10 Minutes of PR Goodness With Petya Georgieva

I am not meaning to ask too much about your personal life, but I read a lot about what you do or have passion for and not much about you as a person. I also think someone’s passion in the business life is partially shaped by how his/her everyday life evolves, so, who is Petya Georgieva?

Thank you for this interview, Gabriele. Let me introduce myself briefly – I am a PR specialist and a blogger from Bulgaria. I always say PR is not a profession but a lifestyle. And that’s how it is. My everyday life is strongly influenced by my profession (my boyfriend can confirm this). I love my job and it is corresponding to my personality – I am energetic, active, communicative, and curious – all these qualities help me. I have studied public relations in Bulgaria and the Netherlands and I have almost 4 years working experience in the field. I am sure that actions speak more about us, so you can find more info about me on twitter.com/pgeorgieva or at www.higher-and-higher.com . Oh, and I forgot to warn you: I am workaholic.

How does Bulgaria compare to the Netherlands?

Although the Netherlands is a flat and cold country (in comparison Bulgaria is with mild climate and lots of mountains) I love the Netherlands. I spent half a year there and my experience was very helpful, interesting, inspiring and gave me lots of new ideas and impressions.

Have you always wanted to be in the PR business? When you were a kid, were you all “I want to be a PR specialist” or your ideas for your future were slightly different back then? And if so, when did you change your mind and why?

I have always believed that people should carefully choose their jobs. We spend at least 8 hours daily at work so I would like these hours to be great, funny, interesting, thought provoking, energetic (and if possible different every day). That’s why I was very careful when I had to choose what to study at the university. But I have always known that I am going to work something connected with communications. Actually, since I was 12 years old I wanted to be a journalist. With years passing by, I realized for myself that I am not born to cover news but to create news. This changed my mind and made me discover the outstanding world of public relations.

Did you have help by any person (family, friends) in the pursuing of your dream?

Although my grandparents, for example, didn’t know what PR exactly is, they, as well as, my parents supported me too.

I have to say your enthusiasm truly is inspiring. What is the most exciting and rewarding project you’ve been involved in during your PR activity?

I have worked on interesting PR campaigns mostly in the NGO and health care sector and all of them are important for me because they are part of my experience until now. However, I think that the most exciting and rewarding project I have involved myself into is my blog. Blogging is an interesting adventure and it has become part of me as a PR professional. I started 4 years ago and my first blog was in Bulgarian. I was still studying at the university but could feel the positive aspects of blogging and having an audience. This year I transformed my blog in English in order to reach bigger public and to engage with people from all over the world who are sharing my professional interests. The blogging experience taught me a lot, expanded my contact networks and most importantly stimulated me to aim higher and higher, to develop myself, to search for new ideas, tendencies and to update my knowledge.

What is the single hardest obstacle you had to face pursuing your line of business? How did you get past it? Did you ever stop to think “ok, maybe I made the wrong choice”?

The first weeks at the university when I started studying public relations, I was absolutely confused and couldn’t answer myself one single and important question: what does a PR person do? Then I was panicked that I made the wrong choice but I am happy because this period was really very short. I found my first PR job then and started to figure out lots of PR issues.

However, since I started working, I am almost always facing one great obstacle: to explain to the clients what PR exactly is and in particular which PR tools I recommend to them as appropriate, regarding their specific communication needs, aims, etc. Still, lots of people consider PR to be a do-it-yourself thing and try to practice it without professional knowledge, which leads to quite unsuccessful results.

Well, since you mentioned, you have a chance to explain it once and for all in one sentence: what exactly is PR to you?

PR is communication, engagement, content and information sharing. It’s about building a positive public image. It may look like lots of phone calls, emails and events, but there is a lot of reading, analyzing, planning, targeting, strategic positioning, etc.

How did you start to show interest in social media? Even if you’re still in the process of improving your online presence and influence, you reached remarkable results. What would you suggest to someone willing to walk his first steps in this world?

First of all, I would recommend buying a smartphone which will make it easier to stay always connected. The second most important step is your personal actions. Forget about the fear of taking participation in the life of the social media societies. This means: start communicating; start asking questions, start sharing your opinion, start shaping your personality. All these steps will create your personal brand. Of course, to be active needs good backstage preparation, which includes a lot of reading (print media, books, blogs, sites, critiques), a lot of listening (TV and radio programs, podcasts, others points of view).

I agree that reading a lot is the key to success for anyone in your line of work. What’s your position towards the new, digital ways of consuming information? Are you a traditionalist or you think we are going through a revolution in printed media?

We all see the revolution. All these changes in the ways of information consumption are changing people’s behavior as well. This is strongly reflecting the publishing and the press industry.

Talking about the publishing sector, I consider hard-copy books won’t disappear or at least I hope this won’t happen. Although I am openly embracing the new digital world, I am scared of the excessive digitalization. What’s more, I love reading hard-copy books and I think we all need to spend time away from our digital devices. This is a big discussion but I hope everybody will find their own balance in the process of information consumption when speaking about books.

Regarding the press industry, I find myself reading online news rather than newspapers and this makes me think that the press industry is facing big opportunities to provide something different, to change its perception about what news is and to choose a different ways of news coverage. Journalism is changing its identity as well. The truth is I have no idea what is going to happen with the press. Only time will show.

This is actually a very selfish question. The idea of it came to me thinking about this girl who is going to come work in my company as an intern for her University course in media and communications. Can you name 3 things you really wish you knew back when you were studying and which you feel could be helpful to young students like her?

I consider the most important thing is to combine theory and practice at the same time. It is precious experience to start working or to start an internship while you are studying because you will be witnessing both sides of the picture: how PR is explained in theory and how actually things happen in the real business environment (the practical experience).

And instead, 3 things you really would like to warn her about?

1. Be careful with the information you are sharing online;
2. Don’t be afraid to express yourself;
3. There are 2 dangerous sides of the PR profession: there is no strict working time and you need to be constantly informed in order to stay current and do your job professionally.

Thanks for your time Petya, I know you’re very busy lately and I appreciate you taking a moment for this interview.

Nevertheless, if any of you readers have questions for her, feel free to ask them in the comments section below and I am sure she’ll find time to answer.