HELLO, THIS IS LAURA ZHANG
About Laura
Hello everyone, it’s Laura!
I am a student studying Arts and Business at the University of Waterloo.
I love travelling and I have plenty of international working experience from working in Singapore, UAE and China. I have plenty of experiences through involvement in organizing trips, events and tutoring in my university and working as an entertainment marketing operator in China by using the top social application platform “Wechat” to promote movie tickets that were sold in more than 500 cities, 3,500 theatres, and 80% of the viewing population in China.
With a passion in social media, I have over 22.3k followers on my personal Chinese blog (Weibo) account and over 11.3k followers on my Instagram account. I also have done numerous digital marketing internships for more than 30 international brands. I have accomplished organizing skills from monitoring and organizing social media website pages for over sixty international brands that we work with, for example, the GCC (The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf) Facebook, Instagram, Twitter pages for Aeropostale, Inglot, ALDO, Beverly Hills Polo Club, Calvin Klein, Nine West, Tim Hortons, etc.
In addition, I love photography and film, I have done multiple designs for Tommy Hilfiger, ALDO, Nine West, etc. Below are some of my selected photographs from the places that I have travelled to. All the footages are taken by me and all the post productions are done by me as well.
Much appreciated for your time. Please take a look! :D
Professional History
Laura's Work Experience
Digital Marketing Consultant
Institute of System Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore
As a digital marketing consultant, I have organized and promoted the National University of Singapore at numerous global events such as the 2017 Slush exhibition, Tech-innovation exhibition, TAD Hackathon, Edtech conference and Fintech conference. I also planned and managed regular events for NUS's StackUp program. Moreover, I optimized user engagement and established numerous user experience design for StackUp's new official website.
Social Media Specialist
Apparel Group, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
As a social media specialist, I designed campaign templates and graphic layouts that used repetitively for over 57 international brands, such as Tommy Hilfiger, and over 1000 stores in the Gulf Cooperation Council area. I also managed social media pages and updated posts regularly which obtained over 1,900,000 post reaches each week and over 15,000 likes for each brand. While doing so, I produced monthly Customer Relationship Management reports and weekly ranking reports. Furthermore, I photographed and edited digital content for numerous large events, such as filming documentary during the Bride Show event at the Dubai World Trade Centre.
Entertainment Marketing Operator
Beijing Weying Technology Co.Ltd, Beijing, China
As an entertainment marketing operator, I offered excellent marketing skills and presentation skills by conducting research into usability and quantitative data, creating proposals and powerpoint on the movie industry for the company. I reguarly ran social promotions and campaigns to track company’s success by using the top social application platform “Wechat” to promote movie tickets.
Production Director
Jiang Su Television Channel, Jiang Su Broadcasting Co., Nanjing, China
As a production director, I accomplished organizing skills from planning shooting schedule, costume, stage design, music, lighting and camera placement for JSBC’s Show “Who’s Still Standing”. The show achieved the highest ratings of 1.504% among the same time broadcasting shows. I also assisted in social media calendar and content strategy by scheduling appointments and interviews to recruit contestant through talent auditions.
Film Editor and Cinematographer
China International Broadcasting Network, China Radio International, Beijing, China
As a cinematographer, I was comprehensively trained with professional film shooting equipments and I edited videos and photographs for CIBN's channels. I also remixed audios and arranged radio program (HIT FM88.7) run-down for China Radio International.
Want to learn more? My experiences are further detailed in my resume and I would welcome the opportunity to get to know you. Please feel free to contact me. Thanks again for your time!
How to Problem Solve
Event Planning in Singapore
Situation:
One of my past internship was to do marketing for a startup project called StackUp at the Institute of System Science of National University of Singapore. A part of my responsibilities involved event planning and produce marketing presentations for the events. To begin with, I started researching about global tech events that we could potentially join as a partner. After collaborating the research into a presentation, I would host meeting with my coworkers to negotiate on the event details. Since I am an experienced digital marketing specialist, I would explain the specific marketing strategy that would be used during the event and who will be our target audiences.
