping PR industry insights, strengthening my online presence and attending professional events. I have to be honest with you here – I’m not all about PR. I also regularly attend gym classes and go for a run, have catch-ups with my friends, set off exploring news places and taking lots of photos.

Tip!

Tip!

p. 9

writingp. 6

presentations

p. 20

researchp. 22

management

p. 13

design

Contents

p. 17

events

releases, blog posts and web copy written for different employers.

Presentations section will touch upon my skills gained through delivering various talks.

Events and management chapter will guide you through the range of events I had to tap in showcasing my managerial abilities.

Design and research bit will give you a full picture of how I come up with creative PR ideas.

These symbols in the portfolio will represent different skills I have gained through carrying out various public relations tasks as part of my course and for different employers.

Writing chapter of this portfolio will highlight a number of press

Communications OfficerMAIN RESPONSIBILITIES: I undertook my year in the industry at Lancashire Business School, the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). Whilst on my placement I was responsible for communicating with external and internal stakeholders on behalf of the School. I took the initiative and introduced a regular staff newsletter which received a lot of positive feedback from different departments of the School. I was also in charge of branding up and managing social media platforms for the School as well as supporting various events. Apart from that, I was involved in writing news stories and web copy.

October 2012 - June 2014

PR InternMAIN RESPONSIBILITIES: During the three months internship with I was responsible for a wide range of tasks related to media relations, social media and desk-based research. I wrote press releases for organisations and groups including Let’s Do Business! and Attwater. I also was responsible for promoting events of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR). The content was used to promote the events on Eventbrite, the CIPR web-site and was sent out as an e-newsletter to all CIPR members.

March 2014 - June 2014

May 2012 - July 2012 PR VolunteerMAIN RESPONSIBILITIES: At Freshfield I gained an invaluable experience about how the PR agency operates. My main responsibilities at Freshfield were related to assisting PR and Social Media Consultant with secondary research, evaluating social media activities, contacting journalists and supporting Lancashire School Games event. I was regularly putting together forward features lists for a range of clients and researching influential bloggers. I was also monitoring and evaluating social media activities for local clients.

September 2013 - May 2014 Project design managerMAIN RESPONSIBILITIES: The project undertaken during the final year at UCLan has given the significant weight to both personal development and shaped the understanding of campaign planning and implementation. As a Design Manager I was responsible for visualising the campaign and developing campaign promotional materials including designing the look for campaign’s communication plan, putting together fliers and designing a pull-up banner. I was also responsible for liaising with the print shop about getting the materials ready in time.

1Client campaign presentation. During the final year of my

course four girls and I had been working with Machester-based People’s History Museum to come up with a student focused cam-paign. At the end of semester one, we had to formally present our campaign plan to a large group of students and most importantly - to a client. I was covering a section entitled ‘implementation’ that presented me with an opportunity to improve my oral communication skills. With this in focus, I practised my speech to deliver a clear and to-the-point message to the audi-ence about why we chose spe-cific campaign tactics to achieve communication objectives which were set in Sept 2013. Presentation receive a lot of positive feedback.

2Coursework presentations. During four years at the Uni-

versity I had many opportunities to deliver various group and individu-al presentations. In year one, with English being my second language and having basic knowledge of how to deliver presentations, I often used to read from my notes when delivering talks. However, that has significantly changed since the completion of my place-ment year. In the final year, I was not using any notes during pre-sentations and was able to explain different topics in a conversational manner, allowing listeners to jump in at any time and ask questions. Not having notes have helped me to receive higher grades and deliver better presentations.

3Placement with Lancashire Business School, UCLan.

Throughout my placement, I often attended various marketing meet-ings where I had the responsibility to present updates of different marketing and PR activities. These meetings presented me with an opportunity to enhance my data in-terpretation skills as well as pres-ent the findings in a brief manner highlighting the most important facts and trends. During that year, I learned the importance of giving background information to each activity that is being discussed as not everyone will be aware that these activities are/were taking place.

Presentations

CommunicationIn a nutshell, a number of presentations delivered allowed me to enhance my verbal communication as well as improve my English language.

