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JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference with Mike.

Mike, will you please introduce yourself?

MIKE McDOUGAL:  Sure. I’m Mike McDougal. I’m vice president of corporate communications and public affairs for Bausch & Lomb.

BURKE:  Great. Now, Mike, you just did a presentation about merging of traditional and social media.  Are there any lessons learned that you can share with the people here about, you know, things that you’ve learned along the way that maybe can help them avoid some of those same mistakes?

McDOUGAL:  Sure. I think there’s three things. One, you need to have a strategy. You can’t just jump in and try something from a social media sense without some strategy behind it. So even a basic strategy, get it in line. Two, it’s not either/or, it’s both. It’s have social media and traditional. Blend them to get better results, let them play off each other. And then third is have fun. You’re in this environment where, especially with social, you have a little more latitude to take yourself not so seriously. So I think those are the–probably the three things I’d come away with.

BURKE:  I think those are three great takeaways. Thanks so much. And where can people find you on the web and in social media?

McDOUGAL:  Sure. On the web it’s–my Twitter is @mikemcdoug, M-I-K-E-M-C-D-O-U-G. Or you can find me at mmcdougal@bausch.com.

BURKE:  Great. Thanks so much.

McDOUGAL:  Thanks.

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JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the  PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference with Chris.

Chris, will you please introduce yourself?

CHRIS CHRYSTAL:  Yes, I’m Chris Chrystal.  I’m media relations manager for the Nevada Commission of Tourism.

BURKE:  Chris, now, you know, a lot of conversation is going on around social media.  And I know that you’re a member of PRSA, SATW and NASHTA.  Can you talk a little bit about how you’re making the most out of your memberships in these times of the hype of social media?

CHRYSTAL:  Yes, and that’s a good question. Being a member entitles us to be able to attend the conferences, and when we go we meet our peers and from–people from all over the country who are in public relations or are travel writers.  And it’s been very, very useful for us. It’s a wonderful tool because you get to find out what’s going on, what they are doing, what they are saying, what’s happening. You get to catch up on all the latest tactics and industry activities that we need to know.  And there are things that you–you might not find that out just sitting behind your computer in your office. You’d have to do a lot of research online to be able to get the same things that you get at a conference. And with the membership in your organizations, you also can communicate with people.  You’ve got a built-in network, you’ve got people you can e-mail that they will accept you because you’re one of them, you’re one of the members of the–their organization. And networking’s really important now more than ever, because the industry is changing really fast and really drastically. And it’s a challenge for everyone to try to even keep up day-to-day. It’s never been like this before, it’s never been moving as fast as it is now.

BURKE:  Well, thank you so much, Chris.  And where can people connect with you online?

CHRYSTAL:  Well, our website, travelnevada.com.  If they want to contact our media relations department, I’m cchrystal, C-H-R-Y-S-T-A-L, at travelnevada.com.

BURKE:  Great.  Thank you so much, Chris.

CHRYSTAL:  My pleasure.

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JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference in Beautiful Aspen, Colorado.  I’m here with Angela.

Angela, will you please introduce yourself?

ANGELA BERARDINO:  Hi, I’m Angela Berardino.  I’m the senior director for travel and emerging media at Turner Public Relations.

BURKE:  And what are some of the trends that you’re seeing specifically as they relate to travel and tourism in the industry right now?

BERARDINO:  I think one of the larger trends is the continuing evolution of geolocation technology, so the idea that content someone creates can have a GPS tag on it and can be sorted based on where it was created.  We’re seeing that with services like Goala and Foursquare, that, you know, let users check in to a social network. But also in how photography and video and even just website content, it can actually be filtered based on where the user’s at, especially if they’re using their phone. So I think how travel industry creates content and how it’s sorted is going to continue to evolve.  It’s no longer just about the words that are used, it’s–can also be about the physical location that it was taken in.

BURKE:  Great.  And, Angela, where can people find you in the web and in social media?

BERARDINO:  Sure.  I tweet under @CoTravelGirl.  And I also blog at digitaljuju.com.

BURKE:  Great.  Thank you so much.

BERARDINO:  Yes. 

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JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference and I’m joined by Sree.

Sree, will you please introduce yourself?

SREE SREENIVASAN:  Hi, folks, I’m Sree Sreenivasan. I’m a dean of student affairs at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. And I teach in the digital media program there.

BURKE:  And I’ve heard Sree speak a couple of times, and I always take away great value from the presentation. You know, I think it’s interesting that you were an early adopter of Google, but for things like Google Buzz and Google Wave, you haven’t quite seen the value of those things yet.  So I think you have a really healthy perspective of how you look at things, and can you share some of those tips with the audience now about how they should try to find things and work them into what works for them as opposed to just adopting everything that’s out there?

