PRSA Colorado has a lot of big plans for 2010. Our membership is growing and our committees are planning great events and activities. If you’re ready to make the most of your Chapter membership, send an e-mail to GetInvolved@prsacolorado.org that describes which committees interest you most, and then one of our board members will personally connect you to right committee chair(s) so you can strengthen your professional network.
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Join PRSA Colorado on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at the Curtis Hotel for PR in a Digital World: What’s in your Toolbox? We will explore what it means to be a PR professional in 2010. Ramonna Tooley, vice president and managing partner of GroundFloor Media, will lead the discussion. She will present some of the digital PR strategies her team recommends to clients to stay competitive in a digital world. She’ll share examples from a variety of industries including nonprofit, food and beverage, and sports and entertainment – and will help you turn your outdated press kit into a multimedia toolbox that can be customized for any client. Additionally, we’ll learn from a number of digital PR gurus from our very own PRSA Colorado Chapter. PR in a Digital World: What’s in your Toolbox? Register for “PR in a Digital World: What’s in your Toolbox?” today! BONUS: All attendees will be entered to win a copy of QuarkXPress 8, a leading tool in creating print, Web and interactive design. ($799 value) If you follow a lot of people on Twitter, you invariably miss a lot of tweets. I know you don’t want to miss anything tweeted by @PRSAcolo (You are following @PRSAcolo, aren’t you?) so I’m trying to find out if there’s a best time of day to tweet about news and events. If the form doesn’t load in the page, click here. We recently created several Twitter lists to make it easy to keep up with all your favorite PRSA tweeps: members, board and committee chairs, social committee members, and Colorado media. We have a couple more in the works, and hope to make them public soon. If your browser doesn’t support embedded forms, you can use this link to open the form in a new window. Lately I’ve noticed that as PR professionals we are being asked to do more than ever. Early in our careers we thought writing was the most important skill we could offer an organization. Now, we need to be fluent in everything from writing an optimized press release and traditional media outreach to wire distribution, web design, video production, digital photography, search engine optimization, social media strategy, blogger outreach, HTML, graphic design, video syndication…you get the idea. The list goes on and on. It’s dizzying. And PRSA Colorado is here to help! In 2010 the PRSA Colorado Program Committee is focused on elevating the discussion about PR in a digital world. We’re not talking Twitter. We’re talking about digging deep into topics that explore what it means to be a PR professional in 2010. We will build on the tried and true PRSA Colorado programs of years past, with new, fresh hands-on programs that will help you build your multimedia toolbox for 2010 and beyond. This year we will define the future of our profession. We will explore how we can build on the fundamentals to accomplish that important task. Join us for our monthly lunch programs at the Curtis Hotel on the third Wednesday of each month if you are interested in contributing to the PR success of your clients, your organization and your own career. Join us in elevating the discussion… and the profession. Margaret Fogarty and Julie Fouque The following PR articles this month share the scoop on web trends, crisis communications and green marketing. If you come across an interesting PR article, please send it to prsacolorado@gmail.com or tweet a link @PRSAcolo.
