What Working Abroad Taught Me About Public Relations and Communications

A scenic cable car ride at Ocean Park Hong Kong. Photo credit: Isabella Lopez

By Isabella Lopez

It is no secret that the modern landscape of public relations and communication is always evolving. As an aspiring PR professional, I quickly learned that growth begins when you step outside of your comfort zone. This summer, I took that step by trading Los Angeles for Hong Kong.

With the support of my Plat4orm family, I had the opportunity to temporarily step away from my work in a familiar U.S. market and work in a completely different global market – Hong Kong. As a Global Social Strategist, I gained a new outlook on public relations and valuable skills I can apply to my work at Plat4orm.

One of the biggest? Think globally even when working locally.

Working in a market I knew very little about challenged me to question my assumptions, pay closer attention to the people around me, and think more strategically about how different audiences experience the same message. From workplace etiquette to global social strategy, I learned some key lessons that apply to working with organizations, regardless of size or locale.

Observe Before You Assume

Can you remember the last time you handed someone a business card? Do you remember how you handed it to them?

In Hong Kong, I quickly learned that even a simple interaction like exchanging a business card can carry cultural significance. In a professional setting, business cards are typically offered and received with both hands. I also learned not to immediately put away a card after receiving it.

The first time I exchanged a business card with a professional in Hong Kong, I paid close attention to how they held the card and followed their lead. It was a small interaction, but it reinforces a much bigger lesson: observe before you assume.

The standards, behaviors and expectations we consider normal aren’t necessarily universal. Good communication requires understanding the person on the other side, paying attention to how they communicate, and being willing to adapt.

That lesson applies whether you’re meeting someone across a conference table in Hong Kong or developing a targeted communications strategy for an audience thousands of miles away.

Global Workplace Etiquette

If you ever plan to work abroad, familiarize yourself with the cultural etiquette. First impressions matter, and you don’t want to be the only person that doesn’t know the proper etiquette in the local workplace.

In my case, working in Hong Kong taught me how important it is to have social order and organization . What does that mean exactly? Lining up for the elevator, for example, is not only about lining up straight and securing a good position, but it’s also ensuring you maintain a respectful distance from everyone else. The elevator tends to get full fast, and it’s considered rude to be bumping shoulders with anyone. For most buildings in Hong Kong, key cards and buttons became my best friend when opening doors. One of the biggest surprises to me was how effective everything was—the same card I would use for food and transportation could also be used for opening the bathroom door. It was crazy how well integrated the technology was throughout the workplace.

When opening doors, whether at work or in most other places, there was usually a button on the wall or the door which you would press in order to get the door to unlock before being able to push or pull. This definitely shocked me at first as I was not expecting simple things, such as going to the elevator or opening doors, would be so well organized.

Finding Inspiration Starts with Lunch

Another important part of my experience was something much simpler: lunch.

Food is heavily woven into the culture in Hong Kong, and sharing meals with colleagues became an important part of my workday. Lunches gave us time to talk about our personal and professional experiences, and they became an unexpected source of creative inspiration.

One of my favorite lunches was at a restaurant that changed its menu regularly. At first, my colleague and I wondered how that model worked. Then we realized the restaurant wasn’t constantly starting from scratch. It was taking many of the same ingredients to avoid obtaining new food supplies and combining them in different ways to create something new, giving each item a different name each time so you didn’t know what was inside each dish.

That creative approach sparked an idea for the social media campaign we were developing. We had been focused on coming up with entirely new ideas. Instead, we followed the restaurant model and took an opportunity to look at the marketing materials we already had to create different themes and campaigns.

It reminded me that innovation doesn’t always mean starting over. Sometimes it means taking what already exists, looking at it from a different perspective and finding a new way to use it. And sometimes inspiration for a social campaign really can come from lunch.

These are Disney-themed steamed vegetable and pork buns.

I went to Shenzhen China to learn about herbal medicine and got to see their medical tech.

