As snow gently floats down from the steely gray sky, I find myself once again writing a final blog post.  About three months have passed since I wrote my last post.  Although in my last post I promised that you would see more of me in the future I had not expected the opportunity so soon.

Almost immediately upon my return I realized that things were different.  Around the end of the year things usually slow down but this year was an exception.  A good amount of work had accumulated and that made for a busy winter break for me.

Among all the work there were a few shining Roundpeg moments.  Around Christmas we had a Roundpeg holiday party.  Abandoning the work setting and talking to my coworkers at an informal dinner was a fun experience.  As always, drives to get lunch provided entertaining chats.  A personal fun moment was when I soccer momed everyone else to get lunch in a minivan and to get out of the parking lot we had to drive over the lawn.

As an intern at Roundpeg I recognize that not everything is fun and games but forgive me for not boring you with all the work related stories.  Already I am slipping back into school mode and I hope that the fun times had at Roundpeg and everything that I’ve learned here will carry me safely back into the learning arena so I can advance in my studies.

Adios,

-Scott

P.S.  Anyone notice that every sentence started with the letter A?

Another week, another goodbye as our intern Brittany leaves Roundpeg.  We wish her well as she heads off to a job we have helped her prepare for.

Four months ago I was sitting in front of a computer screen at a job that had no room for growth. I woke up everyday knowing I wasn’t getting anywhere in my present situation and I was frustrated. I had tossed around the idea of quitting and taking an internship but the thought was terrifying.  Could I afford it, was it really a smart idea, was it necessary? Every possible question flashed through my mind a million times.  I had a lot to lose, but I felt like I had so much more to gain. I was right.

In July, I decided to take the plunge and started researching possible intern opportunities that would fit with the pursuit of my master’s degree in public relations. I found Roundpeg, studied the company and culture and loved it. I excitedly turned in my resume, nervously interviewed and crossed my fingers with hope while I waited for a return call. I was ecstatic when I was offered the position and didn’t blink twice about working for free. I sacrificed some unimportant materialistic things in the hopes I would gain knowledge, real world experience and great contacts in the PR industry. That’s exactly what I got. And maybe some more I wasn’t expecting.

I spent the last  three and a half months working with Allison. Oh Allison. Sometimes I hated her, most times I loved her, but I always respected her. She may not be the world’s sweetest teacher, but she made me think and taught me how to be a better and more concise writer. She also taught me to be a honey badger a/k/a have tough skin. On the days when she was an overcritical beast and only talked to me in “phone voice,” I sucked it up, dug deeper and really grew as a PR professional. So thanks Allison, I’m pretty sure I can handle anything at this point.

I say that because the time has come…I finally landed a paying public relations position. It’s not full-time and I’m still looking, but I’m going to get paid to do what I love while I finish up grad school! I’m so excited and proud of myself, but I’m still sad. I’ll miss Roundpeg, the people, the animals and the atmosphere. But I’m walking away from this experience knowing that I’m smarter and much better prepared for life after graduation. And I’m thankful. So thankful for the opportunities that I’ve been given. Thankful that Lorraine, Allison, Jay and Jenna believed in me and my abilities enough to bring me in and spend their time teaching me. I’m better stop now before this post gets too mushy because Allison is super emotional and she’ll start crying and hugging me, again. Geesh.

Just know I’ll be back to visit sometime very soon. Toodles!

From Brittany Wright

From the very first day, Allison repeatedly told me that I was writing academically instead of focusing on readability. To be honest, I had no idea what she was talking about. As a grad student in public relations, writing is a skill I not only have to possess, but one that I have to excel in. So, I was confused and it was a blow to my ego when I got feedback that I needed to seriously work on my “voice.” I thought  my voice was great and definitely wasn’t expecting so much criticism.

Two months later, I get it. I can look at my papers and projects for school now and see the difference in tone compared to my blog posts, web copy and social media campaign work for Roundpeg.

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here is an example of the same sentence written in different tones:

Academic: The organization seeks to cultivate proactive relationships with appropriate media outlets to improve the frequency of quality media coverage.

Everyday speech: The organization wants to develop their media relationships to increase their coverage.

Now I understand the importance of being able to write in different voices and I’m able to adjust it when I need to. I’m not perfect at it yet, but I catch it much more than I did before I started this internship. I used to think Allison was just being nit-picky, but now I see that I had to figure this out so that I could become a better writer and be more marketable as I search for a PR position.

Brittany is an intern at Roundpeg, an Indianapolis public relations and social media firm.

Our intern Brittany talks about some of the interesting posts she found researching content  from our archive.

I spent the past few days working on SEO for old blog posts in the web design category. It may seem like a boring task, but I actually enjoyed it. Sometimes it feels nice not to be creative all the time and instead read other people’s original ideas. It’s definitely inspiring. I read about things I hadn’t heard or thought of, things that have become obsolete and things I had forgotten about. I want to share some of the more interesting posts and facts with you.

Perhaps the most enlightening post I came across was Improve Your SEO from July 14, 2009. In it, Lorraine shared some of the things she learned from ProBlogger, Darren Rose.  The post included a list of useful tips:

• Anticipate keywords people will use to search for your company
• Incorporate those keywords into different parts of your posts – don’t go so overboard that it gets repetitive though
• Google loves titles – so gets your right
• Link, link, link. Did I say link? Link to your own posts and to outside sites
• Utilize plugins. Yoast is a great example of an SEO plugin

In another post, a former intern once described not taking advantage of SEO tools while running your business website like with running in shoes without laces. While you are unlikely to be in danger of physical injury, the risk to your business is real.

• Without a solid focus on SEO, you will find yourself tripping and falling as you attempt to drive traffic and connect with potential prospects and clients.

The beauty of WordPress is that Google, and other search engines, like it. That is so important! Roundpeg talks about their switch to building websites from WordPress a lot, but I stumbled across a post that was written almost two years ago that really explains some key advantages

• Allows creation of simple websites that clients can update themselves
• Building a new site is quick
• WordPress sites perform better in searches than the old style, frame based sites
• CMS solution & extremely effective for small business owners

As a new intern, I think it was really helpful to look at previous blog posts. Of course I always read our blog, but going back to the basics is always fun.

by Peter Wolfgram

There a few things you need to know.

First thing: Roundpeg just welcomed their new graphic design intern, me. My name is Peter, I’m writing from the bullpen at 106^th and College and I just had Chipotle for the first time.

Second thing: Call me Peter or Pete. I’ll respond to both and I’ll probably respond more rapidly if you say you brought me a Dr. Pepper. I’m a graduate of Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. While my training is in advertising strategy and brand development, I’m really an experience-taught designer with a love of high impact visual communication. For me, the perfect website is a voice that works hard to earn the right to look pretty.

What I love about Roundpeg is that Lorraine and the team believe small-businesses deserve the kind of powerful communications that super-charge their relationship with customers. I’m a believer too; that’s why I’m so excited to be here.

Third thing: The next time of my life is right here, starting now.

By Brittany Wright

Our day-to-day lives can be an crazy mess of meetings, appointments, friends, family, work, school, etc. If you have a personal Facebook account, sometimes even responding to messages can feel like a task so keeping up with everyone else’s lives? You think, yeah right! Add business-related networking tools into the mix and it can seem completely overwhelming. So what’s the best way to approach your professional social media accounts in regard to time spent? That can be a tricky question…but we’ll give you our best, educated answer.

The time needed to maintain a valuable presence in social media really varies depending on your industry and the number of employees who assist in your campaign. The typical recommendation that we give business owners is to designate 30-60 minutes each day purely for social media. This allows for enough time to make valuable connections, update content and create a consistent, visible presence for your company.

We recently conducted a Small Business Social Media Study*, in which we found that in general, business owners are usually committing to approximately 30  minutes a day. It’s vital to set aside this time to sustain a successful strategic social media campaign.

Making time means analyzing your current schedule and eliminating unnecessary tasks. If you think of social media as just another aspect of marketing, it makes it easier much easier to allot some of your precious time each day. With that being said, don’t think of SM only as marketing because it’s also a very useful tool in engaging current or potential customers. Be sure to check out the results of our survey to see the correlation between time invested and the amount of sales generated. It IS worth your while!

*The 2011 Small Business Social Media Survey was conducted by Roundpeg, an Indianapolis social media firm, from May 1 – July 1, 2011. We collected data from 243 owners of companies with 1-50 employees.

After four weeks, Brittany is settling in.  Here is an update on the continuing adventures of our Intern:

By Brittany Wright

I’m into the fourth week of my internship here at Roundpeg, and I’d like to share some of my experiences thus far with all of you. Remember all of the things I wrote about two weeks ago? Well, I have quite a few more things to add to the list now. First, I’ve completed a ghost blog post for a pretty big-deal client, created and published another press release, worked on drip campaigns for both Roundpeg and a client, created a month’s worth of tweets for the same company, wrote a blog posting for our website about the amount of time you should spend on social media in order to create genuine relationships (remember to check it out on September 13th!) and have been managing Roundpeg’s Facebook postings.

On top of all that, the juggling of classes and work is officially underway. This semester I’m taking Agencies & Entrepreneurs, PR Planning and Strategic Marketing Management. Agencies & Entrepreneurs is a class that focuses on teaching future PR professionals about the pros and cons of opening their own agencies versus joining an already successful firm. I’m not sure that there’s anyone more qualified than Lorraine to teach me both sides of the road, but I’m giving it a shot.