Fix Your Six Biggest Crisis Communications Problems in Two Days (Comprehension) New York Times to Start Charging for Website in 2011 ( Mashable) The PR Disaster Called NBC: Death of Corporate Speak (The Huffington Post) Top Tactics For Proving Green’s Worth ( MediaPost Publications) Public-Relations Specialist: As one of the 50 best careers of 2010, this should have strong growth over the next decade (US News and World Report) By Suzanne Trantow By Glen Turpin (glen@glenturpin.comor @gturpin) I’m honored to be following in Ashley and Elaine’s footsteps. They’ve left very big shoes to fill, but we have a talented and enthusiastic committee, and I’m excited about the year to come. This year’s goals for the social media committee haven’t changed significantly. We still need to provide timely and relevant information to chapter members, and we’ll be fine-tuning the way we use each of our channels throughout the year. To start, we’ve tightened the integration between this blog and our Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Now you’ll see links to our blog posts whenever there’s new content, so no matter which site you use on a daily basis, you’ll always know when there’s fresh content here. If social networking sites aren’t part of your daily routine and you don’t use a feed reader to keep up with the blogs you like, you can now sign up to receive blog updates by e-mail. Our Twitter account has been very active, and we’ll continue to post links to relevant and newsworthy local and national PR stories on Twitter. If you’re looking for an easy to keep up with all your PRSA friends, we’ve created new Twitter lists of PRSA Colorado members, board and committee chairs, social committee members, and Colorado media. As photographs and video become increasingly important PR tools, we’re also expanding our use of those media. We’ve expanded our presence on Flickr by adding a PRSA Colorado group, to which members can add their own pictures. We’ve also created a PRSA Colorado account on YouTube, and we’ll be posting short videos from our events. But all of these are just ways for us to get information to you. We’d really like to hear back from you. This blog is subtitled “a dialogue among Denver public relations professionals,” and that means you. We want to hear from you. Comment on a blog post. Start a discussion on Facebook or LinkedIn. Tweet something. If you’d rather be discussing something else, contribute something of your own. If you’re brimming with ideas and want to raise your profile by contributing to the blog on a regular basis, there’s still room for you on the social media committee. Interested? E-mail getinvolved@prsacolorado.org. By Ashley Boyden (ashleyboyden@sharpideas.com or @ashleyboyden) In January 2009, I was appointed PRSA Colorado social media chair to work with Elaine Ellis and Metzger Associates (PRSA’s former online editor) to build the chapter’s social media program from the ground up. For me, it was an excellent opportunity to get hands-on experience managing a social media program and gain skills that I could later apply to my work for Cactus and our clients. Last February, Elaine and I rolled up our sleeves to develop a plan for meeting PRSA Colorado’s goals via social media. PRSA Colorado’s goals were to 1) provide relevant chapter information to members, 2) help members become savvy about social media and its uses, and 3) increase awareness among members and non-members in the Denver Metro Area. Together, we created a comprehensive social media platform across Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as built our own blog to replace the old Newsline e-newsletter. We formed a social media committee to contribute ideas and generate content for the networks. Then, we reached out to PRSA board members, other committee chairs and chapter members to engage them in meaningful conversations via the social networks. While measuring the ROI of social media programs can still be elusive, to measure success of PRSA’s social media program in its first year, we outlined measurable objectives based on analytics and engagement. By year-end, we achieved the #2 Google ranking in search results for “PRSA blog,” 10 percent of PRSA Colorado’s Web site traffic came from Twitter, and we exceeded nearly all of our analytical objectives. We measured engagement by things like replies, re-Tweets, comments, discussion topics and user generated content. We had an astounding 20 percent of our Chapter’s membership contribute blog posts, including one from nearly every board member and committee chair. In 2010, our chapter has a new team of social media pros to lead the charge. My advice for keeping up last year’s momentum? Build your committee with people who are enthusiastic to LEARN more about social media and empower committee members to be your content generators, especially for the Newsline blog. And, if you want to increase readership and reader engagement, don’t be afraid of controversy or being a thought leader. At last week’s PRSA Colorado luncheon, we asked a few of our media panelists (or tablists, as PRSA Colorado President Elisabeth Monaghan dubbed them, since it was a roundtable discussion): What is the most important thing PR people need to know about the media in 2010? Here are a few of the replies. Misty Montano, Assignment Editor, CBS4 DenverRory Schmalzried, Assignment Editor, KMGH 7 DenverNadia Gedeon, Assignment Editor, 9News DenverWe also added lots of photos to our Flickr stream. You can join the PRSA Colorado group on Flickr and add your own event photos or tag people you know in the ones that are already there. Special thanks go to Suzanne Trantow, Sandy Hensley and Cara Crifasi for taking pictures and recording interviews. PRSA New Member TweetupThursday, Feb. 4, 2010
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PR professionals can spot each other in the blink of an eye. We’re the ones walking fast and looking good! But, click into a digital world and we look more like geeks writing optimized press releases; creating web designs; coordinating video production and digital photography; or developing social media strategies – and the list goes on. Somewhere between our first press release and our first YouTube video, our job descriptions – and the PR industry – changed. Dramatically.