I am really enjoying my placement, largely because the team are all so friendly, but also because of how much responsibility they are trusting me with. I have been managing the magazine's social media output on Facebook and Twitter, which has been really exciting recently, as the new-look, restyled version of the mag launched last week, so we have had a big PR campaign to publicise the new format. The feedback so far has been really good, and it was great to be involved with the mag at such an exciting time. Next month promises to be another exciting one, as it sees the 100th issue of Psychologies published!
I have also enjoyed attending events on behalf of the mag. In my second week, I attended the media preview of the Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition (try getting that mouthful out after a couple of drinks), the results of which are here. Last week I went to a media screening of The Butler in a swanky Soho hotel, and this week next week I'm off to a preview of Nicole Kidman's new film.
I do spend some time in the office too, believe it or not, largely creating and uploading content for the web- either writing pieces myself, commissioning field experts to write pieces, or re-writing articles from the print magazine to fit the web format and conventions.
I've been given several other adhoc tasks to complete as well - the most bizarre moment was when I was deeply absorbed in a review copy of Jo-Ann Power's WW1 novel "Heroic Measures" (interview here), in a particularly graphic paragraph, when Ali came running over and asked me to urgently call in some fashion pieces from Selfridges - talk about one extreme to the other!
By far the biggest lesson I've learned so far is in relation to social media. Before this placement, I often wondered how large publications such as Company and Cosmopolitan could justify hiring a person purely to work on their social media -after all, it's only a case of writing a few tweets and Facebook posts a day. I take it all back - social media has been the most draining part of my job so far, and certainly takes up more time than anyone would imagine. From writing Facebook posts and tweets, finding Twitter handles to tag, scheduling posts, uploading links and images and responding to reader posts, it could be a full-time job and then some!
I've never worked at a magazine with such a close-knit team before, so it's really interesting to hear the features, sub-editing and art departments all working together to discuss issues as they arise.
Here's to the next few weeks!
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