PR Planning has gotten my attention because I’m such a research nerd, and now I can begin to apply my findings to an actual campaign. Strategic Marketing Management is a required course than generally gets PR students shaking in their boots because it’s only offered through the Kelley School of Business. Thankfully, I’ve spent much of my working life the marketing field, so I’m not quite as concerned as some others. However, the Kelley School of Business is definitely not a school to scoff at. As one of the top-ranked business colleges in the nation, I know the class won’t be easy-as-pie.

I determined to again maintain a 4.0 this semester and still give 110% to Roundpeg. When I start to get overwhelmed, I just remind myself what this is all about, and that is leveraging myself as a top-notch PR professional in this ever-growing field. I feel blessed that Lorraine gave me the opportunity to hone my skills and work hands-on in her company and I don’t intend to give her any less than my best.

by Brittany Wright

Well, I survived! Week one of my internship is down and Allison didn’t eat me alive, make me cry or even scream obscenities at me. That’s a good sign, right?! On a more serious note, I have learned more than I ever expected to in the past 20 hours.

In one short week, I sat in on a phone conference with Jay regarding web design for a client. During the meeting, we discussed themes, padding and navigation items. I was also able to attend a LinkedIn training session with Allison, where she discussed the importance of recommendations, how to connect with potential clients and the differentiation of 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections.  Another meeting pertained to the strategic development of a Facebook landing page where objectives, target market demographics, graphics and a call-to-action were conferred upon. I have also written press releases that have been published, created blog posts and even updated CSS coding for a webpage. Now, if this isn’t some seriously portfolio-worthy work, then I don’t know what is!

It’s clear I’ve found my niche and  I’m satisfied that I’ve found an industry that I’m absolutely passionate about. I couldn’t be happier or more excited to see what the future holds. Wherever I end up, I know that it will be in an agency setting and I’m thrilled about that.

Hi, my name is Brittany, and I’m the newest Roundpeg team member. I am currently finishing up my Master’s Degree in the IUPUI School of Journalism’s Public Relations Program and had been seeking an internship within an Indianapolis PR firm. I interviewed with the Roundpeg team last week, and left knowing that I absolutely loved the culture and atmosphere. From the casual dress-code, to an environment which fosters and nurtures uniqueness, I knew this was exactly what I had been searching for. Everyone seemed so knowledgeable and sure of themselves, and I definitely wanted to be a part of such an esteemed company.

I got my wish! Here I am, on my first day at one of the most prestigious firms in Indianapolis and I could not be more excited to have the opportunity to work with such a talented group of people, and to be able to pick their brains on a regular basis. I will be interning under Jay Mattingly, the director of marketing, and Allison Carter, the director of communications. It doesn’t get much better than this!

I’m ready to let the learning begin and can’t wait to start researching, planning and implementing new techniques along the way. I consider myself to be a sponge of sorts, and intend to absorb every bit of information I can from this internship. I am looking forward to maturing my blog “voice” and learning the ins and outs of many social media platforms with Allison, as well as gaining an abundance of knowledge of WordPress and web design from Jay. This internship will absolutely increase my skill set, help me to create valuable connections in the Indianapolis public relations community and allow me the chance to create new writing pieces that can be added to my professional portfolio.

By the way, follow me @wrightrelations or connect with me via LinkedIn.

Summer is officially over as we say goodbye to the last of our summer interns, Scott Pfeiffer.  

Friends, if you are reading this then the unthinkable has happened, my last day at Roundpeg has come and gone.  I am writing to let you know that it will all be ok.  I have moved on to a peaceful place.  Let me assure you, my moments at Roundpeg were a definite highlight to my so far brief work experience.

Jay was my mentor at Roundpeg.  He taught me everything I know about WordPress.  Of the many projects that I worked on, the Roundpeg web redesign was the most enjoyable .  It really allowed me to learn WordPress from the ground up.  I learned all about creating a website from scratch while helping Roundpeg recreate itself.  And please don’t hesitate to check out my handiwork.  One page I worked on in particular was the Meet Roundpeg page.  I really enjoyed creating the tabs for this page.

Speaking of enjoyed…something else I enjoyed about my internship at Roundpeg was the atmosphere.  Roundpeg is that mythical place where both work and fun can coexist.  Whether we are working (while listening to music of course) watching YouTube videos (of cute animals) or discussing the latest and greatest news, Roundpeg maintains it atmosphere of fun.  Everyone that works here has his or her own unique personality to add to the mix that makes Roundpeg special.  After factoring in Adventures in Dining trips and even a play that we all went to see (Avenue Q), the end result is a very special internship experience.

Now before I depart forever I’d like to personally invite each and every one of you who read this post to come and visit me at my new online home lspfeiffer.com.  I will do my best to share my college experiences in blog form.  My goal for this website is to get it on the first page of google.  Now I’ll need some help with that so if you would please drop by and leave me some comments.

Maybe you’ll see me again and maybe you won’t (you will)

Mahalo Roundpeg