A grad’s eye view: Networking

PN graduate Anna Svensson tells us about her networking experiences and recommends the top events.

It’s a PR’s job to build relationships with clients, colleagues and journalists, but how much networking they do is largely down to the PR and their enthusiasm for meeting people.

Since starting at Porter Novelli, I have made a genuine effort to go out and make new friends and contacts. I feel that I had an advantage because, before starting on the graduate scheme, I used Twitter to follow people in the industry – some I knew and others I didn’t. This made it easy to follow industry topics and understand where relationships ran between agencies, PRs and journalists. In due course I joined in some of these conversations and people began to notice me.

Now, as I attend various events, I see people I’ve met on Twitter and can meet and interact with them face-to-face. After a time you come to realise that a lot of the same people attend the main events, specifically within the technology circles. It’s nice for me to see (now) familiar faces but it’s easy to stop making the effort to meet new people, so I try to attend other events as well.

I’ve also found that at events I attend with my own colleagues, its easy to forget to spend the time getting to know them outside of work and to just focus on meeting other people. It’s important to be aware of building relationships with your colleagues as it will make your day-to-day experience far more enjoyable.

If I could offer a top tip then it would be to use social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook as a few examples) to meet people before and after an event. It’s always good to contact them to with a “nice to have met you” type message the next day so that you don’t fade into one of the many other people they met that night. Also, they will then have your contact details on hand should they want to stay in contact or see if you’re attending the next event.

Some events that I have been to so far and would recommend to new people in the industry are:

Flackenhacks – Informal and irreverent event but great for meeting new people in the technology sector. It happens in October and so is an easy event to ease yourself into as you start the graduate process. This is definitely an event to send a “nice to meet you” note to people the next day as there will be a few sore heads that morning.

WOM UK – You never stop learning in this industry and WOM UK events make it easy for you with their espresso mornings with thought leaders in the word-of-mouth sphere. The espresso mornings ae short but to the point and WOM UK’s evening sessions provide you with more opportunities to meet like-minded people after the event.

Gorkana Breakfasts – Learn about journalists and how they like PRs to work with them. It’s also a nice informal opportunity to get to know colleagues.

Twestival – You don’t need to be on Twitter to attend but I think it makes the event more enjoyable. It’s a great place to meet people of all backgrounds and everyone is there to meet new people.

PRCA Member Drinks – Obviously you need to be a member of the PRCA but these events are a fantastic way to meet new people in the PR industry. It’s an informal event but everyone is there with the aim of making new contacts rather than being there for the free drinks (which is very common at most “networking” events).

PR Week Awards – A formal event and not cheap. If you have a kind employer who can assist with the cost then definitely try to attend this event at least once in your career to get an idea of what competing agencies are doing and meet strong contacts.