At the end of last semester, one of my course mates Lily and I were both asked to organise an event within Solent business school called ‘Spring Forward to the Future’. The event had previously been called ‘Meet the Professionals’, which both me and Lily attended in our first year. The event allowed us to network with industry professionals in a unique, judgement free setting which was something we had never experienced before. Despite both being very busy, we jumped at the opportunity.
The event this year has changed format and name. It is now called Spring Forward to the Future and is a university wide event. This required us to do more work to publicise the event in its new format to a much wider audience. We also had the support of Solent Futures, who took on the responsibility of inviting industry professionals to attend the event. Whilst this took a weight off our shoulders, it also meant we had to work collaboratively with Solent Futures which was a new experience for the both of us and allowed us to learn how to communicate in a professional manner.
Our responsibility mainly lied within the student engagement side. Initially, we planned a social media campaign to attract students to the event. We decided this was the best method of approach as we are both students and have seen other student events advertised across social media. Once our plans were approved, we got underway with creating social posts to be put out on various channels. Our posts focused initially on what the event is, and then on our top tips for students, what to expect on the day and who was attending. We gained the password to the Solent PR Instagram account, but had to rely on other people to post on other channels. This was frustrating at first, but towards the end of the campaign we realised that if we tagged other Solent accounts in the posts, we put out on the PR Solent account, most of them out got picked up and reposted.
We were set a target of 100 students to attend the day by our lecturer, Sally. We were nervous about reaching this goal however, on the day we smashed this target with over 200 students attending the event. The panel talk was full, with some students having to stand up to fit into the room. This was a huge relief, and we felt like we could relax and enjoy the talk. We were apprehensive to see how many people would come to the networking session, but as the doors were opened after the panel talk, we were shocked to see The Spark swarming with students and organisations alike. This was a huge relief. During the networking session we managed to speak to a few organisations and secure interviews for our dissertations and a few freelance PR opportunities. We are excited to see the work we can put out with these freelance opportunities and get an idea of a real working environment.
Overall, organising this event was a massive learning opportunity for myself and Lily. We loved the process and learnt a lot which we can apply to current and future PR projects. Furthermore, it was a great way to start to get our names out into the PR world. Off the back of the event, we have been asked to represent Solent University at a business conference this Wednesday. This is an exciting opportunity which we are both grateful to have been invited to.
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