Body languageThe module entitled ‘Media Relations’ has provided me with an invaluable information of non-verbal communication and its importance while communicating with journalists.

Designing slidesWhile at the university, I found out about alternative slide designing website called Prezi, which allows to showcase the information in an interactive and engaging way. I have become very proficient in putting together presentations using this website.

4During my placement year I was heavily involved with

promoting and attending various events organised by the School or the University. Once I was offered to deliver a talk to potential PR students about my experience as a student at UCLan and how it helped me to develop both per-sonally and professionally. At the Applicant Day 2013, I was talking to couple of potential students. This opportunity not only allowed me to step out of my comfort zone but also gave me the chance to improve my communication skills. With a thorough preparation I was able to highlight the main unique course selling points that hope-fully have influenced students’ decisions to join PR industry, and UCLan in particular.

5Media Relations module. In my second year I have attended

the module which equipped me with an in-depth knowledge about the journalism industry and gave me media training that was very useful in the two following years of the University. It provided me with much necessary background how a PR professional should behave during press conference, TV and radio interviews. It have covered all ‘Dos and Don’ts’ which I carry around with me to this day. It also allowed me to learn the components of press conference and how to get it organised. From the module I have also learned the importance of right posture dur-ing public speaking or delivering presentations.

The presentation skills

I have today have been

honed through both my

course and my placement

year. I currently feel

confident about delivering

a presentation to large or

small groups, it does not

matter, take your pick. I also

learned that there are very

few people who can actually

deliver speeches from the

top of their heads without

any preparation, therefore, it

is important to practice. So

before each presentation I

dedicate enough time to sit

down and get my thoughts

together around what I want

to say.

I enjoy going out of my

comfort zone and deliver

presentations on different

topics. It gives me a good

opportunity to research the

subject and learn something

new that I might be able to

apply at some point in my

future career.

skillsreview

There are many types of representation

skills, however, I will talk in this

section about my skills to

represent data in multiple

ways.

During the year in the

industry some of my tasks

involved dealing with

marketing intelligence

about Lancashire

Business School courses.

My responsibilities were to

crunch the numbers, pick out

key facts and emerging themes and

present them both on paper and during

marketing meetings.

While working as Communications Officer

at Lancashire Business School,

UCLan I was daily speaking on the

phone with my line manager,

UCLan marketing team,

students and companies

interested in working with

the School.

During the year I have

developed a good phone

communication manner

through helping out not only

to various services across the

University but as well as to different

business managers who used to contact

me with regard to publishing their student

focused vacancies.

PR

1Effective phone communication has also been improved via distance working with Tigerfish PR.

Provided that Tigerfish PR is based in a different town, Director and I agreed to communicate via phone and e-mail to be more cost efficient and save time on travelling. Phone communication has been very effective based on the work I managed to produced.

2Apart from that, I also enhanced my business representative skills. I honed it through talking to

various business people during the professional events at UCLan as well as tried to help people with their queries over the phone and social media channels. I realised that a reputation of the organisation depends on individual employees, so I did my best to be helpful.

Phone skillsPhone handling is crucial to all businesses

RepresentationBecause there’s only one first impression

WritingEXPERIENCE

1After helping to organise the event and taking a lot of photos

during it was my responsibility to get a quote from one of the event’s attendees and write a follow-up blog post. These types of tasks taught me the importance of the promotion before the event and the necessity to recap how everything went. Read full post:

http://bit.ly/1nBT2i7

2LBS accounting students’ hard work has been recognised by

OTS and they all had been awarded by the Treasury Minister - David Gauke. I put the story together for the Business School website following a conversation with the accounting lecturer, who gave me all the necessary information. Read full story here:

http://bit.ly/1foNRQh

3LBS student was part of world championship winning team.

I worked directly with the student to put the story about his and the team’s impressive achievement. The story presented me with the opportunity to develop my e-mail communication efficiency and that’s the channel I used to obtain the information. Read full story here: http://bit.ly/1ka20fU

LBS event offers first-

hand information

about PG courses

blog post

My written press release for Tigerfish PR client Let’s

Do Business! received an online coverage on the

following three websites: Tigerfish PR, Lancashire

Business View and Let’s Do Business!

