Month: March 2022

In our last session we looked at the MCP website. We talked about what has been done and what still need to be done.

All that presenter’s groups still needed to do, was done during the session. Zainab and Ade wrote their descriptions and uploaded them on OneDrive. We all agreed to use our LinkedIn and Instagram accounts. However, as Ade was not involved in the conversation, he decided to use his TikTok account instead of LinkedIn because he does not have it.

Also, as a group, we talked that this project was challenging and chaotic. For a few times, we all were lost and did not know what else to do. When we finished our parts as presenters, we did not want to get too involved in other groups because that confused other groups as others did not know the group’s ideas.

After we finished recording our podcast we had some extra tasks to do. Each of presenters had to write descriptions of themselves and podcasts. These are mine:

About me

‘ My name is Beatrice Begaudaite, and I am a second-year Media and Communications student at Coventry University. I am also a social media coordinator of the Media and Communications course Instagram account. I am interested in the PR  and communications industry as I think that is a field driven by creativity in different ways. ‘

About podcast

‘ My name is Beatrice, and I am a second-year student of Media and Communications at Coventry University. In this podcast, I am interviewing Laura Mason- Byers, who is a People Communication manager in Gymshark. Her role is to manage the internal communications and organisations. In other words, Laura is responsible for ensuring that everyone in the company knows what is happening and is relevant to them. ‘

Even though it looks like a pretty simple task to do, however, it was not for me. Since it was supposed to be a short, few sentence description, you have to choose exact words to convey the meaning. Also, I am not good at writing about myself, so I had to think about what I could write. So, it is always a bit of a challenge for me. However, it was interesting to turn back to the podcast I hosted and write a few sentences about it. I was very focused on the podcast before it happened, so later, I did not want to think about it. Yet, I had to look at it, and the experience returned to my mind.

Since I am a social media coordinator of Virtual Gallery, I suggested the PR team use the Instagram account of Virtual Gallery. The reasons are that the Instagram account has some followers and post, which would help MCP receive more interest. Also, looking at the benefits of an Instagram account, the account would gain more various followers as more interest would be pulled to the account.

So, when everyone agreed to that, I decided to create the first post. The post is announcing upcoming MCP podcasts that students are working on them.

Link to the post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CbNS_cgAqRH/

While thinking about social media posts for podcasts, I came up with the idea of making them a little different. The post could become a reel by including a short teaser, a 15-20 seconds voice recording from the podcast. By this, the audience would be introduced to what they would hear in the podcast. Also, the right sentences would interest the audience and increase engagement. However, I talked with the PR group, and this idea became more complicated than I thought. At this moment, there are ten interviews done, and because of that, there will not be ten different posts. So, it would not be proper to exclude some of the people by not putting their records. Promoting ten podcasts in a short time becomes quite challenging.

There is a link to my created demo – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZZ-vK9mWr02cdPO6izzSMILyyWsLr_g9/view?usp=sharing

The podcast has happened. From my perspective, it went pretty well. The preparation was quite stressful, and the few minutes before the podcast started were very intense. Other team members were late for the preparation. During the rehearsal, my quest and I were supposed to run through the questions, but we checked the sound and view. This unsettled me as it did not go as planned. However, when the recording button was pressed, everything was on me, and there were no more technical issues. 

After the interview finished, I noticed some things: 

• I did not ask half of my questions ( not including additional ones). However, it is better to have more questions prepared as you never know how the quest will answer. 
• I was constantly thinking about grammar and how to say everything perfectly. So, because of that, my words tangled a few times. 
• I was following the time very carefully, and it helped me fit in time with questions.

Overall, I appreciate the opportunity to be a presenter in a podcast. I always wanted to try it out and this project let me do it. For the next time, I would try to plan the time before the recording in order to avoid any issues.