Build on the latest strategies and tactics for senior-level communicators at the PRSA 2012 Counselors Academy Spring Conference, May 6-8, in New Orleans. The conference is designed to help your agency maximize profits, people and potential.  

I’ll never forget the day the Counselors Academy brochure arrived in the mail.

It was Jan 2009, and my public relations business was almost five years old. I had been growing it every year in double digits and had added an employee in 2008.

And then it all hit the fan and I lost about 40 percent of my business in one fell swoop, and let my one employee go.

It felt like I was back to square one.

I realized at the time I knew a lot about public relations, but I didn’t have a clue about running a public relations business.

That’s when I opened the Counselors Academy brochure — a conference for agency CEOs and leaders about the business side of the agency. I thought long and hard about it. At a time when I was to be implementing austerity measures, I was contemplating a fairly significant expense.

There are two reasons for this post:

1. I have drunk the Kool-Aid that is Counselors Academy and want to pass the glass around.
2. Whether Counselors is for you or not, the idea of taking a risk and investing in yourself and/or your business is an important one.

Continue reading " PRSA Counselors Academy: Austerity Measures and Raising the Bar Do Not Mix "

It is quite mystifying to think what life would be like if I hadn’t signed on that dotted line back in May of 2005.

I could have easily skipped my university’s first PRSSA meeting to do a number of things — intramurals with friends, hit the books to better understand the differences between minocyclines and tetracyclines or maybe update my profile on this new site called thefacebook.com.

Luckily for me, I went to that meeting and established my membership, which is now approaching seven years as a PRSA/PRSSA member.

PRSSA provided me with ample opportunities to establish my confidence as a leader within my Chapter and later, on a larger scale, as a National Committee member. It also provided me the opportunity to meet my eventual employer at the PRSSA National Conference in Philadelphia.

Once a graduate, I didn’t hesitate signing on that dotted line once more to establish my membership — this time as a PRSA member — and opportunities have continued to emerge. As a young professional in my PRSA Chapter, my membership has meant a few things to me.

Continue reading " PRSA Resolutions 2012 "

As the role of the public relations professional continues to evolve and the profession continues to grow, PRSA is dedicated to providing Chapters with the resources they need to flourish in 2012.

Updated initiatives and improved benefits for 2012 include:

♦ Free Online Training Webinars: Webinars are now free with PRSA membership. This represents nearly $2,000 in annual savings for members who participate in just one PRSA webinar per month. Upcoming webinars include:

• “Digital Media and Today’s Digital News Release: Making It Easy for Journalists to Pick Up Your Story” — 3–4 p.m. EST, Jan. 19, 2012. 
  
• “How to Grow Word-Of-Mouth Movements: People Are the Killer App” — 3–4 p.m. EST, Jan. 26, 2012.
• “Creating the Online Newsroom: Develop a Centralized Information Headquarters for Your Organization” — 3–4 p.m. EST, Jan. 31, 2012.
  

♦ Revamped Chapter support: PRSA National is working toward tailored plans to make recruitment easier for our Chapters. We are developing customized programming guides and easy-to-use social media templates to make administrative tasks less time-consuming and help you better engage with your members.

Continue reading " PRSA Chapters: Updated Initiatives and Improved Membership Benefits for 2012 "

With thoughts (and client budgets) turning to the New Year, PRSA continues our tradition of an annual PR industry forecast. This year, we feature contributions from 12 creative thinkers in public relations. We asked for insight into trends they believe will fundamentally change the PR industry in 2012.

Below is a compilation of their thoughts. Starting Jan. 3, 2012, and running for 12 consecutive business days, PRSAY will publish each trend as a full blog post.

We hope you find value in reading these predictions. Please add your own in the comments below or by using the hashtag #PRin2012. We’ll capture the best contributions and publish those in a special baker’s dozen post in late-January.

Related: Read the top-11 PR trends for 2011 in this Dec. 22, 2010, PRSay blog post..

Continue reading " 12 Trends to Watch: 2012 Public Relations Forecast #PRin2012 "

Join the PRSA New Professionals Section and personal branding expert Hajj Flemings for the online training session, “Personal Branding: Develop Yourself as a Thought Leader,” on Wednesday, December 7, 2011. Registration is only $35 for members of the New Professionals Section and for members of PRSSA. 

Do you want to become the next Seth Godin, Steve Jobs, or Daymond Johns? I am going to walk you through some points to help you establish yourself as a thought leader in the era of digital technology. One disclaimer: Having a blog doesn’t make you a thought leader in the same way that having an iPhone will not make you think like Steve Jobs. The context of thought leadership in this article is helping individuals understand how to use digital technology, content curation and branding as a thought leadership strategy.

Continue reading " Five Points to Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader "