Notes from PRSA Western District Conference

By on April 24th, 2009 In Professional Development

I wasn’t able to attend the PRSA Western District Conference, so Chris Chesrown, a fellow member of Phoenix PRSA and our Western District Representative, sent me some notes from the event that I could share with readers of the blog:

Engage – if there’s one idea that has emerged in every workshop today at the PRSA Western District Conference in Orange County, California, it’s that we, as public relations professionals must participate in the conversations taking place in social media spaces.

Steve Rubel, the Senior Vice President, Director of Insights at Edelman Digital explained that, “consumers use social media to get answers to their questions, solutions to their problems.”

And as Rubel and other experts insisted, the conversation is happening with or without you – it’s no longer a question about whether or not you and/or your organization participate. Your company, your institution, your agency – is part of the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, various blogs and other venues.

Today it’s a matter of how and to what degree you participate in the conversation. Peter Shankman, founder of HARO (Help A Reporter Out) stressed that participation “is just life” today and it doesn’t meet just pushing information out to people. While the social media world is moving fast, Shankman, during his luncheon keynote, said it’s essential that we stop and listen to what others are saying, too.

Rubel predicts that by 2014, all media will go through a digital channel. With the ongoing contraction of and re-invention of traditional media outlets his prognostication is of little surprise to many of us in the business. In fact, Ketchum West’s Sean Fitzgerald and USC’s Annenberg School of Communication’s Jerry Swirling presented findings of their updated study “Media Myths and Realities.” It found that traditional media is in a downward spiral twice as fast as we think it is, and local TV viewership, as a source for information, continues to decline at a rapid pace.

The shift in consumer media preferences makes the work we do all the more relative – and underscores the demand for thoughtful participation in social media.

You can follow an ongoing conversation about social media engagement from the PRSA Western District Conference via Twitter search using #WDC09 or @abailin. The PRSA Western District blog is posted here.

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