Work Experience

My accomplishments

Babbit Bodner Clients

During the summer of 2023, I interned at Babbit Bodner, a boutique PR firm in Atlanta that focuses its efforts on taking its clients from emerging to exit.

While working at Babbit Bodner I had the pleasure of working on a few of their accounts, including Illuminarium, Treehouse Eyes, Gordo’s Cheese Dip, and UMI. I also drafted posts and captions for their social media accounts as well as write blogs to be posted on their website.

Treehouse Eyes

Treehouse Eyes specializes in myopic care for children, a growing epidemic.

My work for Treehouse Eyes spanned the entire summer I worked at Babbit Bodner. Our job for Treehouse Eyes was to spread the word about the rise in Myopia among children and to encourage parents to go visit a Treehouse Eyes location near them.

My first task was to curate an extensive media list for the regions of Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale, and Seattle. I looked for broadcast contacts, as well as radio and blog contacts. For my research, I used Cision and searched online for writers who wrote on family health.

After curating the media lists and having them checked over we started our first round of pitching. Because this pitching was meant to last the entire summer, I did not expect to hear back on the first round. But, as luck would have it, I heard back almost immediately from a contact at KTVK in Phoenix, a CBS affiliate. With the help of my colleagues, I helped schedule an interview with one of our Treehouse Eyes doctors in Phoenix and the segment aired on Arizona’s Family segment.

Gordo’s Cheese Dip

Gordo’s Cheese Dip is an Atlanta-based company that specializes in cheese dip and is sold in grocery stores all over.

For Gordo’s Cheese Dip, we decided to make PR packages for influencers, food bloggers, and recipe testers. I created a media list of influencers and food reporters and curated a pitch that centered around the upcoming college football season. I performed outreach and received feedback from Atlanta-based “foodie” influencers. In total, I was able to mail eight packages to influencers and writers.

After packaging the mailers myself I monitored social media accounts for posts about the package and sent follow-ups to ask about their experience. Overall I received very positive feedback and everyone enjoyed the items in the mailers.

Social Media

During my time at Babbit Bodner, I helped run their social media accounts. I made content calendars, outlining when and what to post. The posts varied from client coverage to helpful PR tips as well as company wins. I enjoyed coming up with clever captions and using Canva to make graphics. I posted on their Instagram, LinkedIn, and website.

One of the longer-form writing I did was “3 Things We’re Watching” which was a blog-style post that stated what Babbit Bodner was keeping an eye on. These posts went on social media but directed the person to their website to see the full post where I wrote about three different topics. These topics ranged from Barbie-core to the rise of Dad-influencers and the boxed-wine comeback.

These blog posts are available to see on the Babbit Bodner website and social media posts on their Instagram and LinkedIn are available to see ranging from early June to August of 2023.

Illuminarium

Illuminarium is an immersive experience that blends 4K laser projection and audio beams. This experience creates a journey for guests to fully delve into.

For Illuminarium, I wrote and sent pitches to a curated media list that I developed for events they were hosting. One notable event was their Taylor Swift Night. I secured coverage in Rough Draft Atlanta and the writer used my language in their write-up for the event.

Influencer outreach was also pivotal in the Taylor Swift event. I reached out to 22 influencers and heard back from 13, either agreeing to attend or write about the event or to attend future events because they could not attend this one.

UMI

UMI is a modern Japanese restaurant located in Buckhead, Atlanta. They are known for their sophisticated ambiance and an incredible menu that takes a modern take on Japanese cuisine.

For UMI I helped monitor coverage, specifically about their new dining room that paid homage to the late Todd Murphy. I created a coverage book that was sent to our contact at UMI and informed them of all the coverage we secured. One notable piece came from Modern Luxury Interiors covering UMI’s new private dining experience.

Course Related Work

As a student of the Journalism School at The University of Wisconsin-Madison, I have had the pleasure of working with real clients and creating campaigns for these clients.

In my most recent journalism class, Digital Media Strategies, we worked with a father-daughter-run restaurant in Lake Geneva, Barrique Bistro and Wine Bar. Throughout the semester we were given three different phases and to present each one to the clients.

The first phase was to run client and competition research and figure out our target audience and how to best reach them. Our target audience was Lake Geneva locals. The second phase was writing a situation summary and figuring out key issues and opportunities. Finally, phase three was our digital media plan and objectives, suggesting what content pillars to focus on, how to utilize various social media platforms, and updating their website.

At the end of the semester a few of my teammates and I presented to the clients in a final presentation where we laid out all of the research and work we had done throughout the semester, as well as gave feedback on what we thought they could improve on and how we could help them achieve their goals.

The client was very appreciative of our ideas, especially in our website redesign because we pointed out that their competitor has almost the exact same website design, therefore making them less unique to web surfers.