2018 PRSA Tri-State Conference
Why should all PR Students attend PRSA Tri-State Conferences?
I had the pleasure to visit the 2018 PRSA Tri-State Conference alongside other BICsters.
It was my first time attending any conference in the industry. At first, I had my doubts about the content as I thought it would be boring and filled with people who never worked a day in their lives in PR. However, I found it packed with interesting people, like skilled CEOS, founders, co-founders, heads of communication, students, network seekers, and reporters.
The common questions that were raised during this conference were: how to make reporters show interest in your stories? what is the best blog? What is the best press release platform?
Photo Credit Mohamed Amribet
The Conference was held on Oct 17th, 2018. It lasted for the whole day and took place at the NYU Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square, New York, NY. It provided us and other audience members with cutting-edge insights and useful information on how the things are done behind the scenes. There were two types of presentations: public speaking and interview style.
The only presentation we had was performed by Sean Greenwood, head of PR at Ben & Jerry’s. It was the keynote presentation that set the tone for the whole day and opened up multiple conversations around the theme of the day.
Mr Greenwood mainly talked about corporate culture and how they decided to side with the people against Trump policies, saying "It is not a marketing decision. It may hurt our sales. It may help our sales."
While the executives of Ben & Jerry’s are encouraged to be political, the company itself is non-partisan but do engage in social issue discussions. Hence, PR takes a relatively sensitive position in relaying the opinions of the company.
Personally, I just liked this guy… He was so hipster and the way he was talking about corporate culture made me more curious. Honestly speaking, I didn’t know much about Ben & Jerry’s nor have I ever tried their Iced cream… Now, they will definitely count me as a customer!
Photo Credit Mohamed Amribet
When it comes to the interview sessions, other companies were represented and the BICsters and I were impressed by all the discoveries we made and information we learned.
One of the interesting interviews was with Andrew Williams, from @GoldmanSachs He was the managing director of Corporate Communications. “The value of a press release is probably undersold”. I didn’t quite understand what he meant by that, at that time. He proceeded to explain that by giving an example of their latest services. They used the “traditional” press releases, but they faced the challenge of reaching a broader audience, especially the younger generations. Later on, he started to explain how they came up with some tools such as mobile Apps and exploiting technology to spread the information about their new service. He also claimed that they are working with other marketing firms to reach young people. “Everybody wants to reach young people but nobody knows how” the host confirmed.
Also, Becky Auslander of @Etsy, said “When I’m looking for PR Firms to hire, I don’t look for those who know people I know”. This was inspiring and I think this quote says it all. I understand that everyone wants to grow their social capital by introducing themselves to new people and leverage more relations that will grant them future opportunities.
Photo Credit Mohamed Amribet
Another interesting topic was “AI Killed the PR Star” with @KeithTrivitt, @ethanmcc and @EsteeGoldschmid. The conversation was very rich and informative. They have discussed the threats that are facing the industry as a whole and the possibility of Artificial Intelligence to replace humans in terms of public relations jobs.
This is based on the facts that “smart” softwares and scanning solutions may replace PR agents in detecting all releases linked to a company and then predicting ways to act accordingly. Similarly, automated tweets can be used and established, for more efficiency. Ultimately, AI may also detect any legal conflicts and avoid all words in public releases that may endanger the company from a legal perspective.
Photo Credit Mohamed Amribet
All in all, I learned that one of the main keys of success for students is networking. It was definitely an exciting experience and I have made some useful contacts in the industry (hopefully)… As a student, I believe it is difficult to build a relationship with people who don’t care much about networking because they work every day and have a stable job. However, I must start somewhere and those conferences are the starting point. There are many conferences taking place around the year, which can cost you between $99 to $2000. Students don’t have to break their piggy bank or put up with a dollar noodles for the rest of the week to attend. For instance, the price for this conference was $25, unbeatable right!