Think Globally, Even When Working Locally

One of the biggest lessons I learned abroad is to think globally even when working locally. Effective communication starts with understanding your audience. It is easy to think about an audience in terms of interests, demographics, industries, or behaviors, but what we don’t often consider how culture shapes the way people interpret a message.

The same phrase, image or campaign can resonate differently depending on the person experiencing it and the cultural context surrounding them. That became especially clear to me in Hong Kong. The city itself is incredibly global, and I became much more aware of how brands communicated across different audiences, languages and cultural perspectives.

Many of the people around me were not originally from Hong Kong or China, but they absorbed the cultural values and norms from messages and ads spread around the city. As an American, one of the most interesting things about Hong Kong advertisements was how they were always modeled for global reach. While English, Cantonese and Mandarin are all languages spoken in Hong Kong, most if not all of the advertisements were written in English.

It made me think differently about the audiences we communicate with in the U.S.. People apply different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to the same message.

Thinking globally offers a key reminder for all of us to challenge assumptions about your audience regardless of location or demographic.

“One of the biggest lessons I learned abroad is to think globally even when working locally.”

The signature green wall and bilingual signage at the Fortress Hill MTR Station on Hong Kong Island. Photo credit: Isabella Lopez

Lead With Strategic Storytelling

While creating an inaugural global social strategy for a company (for confidential reasons I cannot name here), I learned that strong communication starts long before creating the first piece of content. You have to understand who the company is, its values, its goals and the audience it wants to reach.. Then you can start asking yourself:

What story are we trying to tell?
What is the purpose behind that story?
How is the company being presented?
Is the message connecting with the target audience?

I spent a lot of time visiting a large number of companies and competing stores looking for the differences and similarities they had across their various locations. I paid close attention to how different brands were positioned and studied social and media patterns to better understand the broader market.This research was key to developing the social strategy. We couldn’t build it solely on what the company wanted to say. We needed to fully understand the environment in which the audience would receive it.

This lesson applies to all PR – strategic storytelling requires understanding both sides of the conversation.

Listen Before You Engage

I spent so much of my time observing people: what catches their attention, how they interact with the company online, and how to retain their attention. Reading social media comments and listening to audience behavior helped me understand what the audience wanted and when they wanted it. Those insights became essential to building a valuable social strategy geared toward real people, not just hypothetical consumers.

For example, while I was in Hong Kong the company signed a deal with a top American athlete. At the time, the company had to figure out what the American, Chinese, and global audiences were saying online. It was critical for us to read comments and learn what the audience was liking, sharing, and reposting to ensure we maximized the moment. This global approach enabled companies across the world to connect with each other instantly – a key element that needs to be built into every modern PR campaign.

Bringing a Global Perspective Back to Plat4orm

Working abroad taught me many lessons and showed me valuable insights into the global public relations and communications market. I returned from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with a new way of thinking and a stronger ability to look beyond what I already knew.

I now approach my role with the understanding that the most effective communicators are those who push through boundaries and ask questions to understand the individuals on the other side of the screen. Working in Hong Kong allowed me to truly understand how to keep up with the evolving markets at a global scale.

Coming back to sunny Los Angeles and Plat4orm, I have returned with a broader perspective on how I can approach communications – one that I am excited to apply to the work we do with our clients, both locally and globally.

Whether researching a trend, creating a LinkedIn post, or helping tell a client’s message, this experience has helped me understand what it means to step away from comfort and familiarity both personally and professionally. Living, working and fully immersing myself in a whole new continent, society, market, and community allowed me to see communications in a whole new lens. A lens I am excited to use daily back home.

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About Plat4orm

Plat4orm is a strategic communications and advisory firm specializing in legal technology, cybersecurity, AI and regulated industries. The firm advises organizations on market positioning, strategic communications, thought leadership, media relations, and go-to-market strategy to help complex technology and service providers build trust, visibility and long-term market credibility. Learn about our services here.