Hi everyone, it has been awhile. The fact that you see me writing this on the weekdays is considered rare since I have skipped so many days in Steemit. Today is slightly different because I wasn't well for being too exhausted at work. So I took the day off to relax and recharge.

If you have been following me, I took up a job in a startup, it started off as an internship, soon I find myself landing in a position called Overseas Media Manager.

My title comes with responsibilities, so I was pushing myself a lot lately, working on late nights on my own to communicate with key people I need for the project, WRONG MOVE. It has taken my health on a toll. I find myself working almost 12 hours a day because I bring my work home. As a media manager, it is part of my job to contact Instagrammers, Youtubers, and bloggers for promotional and sponsored post. I am also the content writer for the company's projects. In other words, some of the stuff you see on the internet, are my words.

The Challenges?

Time difference

I will start with the time difference, China and the U.S have almost 12 hours of time difference. Meaning that 9.30 a.m. in China will be 9.30 p.m. in the U.S or Canada. Assuming that people check their emails at night and if they work during the day, I only have 3 hours to communicate with the influencers before 12 a.m. at their time zone. I send emails to at least 50 of them a day, and usually only a handful replied. Because I'm using the company's email, I need to consider the fact that the email might end up in the spam box. So everyday is a constant checking up with the influencers, hoping that they will reply the emails.

Being in China doesn't give me an advantage; the emails I sent has to be visible to the influencers. So I actually scheduled my emails to be sent at 8p.m. or sometimes I will still be working in front of my laptop in my room, accommodating to U.S time zone, which leads me to working almost 12 hours for that day. If you exclude the time it takes to get to my workplace and lunch hours. Basically, I only get 6 hours of sleep.

Budget

Second disadvantage, working with a Chinese startup does put a constraint to the budget because U.S Dollars is 6 times higher than Chinese Yuan. If we want to gain exposure in the U.S, we need to use press and media , key influencers or KOI( Key Opinion Leaders) from there. So if a youtuber's pricing for a YouTube mention is 3,000 USD, it is actually 18,000 Chinese Yuan for a mention, it is quite expensive for us.

Fortunately, I actually have the freedom to make decisions, in condition that it brings ROI(Return of Investment). The fact that I need to make this kind of monetary decisions does put me in a pressuring spot. It has to work, and there is no excuse for failure.

Groundbreaking works

I am actually doing groundbreaking works for the company. They never push so much projects to the media before and I'm actually quite proud of my contribution. Almost every project we have done now has good videos since I personally know a few directors and video editors myself.

I find it impossible to do everything on your own, you need a team. Unfortunately, we are almost short-handed all the time. I find myself writing for 3 or 4 different projects at the same time. No kidding. It can be exhausting to the mind because our projects are very different from each other. Imagine writing content for fashion and tech stuff, I don't know if any of you writers actually done it on the same day. (please let me know in the comments)
Some of the projects have been featured on @steemhunt too.

Conclusion

As I write these post, I actually felt better since I'm getting things off my chest. I find myself needing the mental strength to continue my day in the office tomorrow. There is still so much to be done. Working for a Chinese companies can be really challenging but if I don't get a personal assistant or flexible office hours, I might really burnt-out again. It is my second time taking a day off in 5 months because of exhaustion. I have talk to my father who is also a professional Interpersonal Consultant, and his explanation to my condition is this:

"Currently, you're like a car that is suppose to run 70 miles/hour, yet you are running at 100 miles! You need to rest!"

and so I had a day off, and I'm so much better right now.

Just to make it clear, I do not represent any particular product. I am a Media Manager hired by contract or one time project. So, companies that seek our services are usually designers or manufacturers that make really cool products but they are unsure on how to market them outside China. That is where I come in, my department provides (what I like to call), the "Public Packaging", so that it will be appealing to the market.

That's all from me, see you next time. Cheers,

Profile
Reena.K(pen name) is a member of steemit, content writer and editor for several products on the market. Team leader of Overseas Media Department for a Chinese startup in Beijing, the team and her has lead several PR successes, most notably MESAY 2.0, a project that was launched on Kickstarter. Currently, Reena is working on the PR for SOX, a new fashion brand by TOHSI Industrial Creative.
She has worked with several internet influencers and bloggers. If you're interested to work with Reena.K, please DM on her social media and send an email.

She also consults students who wants to study abroad as part of the SA program by the International Business School of Beijing Foreign Studies University.

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