SREENIVASAN:  Sure. This is, I like to say, very–or in a very early time in social media. This is where the Internet was in 1996, where radio was in 1912, where TV was in 1950, which means there’s a lot of new stuff coming all the time and you have to decide, though, whether to jump on things or not.

My own rule is, I’ll only work with something once it fits into my work flow and my life flow.  Work flow, life flow.  If it doesn’t do both, it’s not for me.  That doesn’t mean it’s not for other people.

So for example, Google Buzz and Google Wave are great examples of things that people love and thousands, millions of people maybe around the world use it. In fact, we all one day woke up and were on Google Buzz without knowing it because it’s something every Gmail user was on Google Buzz.  But what I’ve—I say is find when–only when it’s time for that technology for you should you use it.  So an example is Facebook.  I work at a university and Facebook was available very early.  I probably joined two years after everybody else did and couldn’t quite figure out how I can use it in my work till even after that.  Same thing with Twitter. Once you find something, then you are ready for it, then you use it.  Don’t panic, don’t worry that everybody’s using something that’s not important. Use the things that work for you.

The other thought about all of this is that it’s going to keep changing, and what we need to build is an ear that is listening to these new ideas and then looking for where we can–we can come aboard. Right now geolocation’s very big. I think it’s going to get bigger. Social media, I think, is much bigger than we imagined, and especially PR people need to be paying attention.

BURKE:  Great, Sree.  And where can people find you online and in social media?

SREENIVASAN:  Sure. My main web address is sree.net.  So if you Google “Sree” I come up first.  But Sree Stinks come ups–comes up afterwards, which doesn’t matter because the main thing is that I come up first.  But you can also find me on Twitter @sreenet, S-R-E-E-N-E-T, and on Facebook I have a page where I’m posting tech tips, job ideas, which is sree–sreetips.  So it’s www.facebook.com/sreetips.

BURKE:  Great.  Thank you so much.

SREENIVASAN:  Thanks. 

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JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference in Aspen, Colorado.  And I’m here with Doug.

Doug, will you please introduce yourself?

DOUG MacKENZIE:  Good morning, Johna.  I’m Doug MacKenzie.  I’m the president of the travel and tourism section of PRSA, and the director of communications at the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau.

BURKE:  Greater Phoenix, indeed.  So, Doug, will you please talk to me about what some of the trends are that you’re seeing in the industry right now?

MacKENZIE:  Certainly in the travel and tourism PR industry, the trends are certainly enhancement of our social media tools, really a lot of interactiveness, and also there’s a good development of digital storytelling.

BURKE:  Great.  And then, you know, amongst that of your members specifically, are they talking to you about things that they would like to see as far as future programming and developments there?

MacKENZIE:  I think the tools that certainly track and measure the social media arena, certainly an easy interface where they can certainly message and story tell to the best ability, and to really work with different communities and show the spirit of their destination.

BURKE:  Great, Doug, and thanks so much.  Is there a blog where people can find you?

MacKENZIE:  You know, at our visitphoenix.com site we have the Hot Sheet blog which gives all sorts of good tips on visiting Phoenix.

BURKE:  Great.  Thank you so much.

MacKENZIE:  Thanks, Johna.

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JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference with Bill.

Bill, will you please introduce yourself?

BILL MURRAY:  Hi, Johna. I’m Bill Murray. I’m the president and chief operating officer of PRSA.

BURKE:  So it’s great to have you here.  And you just did some remarks talking about the focus groups that you all have been conducting across the country. And I’d love to hear that, because that’s a very valuable form of research. So what are some of the findings that you’ve been able to take away at this point?

MURRAY:  Well, a great question, Johna.  We’re doing a couple of things. Every three years we engage in a really deep, strategic planning exercise at PRSA.  So this year we’re going across the country; we’re stopping in a number of cities and we’re talking to our members face-to-face about what’s affecting them as professionals out there on a day-to-day basis.

A couple things we’re hearing.  First of all, folks want to know about ROI. Whether you’re client is your–us, whether it’s someone in your organization, whether you’re an agency, the questions increasingly are, `What sort of return am I going to get from my investment in public relations?’

Another thing we’re hearing pretty regularly from everyone out there is how do I connect the public relations function to the strategic mission of my organization?  Folks know what their PR people do on a day-to-day basis, but what’s less apparent, especially in the upper reaches of management, is how they can connect that back to their financial objectives, their objectives for the reputation of the company, the organization, their objectives with respect to public policy goals.  And so definitely this is something that public relations professionals need to be aware of as they advance their careers and as they better serve the organizations they work for.

BURKE:  Bill, as a long-time practitioner, as a long-time member of PRSA, I’m delighted to see PRSA practicing what we preach.  And where can people find you online and in social media?

