Introducing Discord
A virtual community for students and grads - across colleges and universities.
PR Ramp is proud to announce the launch of our Discord server - already containing 60 students/grads from 15 different educational institutes across Ontario.
We take our feedback surveys into serious consideration, and noticed a recurring theme in what mentees wanted to see from us:
- "Community for recent grads"
- "Potentially connections with other students who are also studying PR right now and can support each other in our studies"
- "Perhaps a group where mentees can connect with each other — learn about their conversation with the mentor and also be able to share their struggles."
So we built a virtual community - on Discord.
We did a soft launch with a Reddit style Ask Me Anything event with Dave Fleet, Executive Vice President, National Practice Lead, Digital of Edelman Canada last Wednesday - with approximately 50 students/grads from 15 different institutions.
What are we offering in our Discord Server?
All event information: All of our events going forward will only be announced in this Discord server (only recaps will be posted posted on our LinkedIn/Twitter); this will include Zoom panel sessions, workshops, weekly AMAs, and more.
"Virtual Open Door": Any of our team can be directly messaged anytime. Discord contains voice chat channels (one of the ways it’s superior to Slack), and one of our team will always be available for a half hour each day (specific time to be determined) to field any and all inquiries/concerns. Or, you know, vent about life in general.
Weekly PR pro: we had Dave Fleet for our soft launch last week, and we have another for next Wednesday (hint: one of our mentors in sports comms)
All new members will have access to the insights shared from previous sessions; the #guest-speaker channel will be a continuously growing reserve of insights, resources, and advice shared by our visiting PR Pros.
Feel free to engage as you like: whether that means staying in chat and asking questions for the full hour; jumping in for a few mins to ask a specific burning question you’ve had; or be a passive observer taking in the insights shared in response to the questions/concerns of others.
Vote on initiatives: All our events and initiatives are born out of feedback; we'll ask in server what you want to see from us, and create initiatives accordingly.
Early or exclusive job postings shared in server: Any opportunities shared with us at PR Ramp are posted in our ‘job and volunteer openings’ channel on Discord
Content Collaboration - PR Ramp will continuously host content written by students and grads, for students and grads. We’ll field any and all pitch ideas in server, as well as reach out directly to our members to see who’d be interested in covering a specific topic.
Community - last, but definitely not least, our Discord server is intended to be a peer network of students and grads. All ongoings are for the exclusive benefit of this audience, and we’re fostering an environment where students and grads can connect with each other across college lines - whether to share concerns, collaborations, or hear about experiences from fellow new pr practitioners.
Weekly PR Pro Ask Me Anything
Students and grads know best what they need, and so we plan to have a virtual open forum with a practicing professional each week - from different sectors and skillsets, as decided on by members when we ask who they’d like to see next. The professional is restricted to our guest channels (they won’t see the memes in our casual channels) where they’ll pop in for an hour to chat.
From 5-6 pm, Dave fielded any and all questions by text chat from online members, and all the insights he shared will be available for future members joining our server. He spoke directly to address our specific questions and concerns - check out the snapshot of the chat!
We’ll share a recap post aggregating the bulk of insights Dave shared tomorrow on LinkedIn - for the full unfiltered convo, you’ll have to be in server.
If you'd like an invite to the PR Ramp server, message our team - Daanish Ahamed, Arvind Bining, Lais Miyagawa or Ashraf Dabie directly - we're ensuring membership only for students and grads (2 yrs out/less than 2 years professional experience) to create a no pressure community.
And - just like our mentorship initiative - joining this server is free.
See you server side!
- Daanish Ahamed, Founder