University student Alice Norman spent a month with us at hopwood public relations. Here’s what she thought of her time as an intern…

Before I started at Hopwood, I can honestly say I was a little lost when it came to choosing a career. Like most people doing History at uni, you reach a point when you realise that your degree really doesn’t help you chose your career path. Public Relations had been recommended to me by quite a few different people, so naturally, I started asking around. But the thing about public relations is that no one really knows what it is (no matter how many people you ask, I can guarantee you won’t get a straight answer from anyone – that’s part of the charm). So I decided to do some work experience while back home in Leicester to help me judge the true meaning of Public Relations for myself. After just four weeks, Hopwood has helped me map out my future.

Like all new interns, I had no idea what to expect. All I hoped was that my job wouldn’t entail simply fetching tea and coffee, or sitting doing research all day long – the sort of things most people do on an internship. I had no idea that I’d be writing my own press releases within the week and conducting phone interviews and organising photo shoots within two. It’s been amazing to get stuck in to all the work and actually be trusted with writing and organising. I feel like I’ve really gained an insight into the world of PR while actually managing to make a difference along the way. After a week, I was totally hooked (and was even getting used to the early mornings!) More

Checking in at #measurepr this week, and it occurs to me that one of our New Year’s Resolutions here at hopwood PR must be to get our heads round the tricky business of measurement.

There are some massive challenges here:

1. All our clients are different so there’s no obvious one-size-fits-all way to measure results – have a look at our case studies and you’ll see we’re results oriented but that our projects have hugely varied outcomes

2. Clients’ priorities (and their people) change over time (but they might not tell you) so it’s easy to find yourself measuring the wrong thing

3. Assuming clients’ media profile matters to them, how do you evaluate that profile in a rapidly-evolving new media world?

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There’s a debate (unhealthy, I think) in the PR industry about whether or not it’s appropriate to measure the amount of media coverage we generate in terms of what it would cost to buy the same amount of space or air time as advertising.

It’s a hot topic on twitter under the hashtag #measurepr. Here’s what we think about measuring PR.

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hopwood pr clients featured prominently in more than 90 print and online publications in the first two months of the year. A dozen pieces of national coverage, plus articles in regional newspapers and business magazines, gave our clients more than five million opportunities to be seen. More

My boss Duncan Hopwood is a regular participant in #PRStudchat, a twitter chat that brings together public relations students, educators and professionals for a live monthly discussion. More

Seven PR lessons from the greatest communication never made

By Duncan Hopwood MCIPR

“Pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space…” – Monty Python’s Meaning of Life

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Last month I was invited by my old Journalism tutor to attend the launch of “the Leicester Centre for Journalism” at De Montfort University. Intrigued to see what had become of my classmates, as well as what had changed during the year since my graduation, I decided to go along. More

I went to a really interesting CIPR seminar on social media and pr. The two key speakers, Adam Sefton and Paul O’Donoghue enjoyed an ongoing debate about content versus conversation which really got me thinking. I fully intended to write my first blog post about this but some new client wins and first blog nerves got in the way… More

So here they are, the world’s favourite quotes about the public relations profession as compiled in our online survey of communications professionals. More

PR is a powerful staff motivator. Build up what Vicky Franklin calls “a pyramid of communication lines within the client company” and successful media campaigns have a morale-boosting effect on the entire staff. This could be something as simple as posting cuttings on a bulletin board. More