In this press release I combined two different aspects

of PR - event promotion and brand awareness. Through

the press release Let’s Do Business! networking group

has raised the awareness of its brand as well as has

managed to tell the readers what events they organise

and share the purpose of the group’s establishment.

This story was one of a few ones published in the local

newspaper - Lancashire Evening Post.

I rustled up a press release after obtaining all necessary

information from the girls (pictured right) who have won

the national Chartered Institute of Marketing competition

entitled ‘The Pitch.’

Competing the story allowed me to find out that PR is my

cup of tea. I enjoyed chatting with the girls about their

achievement, obtaining the quote from their lecturer and

contacting the CIM and asking for photos from the event.

I also worked with Diane Earles, Network Manager at the

CIM, on getting the story published on the CIM website.

1Below is the link to the published story of

Carl Hopkins at the Let’s Do Business! event in Chorley.

http://bit.ly/1iDeBgo

2Let’s Do Business! story also appeared

on Lancashire Business View website. To view the story follow the link http://bit.ly/R3zWDU

3A post event blog post was added to

the Let’s Do Business! website. Click below to see the post.

http://bit.ly/1oYodSM

4Press release about marketing students

winning national competition has been published on Lancashire Evening Post

http://bit.ly/1mhoXVH

Top storiesSecret Millionaire attends Chorley’s eventLet’s Do Business! event with Carl Hopkins

Pitch perfectMarketing students win national CIM competition

The two above stories are related to promoting

graduate experiences. The first one was also

related to promoting the Business School’s Skills

Week where PR and Marketing graduates came

back to inspire first year students to look for work

experience.

For the second story I worked alongside the FDM

group, to produce a press release about two LBS

graduates who work there as well as promote the

developing partnership between FDM and LBS.

The above two stories were picked to reflect my

writing experience about various events. The third

story was about a well-known entrepreneur and

chef Paul Heathcote coming to see LaunchPad

students and giving them success building blocks.

The final story was about the School’s accounting

networking event which brought together

accounting professionals and students on campus.

The story was also published on UCLan’s Career

website and widely promoted on social media.

During my placement, I have set up a blog for Lancashire Business School as an

alternative online domain sourcing its stories while the main website was undergoing

major changes.

In just a little bit over a year, I have managed to write more than 35 posts about the

Business School student successes, staff achievements and LaunchPad programme

updates.

The popularity of the blog is still growing not only SEO wise, but also in the number of

visitors. More than 2700 people visited the blog from around the world and 25 people

chose to follow it. Looking after this website has equipped me invaluable blogging skills.

http://bit.ly/1fSVWaG http://bit.ly/1iH3VY9 http://bit.ly/1mhu9bX http://bit.ly/1rSlImB

LBSblogGreta PoskutePublic Relationsstudent

1IoD opens its doors to

UCLan studentshttp://bit.ly/1hapaCd

3LBS partnership with

CILThttp://bit.ly/1mWyqP3

2Career wheels turn for

Zoehttp://bit.ly/1lugiMF

Designingfor public relations

As part of the final year project and PR in practice module, four girls and I have teamed up with People’s History Museum based in Manchester to deliver a student focused campaign which aimed to boost the museums awareness.

As Design Manager it was my responsibility to develop print materials for the campaign. I put together a flyer and a pull-up banner which were both tested with a focus group before they went to print.

PHM campaignDesigning the look of leaflets and pull-up banner

BriefingLancashire Business School internal newsletterDuring my final year at the University I kept on working part-time for the Business School and carried on putting together the internal staff newsletter.

Since the year out in the industry, I have significantly enhanced both my internal communication practical skills and theoretical knowledge. In semester one of the final year, I undertook internal communication module which equipped me with insights into different channels available to boost employee engagement and how to get the majority of employees on board with undergoing

organisational change. The module also provided invaluable information about best techniques for internal communication campaigns.

