Name: Bella Cantalice
Major: Communication Studies
Specialization: Mass Media and Social Media
Graduation Year: 2024
Please describe your main role and core tasks of your internship in your own words?
I hold many roles within the office which has given me immense experience within the world of Public Relations. I do the typical busy work sometimes, such as inventory for the various brands we work with. Doing inventory has given me a chance to familiarize myself with the brands/products I am working with, and has helped me when doing other tasks for the office.
I have worked on various media lists for different brands we represent. Good media lists are vital as we are pushing these writers to pick up a story on our brand. The media lists consist of anywhere from 40-100 writers, and I find these journalists through MuckRack.
I have put together pitches for our different brands, which have ranged from Lubricant companies, to makeup and wellness brands. These pitches have been sent to the writers in which I placed on a media list for them to feature on whatever platform they write for. I have worked hand-in-hand with jewelry brand Abbott Lyon for the entirety of my internship.
I research influencers every month that I feel would be a good fit to represent Abbott Lyon, reach out to these influencers through email, and work with them on pieces they may want and what kind of representation deal they will receive from us.
Another task I have taken is creating and putting together giftings for different companies we work for. For example, JO (a lubricant brand) just had their 25th anniversary so I was tasked with finding different items to put into a mailer, order these items, put together these boxes, create shipping labels, and send them to whoever the company wants me to. For JO and Lube Life I put together monthly presentations for these companies about any article where any of their products have been mentioned for that month which has been a tedious process to say the least.
Please share your success stories (or positive learnings gained) from the internship.
I feel as though I truly have had a lot of success working at BELLA, but one situation that always stands out to me is with Abbott Lyon. As I was going through and doing my monthly mailing list of influencers I decided to put one of my very well known favorite influencers on the list not thinking much would come from it. I email around 70 influencers a month and only get a response from 10 if I am lucky, so I did not expect her to answer. Low and behold she answered and I had the chance to work with her on deciding which pieces she wants and we decided this would be a free gifting with no posting requirements. But, she received her pieces and loved them so much she posted them to her Instagram even shouting out our firm for being so helpful.
Please share challenges (or areas of improvement) you experienced during your internship.
I would say the most challenging part of this internship has been the commute into the city. I underestimated how hard it would be not only physically but mentally to travel like this weekly. I still have not gotten used to doing this weekly and have struggled many days to push through.
Beyond that any other struggles have been minor.
Learning exactly what to do for media lists, pitches, presentations, etc. has been a learning experience, but I would say I caught on quickly and did not struggle much.