MURRAY:  My social media platform of choice is LinkedIn. I’ve been on LinkedIn for four or five years now.  I love it.  I check it every day.  I’m there with little updates about what I’m doing.  PRSA, of course, we’re all over the place.  We’re on Facebook, we’re on Twitter, and we’ve got lots of folks in the organization looking at all our different Twitter names and Facebook pages.  So, if you’re out there in the social media-sphere, we are too, and we look forward to meeting you out there.

BURKE:  Thank you so much.

MURRAY:  Thanks, Johna. 

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JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference with Cathy.

Cathy, will you please introduce yourself?

CATHY DUNKIN:  Hi, I’m Cathy Dunkin with Standing Partnership.  We have offices in St. Louis and Charlottesville, Virginia.

BURKE:  Great.  Cathy, you just did a session on the merging of traditional and social media.  Can you please talk about some of the lessons that you’ve learned along the way and the steps that people should take as far as integrating their campaigns?

DUNKIN:  I think what we were hoping to share with people was that you need to understand who your audiences are, you need to have a strategy and know what your goals are before you start deciding what your tactics are going to be, whether that be a traditional media program, some sort of public engagement program or a social media program.  So what we said is please think about that very carefully, do your research.  And then we said as you do it, have fun.  Because that’s the best thing of anything is if you’re going to do it, have fun with it.

BURKE:  Great tips.  And, Cathy, where can people find you on the web and in social media?

DUNKIN:  People can find me @cathydunkin on Twitter.  They can find me on our website, www.standingpr.com.

BURKE:  Great.  Thank you so much.

DUNKIN:  Thanks. 

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JOHNA BURKE: Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and we’re here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference.  And I’m joined by Muffy.

Muffy, will you please introduce yourself?

MUFFY STEINHOFF: Sure.  My name’s Muffy Steinhoff and I’m a co-executive producer with High Noon Entertainment based in Denver, Colorado.

BURKE: Great.  Now, Muffy, you did a session today for the PR professionals. Try to talk to them about how they can best work with the broadcast media. Can you share some of those tips with the audience here today?

STEINHOFF: Sure. I probably have to first tell you a tiny bit about what we do. We provide cable programming for many networks. We have about 15 shows going on right now providing for eight to 10 networks. For instance, “Cake Boss” on TLC and “Tough Love” on VH1, and a number of shows like “My First Place,” “My First Sale” on HGTV and a number of shows for DIY Network and Food Network, such as “Food Network Challenge” and “Unwrapped.” OK, sorry, I had to get that out there.

So what kind of things could I tell you? Well, one of the things that I was telling folks today is that when you see a show that you think might have a connection for your property, it’s probably best to contact the production company as opposed to the network itself. For instance, if you had a pastry chef at a property that you thought would be a good fit either as a judge or a contestant on “Food Network Challenge,” you want to see who the production company is. It’s a slate at the very end of the show, and you can see that in our case it’s High Noon Entertainment. You can go to our website, highnoonentertainment.com, and see who produces that show, and then you can contact them directly.  And the closer you can target your message to the right person, the better off it is. We find people all the time who say, `Well, we went to the network and they never put us in touch with the production company.’ We do a lot of casting; we’re looking for the people.  If you can bring people to us that would be a good fit, that’s–that works out well.

BURKE: Great.  And where can people connect with you in social media?

STEINHOFF: I am on LinkedIn.  My name, again, Muffy Steinhoff on LinkedIn.  And also my e-mail address, which is msteinhoff@highnoonentertainment–no, I’m sorry, msteinhoff@highnoontv.com.

BURKE: Great.

STEINHOFF: We changed it.

BURKE: Muffy, thank you so much.

STEINHOFF: Thank you.

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JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the Travel and Tourism PRSA Conference with Tom.

Tom, will you please introduce yourself?

TOM HOEHN:  Sure thing, Johna.  I’m Tom Hoehn.  I’m director of interactive and web marketing at Eastman Kodak Company.

BURKE:  And, Tom, you just did a session on merging traditional and social media.  And Kodak is a very traditional company, but you all are having a lot of fun with your social media programs.  Can you just share with the group what one of your favorite campaigns was?

HOEHN:  Sure, sure.  It was–it was a great presentation.  By the way, I love this, doing this thing at PRSA.  It was fun, fun, fun.  And we do more than have fun at Kodak with social media, too.  There’s a lot of results that are being driven from this, as well.

As far as a favorite campaign, I guess I’d look at the whole body of work and say that we’ve been at this for almost four years now, starting with blogs and things like this, and we still look at blogs as the heart of our social media efforts.  Tweets, Facebook wall posts, everything else lead back to blog, where we can tell a richer and deeper story.  So in terms of campaigns, I could say that we’ve used that kind of tactic to have rich and deep content on the blogs for printer campaigns, camera campaigns both in the B-to-B world and the B-to-C world as well, to get the most out of say trade shows, all kinds of things.

