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Petya N. Georgieva (pictured left) is an account executive at a PR firm in Bulgaria. In this feature, Petya gives us an insight into the Bulgarian PR scene.

7am-9am: My day starts earlier, around 7:30 or 8:00. Then I check my emails, Twitter and Facebook accounts and listen to podcasts on my way to the office. The very first thing that I do at work is media monitoring, I am responsible for a media monitoring in English, so I have to summarise topical articles in Bulgarian language which are important for the client and translate them as a short summary in English.

11am: Until 11 o’clock I am already done with media monitoring and news reading (this includes checking the press, internet sites), and I have checked my office email and answered to emails. Then I start planning my day and organising the tasks which should be done. If there is something important which is concerning the clients and the campaigns I work for, I immediately start with it. If I have to send press releases, I usually choose this time of the day because it is a good time for the media and the journalists to react.

Noon: This is the time for active work and tasks to be done. This includes coordination with clients and partners, maintenance of social media accounts, and a lot of phone calls and emails, brainstorming and other creative work. During this time, I find several free minutes to catch up with Twitter and current news. For example, at the moment I am working on the concept of a campaign which is lasting during the whole year and currently I spend my afternoons updating, actualising and organising the activities we are going to do from September to December.

17hrs: If I’m lucky, I leave the office around 18:00. Of course, there are times when I stay at the office until the evening but now it’s August and we are not so busy. Usually I continue working, I work on my blog at home in the evenings. In addition, some of this work may include updating my personal knowledge and reading more about PR, marketing, advertising, amd social media. I am addicted to the internet and social media and it is difficult to separate me from my Blackberry so I spend a lot of time reading. As a PR person I know that there is not a strict working time for this profession, what’s more, this is not a profession but a lifestyle. So I actively try to combine my social and personal life with my working life.

Photograph courtesy of Petya N. Georgieva.