A large proportion of the gained knowledge I put into designing the fifth edition of the staff newsletter. It included more relevant information about what’s going on at the School in terms of past and upcoming events.

I also highlighted both staff and student successes across different areas of the School including links for further information and images to accompany the stories to make the newsletter more engaging.

It received a positive feedback from a lecturer in internal communication which is a great personal achievement.

These tasks presented me with the opportunity to learn more about a supplier-PR agency-client communication in order to get everything approved and ready in time for the campaign. Now I am more aware how long it takes to get print materials designed, ordered, approved and printed. In the future this will allow me to plan similar tasks more efficiently.

Designing these promotional matterials also made me realise the need to know relevant software programmes and encouraged me to start learning how to use Adobe Photoshop, picture editing software, and Adobe InDesign which is used by the majority of the designers to develop magazines and company brochures. This portfolio is also designed using Adobe InDesign.

Rebranding Facebook pagesTigerfish PR and LBS Facebook pages get clean, simple facelifts

During my internship with Tigerfish PR I took the initiative to rebrand its Facebook page.

From the conversations with my manager who flagged up the issue that some of the clients are not fully aware of all Tigerfish PR services, I got an idea for the cover photo. The bubbles included all services of the company and the text on the bottom of the photo

reinforced the message that Tigerfish PR is a full package PR consultancy.

The logo was also redesigned to provide a synchronised look between the profile picture and the cover photo. App images were also redesigned in orange. See the page live: www.facebook.com/TigerfishPR

For Lancashire Business School I had to liaise with graphic designers to get the cover photo designed. However, it was responsibility to draw an example of how I want the page cover photo to look like and find the photo that designer should use.

Since I did not know how to use Adobe Photoshop back then, I used an online photo

editing website called Photoflexi to rustle up design for Lancashire Business School Facebook page.

Following the final look of the cover image I designed App pictures by myself.

See the page live: www.facebook.com/uclan.lbs

posterdesign to support promotion of events

websitedesign to make it dynamic and engaging

newsletterdesign to enhance the look of publications

Skills

Adobe InDesign

Joomla CMS

Adobe Photoshop

Wordpress

http://on.fb.me/1kxvyHo

http://bit.ly/1u9p2f2

http://bit.ly/1jlxOln

http://bit.ly/1o6SmPf

Apart from developing newsletters and

Facebook cover photos for businesses,

I have designing experience in putting

together promotional posters and

building up websites using Joomla, a

content management system (CMS)

software.

These additional skills have helped me

a lot in the past and because of them I

managed not only to get the job done

faster, but also saved some money on

hiring a graphic designer.

I have designed a website for one of

Lancashire Business School research

projects using Joomla, which is also

used by well-know company such as

Ebay. This additional skill will definitely

come in handy in the future, as nearly

every company has a website but not all

of them afford to get an IT professional

to maintain it. Therefore, I can offer to

create a dynamic and model website for

an organisation and save their budget.

Also designing LBS blog with Wordpress

allowed me to fully understand how the

blogging website works.

EVENTS

professionalevents

including CIPR, CIM, CMI,company visits,overseas visit to

Hong Kong

30+various events

attended during four years at the

University.

1Professional events. Throughout

the course I regularly attended campus events organised by professional bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and the Chartered Management Institute (CIM) which helped me to get a first-hand PR knowledge from practicing professionals. In addition, I also helped to organise and manage a few of these events.

2Guest lectures. As part of Public

Relations course I often attended guest lectures delivered by experts in a wide range of industries (Liberty, Soap Media, University of Ljubljana, Co-operative, IGT and more).

Guest lecturers provided me with many employability tips and enhanced my knowledge about different aspects of PR.

3Company visits. During my placement

year I had an opportunity to visit Lancashire County Cricket Club (LCCC) and Manchester United. The talk with Media Manager at LCCC broadened my awareness of sports PR and what the industry entails. The audience with Communications Director at Manchester United Phil Townsend was a real eye-opener to what challenges big sport organisations are faced with.