BURKE:  Great.  Thank you so much.  And where can people find you on the web and in social media, Tom?

HOEHN:  www.kodak.com/go/followus***(as spoken).

BURKE:  Excellent.  Thanks so much.

HOEHN:  Thank you. 

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JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference with Tim.

Tim, will you please introduce yourself?

TIM MARKLEIN:  Yeah.  I’m Tim Marklein.  I run the measurement and strategy practice for Weber Shandwick.

BURKE:  And, Tim, you had a session this morning about tying sales to PR efforts.  For the people who couldn’t make it to the session, can you talk a little bit about a couple of the big takeaways from that?

MARKLEIN:  Yeah.  I think one of the key takeaways really was about starting with the premise in mind that you can link PR to sales.  I hear all too often where people will either immediately accept that, oh, PR can’t be linked to sales, or they–because they don’t know how to measure it, they won’t take that upon themselves as a goal.  And I would say for any marketing organization where you have a sales objective in mind, that the PR leadership should take that objective on as part of what they do and then work backwards to figure out how to measure it.  And we talked about a number of different ways to be able to connect those dots so that you can, over time, show the link between PR and sales, but that the first part of it is really buying into the premise and having the belief that PR can drive sales.

BURKE:  Great.  And, Tim, where can people find you on the web and in social media?

MARKLEIN:  They can find me on Twitter @tmarklein, or I’ve got a number of presentations on slideshare.net at @tmarklein as well, and LinkedIn as well.

BURKE:  Great.  Thanks so much.

Networking
The top advantage cited by everyone was networking. Lauren Lawson, Goodwill Industries, met her future boss at an accreditation event. Lawson told her of her goal to work at a nonprofit. They kept in touch, and her goal came true. You need to look at networking as building relationships. Lawson’s advice, “It helps to be persistent (without being annoying), look for likeminded individuals or people you’d like to achieve to be and also offer help when you can to that person. You never know what inside knowledge you have that might be helpful to someone else.”

Anne Lasseign Tiedt, APR, Momentum Public Relations writes, “I joined the Austin AWC professional chapter my senior year in college. The instant connections and access to networking opportunities helped me land my first job.”

For anyone who travels or has moved cities, a professional organization can be a life-line, offering activities and a network of people with similar interests. I experienced this when BurrellesLuce  first moved me to Washington, D.C. a number of years ago. Some of my best friends were found at professional development seminars.

In the video below, Robin Lane, ZComm, explains why being a part of a professional organization is important.

Enhance Business and Learn About the Industry
Networking can lead to new business opportunities as well. Beth Keller Legate, Image Base, joined IABC over 12 years ago to drive new business, and she has remained a member because it worked.

Organizations give members an opportunity to learn more about the industry and relevant topics through panels, speakers, events and conferences. Melissa Chang, APR, has found PRSA’s Travel and Tourism Conference to be helpful, and she especially enjoyed a “lightening round” pitching session one year. 

Volunteerism
Opportunities to volunteer run ramped.  Independent writer and editor Richard Buse says, “I think the greatest benefits I’ve gained have come from volunteering. There are lots of great workshops and seminars out there, but I find that I learn much more through the hands-on experience I get from volunteering for various chapter functions.”

Meghan Sager, New Media Strategies, explains how membership in a professional organization recently helped her career:

Leadership
Your needs may change as you progress through your career. Jeff Ghannam, Biotechnology Institute, commented, “Ten years later (after joining PRSA), the chapter now offers me something totally different. It gives me the opportunity to explore and enhance my leadership abilities… This service on the board has allowed me to enhance my people management skills, public speaking ability, and my ability to organize and delegate, just to name a few benefits.”

Additional advantages:

• Resources and publications.
• Learning new relevant information and tactics
• Meet potential partners
• Network of resources for questions
• Job boards
• Mentoring programs
• Friendships

While there are many benefits to joining a professional organization, you may wish to exercise caution and do some research before committing to a membership. Consultant Robin Smothers says, “One thing to keep in mind is to make sure the organization will meet your needs: I wanted to expand into a new industry a few years ago, so I plopped down $200 to join a organization I thought was a good fit. Turns out that although the people were nice, they did not have the power to hire or even offer recommendations to those who did hire.”

 And Meredith Mobley, marketing communications coordinator and PRSA Hampton Roads board member, reminds us that “with any membership, it is what you make of it.” Simply attending events, is not enough, you need to get involved.

Why have you joined a professional organization? Please share your thoughts on making the most of membership.