Task:
Once, I was in charge of managing a booth at a tech exhibition. My manager suggested to join Slush, which is a non-profit international startup and investor event. There was a disagreement between my manager and me in this situation. I was open and honest about how my opinion was different from hers. The event attendees are usually investors and the task we were given was to look for potential students to sign up for our program at that time. Therefore, the different target audience demographics might not match our final goal.
Action:
Rather than questioning her authority in front of everyone, I took action and talked to her individually. I offered serval alternative solutions, such as the TechInASIA conference and the tech innovation exhibition. Then, it turned out that there was just a simple misunderstanding between us. My manager explained her idea of looking for partners and expand the program itself. Since this is our first time participating in Slush, we concluded that to try and see the result.
Result:
Although the result did not went as well as we expected, this experience showed me the importance of communicating with my coworkers to make sure that something obsolete doesn’t become a bigger problem than it needs to be. Throughout this experience, I enhanced my problem solving skills and communication skills. I thanked my manager for the feedback and promised to organize better events in the future.
Creative Marketing
Artworks of UW
Situation/Task:
In January 2017, I was working on a team project for my Arts and Business class, we created a University of Waterloo Artwork Facebook page to ultimately drive positive attention for the Fine Arts department in the university. The Facebook page is showcasing a variety types of artworks done by current UW students and eventually driving traffic to pre-existing university Fine Arts information pages. As a fine art student, I believe that many individuals are not aware of the existence of the Fine Arts department at the University of Waterloo and there is a general lack of knowledge within the student body in regard to what the Fine Arts program has to offer. I do not see this situation as a problem, instead, I see it as an opportunity to bring awareness of the Fine Arts department. Therefore, as a team, we decided to create a Facebook page called “Artwork of UW” to promote the program and the artistic skills within the UW community.
Action:
As a member of our team, it was my responsibility to coordinate with the Fine arts instructors, staffs and numerous international partners to sponsor us for our social media marketing campaigns. During the process, I demonstrated my creative designing and marketing skills when I applied for the Arts Endorsement Fund and got $200 budget to use it towards our Facebook page paid promotion. Meanwhile, I also took initiative to contact the Fine Arts professors to ask for permissions to get into current Fine Arts classes to promote our page. In order to gain awareness, our team decided to ask friends to share the page and planned multiple creative contests to advertise on social media. However, we were limited on marketing budgets, therefore, I contacted a friend who worked at Facebook to boost our page at free cost. Since she was working outside of Canada, I had to schedule multiple Skype meetings with her to follow up on the progress. With a design background, I took action to take over the designer role to saved us the budget for graphic designing and video editing. For instance, I produced a one-minute promotional video that boosted our page likes to 166 likes.
Result:
Throughout this experience, it changed my entrepreneur mindset, and I also gained the knowledge of how to make progression step by step, from the base. As a result, my creative designing and marketing skills saved us a huge chunk of our expense budget and our team have established a cooperative, engaging and expandable platform for the future arts enthusiasts to take this endeavour to new heights. At the end of the term, we plan to collaborate with the Society of Fine Arts Students to continue with this project. This was not only a great experience for project management, but also, the Facebook page can be used as long term promotional tools for future students to continue this project.
Founder of Clubs
UW NAIL SALON
Laura is the founder for University of Waterloo Nail Salon club
We have weekly meetings where people who love nail art get together to explore new techniques! All tools are provided and you’re more than welcome to use our wide range of nail polishes!
UW SPEED FRIENDING
Laura is the founder of University of Waterloo Speed Friending club
The purpose of the club is to gather University of Waterloo students to get to know each other, become socially active and have fun together. We plan to hold meetings, fun contests, social outings, and to plan picnic trips. Here, it's the best way to build network and become socially active.
UW Flashmob
Laura is the founder for University of Waterloo Flashmob club
UW Flashmob coordinates flashmobs, which is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, before quickly dispersing.
UW SHOPPING CLUB
Laura is the founder of University of Waterloo Shopping club
The purpose of the club is to gather students to get to know each other, discuss the ability to control budget, explore the different malls in both local and nearby cities by having club shopping trips, become socially active and have fun shopping together.
Each member will get a membership card once joined. The sponsors will have discount by putting their name on the membership card, so this way the sponsors will gain more customers and students will save money while shopping, it benefits both sides.
"I don't see it as a problem. I see it as an opportunity! "
Laura Zhang