4Overseas visit. I was presented with an

opportunity to go to Hong Kong with Lancashire Business School LaunchPad programme. My responsibility was to take photos during workshops with local recruitment experts and during the visit to Bloomberg’s Hong Kong office. After coming back to the UK I was writing a series of blog posts that were later turned into a newsletter.

Skill 1

Continuous personal development. The regular attendance of professional

events justifies that I am committed to lifelong

learning.

From my attended guest lecturers I have gained

many good and practical tips on how to practice PR and how to communicate

with journalists.

Organisational visits provided me the

opportunities to see different organisational

cultures to find out where I’d like to work.

Visit to HK was a life-changing experience

that allowed to unearth working culture in HK and find out how world’s fastest growing news organisation

is operating.

Skill 2 Skill 3 Skill 4

Public relationsresearch

My undergraduate dissertation was looking through

the lenses of Dialogic Theory of Public Relations to find

out how universities in the North West are facilitating

dialogue on their Twitter and Facebook pages.

Its findings have revealed the majority of universities

are not utilising social media channels to their

fullest in order to establish conversations with their

stakeholders.

Findings also reveal that universities are mainly using

Facebook and Twitter to generate return visits via

sharing images, links and videos.

I had a few opportunities to conduct different types

of research for my course, Lancashire Business

School, Freshfield and Tigerfish PR.

During my voluntary experience with Freshfield I had

to evaluate their social media activities for different

clients including updating measurement sheets and

evaluating data from Google Analytics.

For Tigerfish PR I had to research relevant media

outlets for a number of clients. I also had the respon-

sibility to put together features lists using PR Max.

Once I was helping Tigerfish PR Director to help

prepare the pitch for a potential client. My respon-

sibility was to get more insight into the potential

client’s competitors, so I had to call a number of ar-

chitects and ask questions about installing wooden

staircases and to see if they would recommend me

the potential client or one its competitors. This task

present me with opportunity to learn about a differ-

ent approach of obtaining the information whether

companies related to your products are aware of

your brand or not.

For my course I also often had to conduct research

related to various assignments that some of them

included radio interviews about RBS, PHM’s student

campaign and Concordia crisis management.

1Research based tasks equipped me with

eye-for detail skill and enhanced my creativity

2Broadened my aware-ness of research

methods for PR practice.3Taught me how to

conduct surveys for organisations and how to interpret gathered data.

4Allowed me to learn how to put together a

press release from gath-ered survey data.

Dialogue facilitation on social media channelsUndergraduate dissertation

Desk researchpreparing a pitch for potential client

Managementexperience

During four years at the University I had a number

of opportunities to put my management skills into

practice.

One of those examples were working in a group of

five to create a press conference about Powerade’s

new product for Olympic Games 2012.

Because the overall assignment consisted of many

little pieces of work, I took the responsibility as a

team leader to manage the group to and to

make sure that everything is written

and ready in time. I had to manage

group members to get the

presentation, press pack and

the essay ready on time. It

was also my responsibility

to distribute the work fairly

and equally to all group

members.

My management style

proved to be working and all

written and non-written pieces

of the assignment had been

submitted on time.

Futhermore, the presenation received a grade of

68% which was an achievement to each and one of

us.

While working for Lancashire Business School

I had the opportunity to organise and manage

the School’s event aimed for third year students

interested in finding more about postgraduate

courses at UCLan.

For the event entitled ‘Postgraduate Advice

Afternoon’ it was my responsibility to order

refreshments, pick the best venue and prepare

relevant promotional materials.

Before the event I had to get together

all current postgraduate students,

who came so share their

experience with the third

years, and brief them what

key areas they should

mention when talking to

undergraduates.

On the day I had to direct

catering people to relevant

room and inform them where

I would like the refreshments to

be placed.

It was also my responsibility on the day

to set up the room, place all marketing materials

and take plenty of pictures what were later used

for social media sites and follow-up stories.

Follow-upWould like to have a further chat with me about my experience?

Please get in touch.

Tel: 0792 7912 499

E-mail: gposkute@uclan.ac.uk

Twitter: @gretaposkute

LinkedIn: Greta Poskute

Contact details:

Gretaposkutedesign