I have updated a past post with more upcoming conferences, panel discussions, conventions, and events for professionals working in Public Relations, Marketing, and Social Media.
 
Instead of adding this just as a new post, I’m making this an easy to find page – see upper right corner of this blog or click here for the full schedule:
http://jackmonson.com/social-media-pr-conferences-calendar/
 
I have pulled this info from events that I will be attending or at which I will be speaking along with some help from many friends who supplied the info on their upcoming speaking engagements. I also found many of the details using a cool media relations and event planning tool, The AP Planner. 
 
If you are organizing, sponsoring, or attending a PR or Social Media conference not listed, please let me know via comment here or send me an email at jmonson@enr-corp.com. I would love to add any event of interest. Thanks!

 
 
In Chicago? Near Chicago? Want a good excuse to come to Chicago???
 
Please join us on Tuesday, April 29, when the Chicago Chapter of PRSA presents: “Making Communications More Effective with Social Media Tools.” Register here!
 

Panelists:
 
Alecia Danticoa
@danticoa
Vice President, Digital Communications, Weber Shandwick 
 
Reid Lappin
Partner and founder, VOKAL Interactive
 
Jack Monson
@jackmonson
Vice President, eNR Services / MatchPoint
 
MJ Tam
@mjtam
Editor, Chicagonista
 
Rick Wion
@rdublife (personal) and @mcdonalds (McDonald’s)
Director of Social Media, McDonald’s
 
Gini Dietrich (moderator)
@ginidietrich
CEO,  Arment Dietrich, Inc

Pitching iPad Apps Would Be...Logical

Christina Warren - Mashable
Yukari Kane - Wall Street Journal
Roman Loyola - MacWorld
Eric Zeman - Information Week
Jay Yarow -  Mashable
Nick Mokey - Digital Trends
Paul Krill - CIO Magazine
Brian X. Chen -  Wired: Gadget Lab
Jared Newman - Network World
Erica Ogg  - CNet News

1. Mashable Blog
2. Patrick Caldwell – Austin American-Statesman
3. Fayza Elmostehi – Houston Press
4. Jay Fernandez – Hollywood Reporter
5. Pete Freedman – Dallas Observer
6. Carolyn Kellogg – Los Angeles Times
7. TechCrunch Blog
8. Mekado Murphy – New York Times
9. Deborah Stith – Austin American-Statesman
10. Wired: Beyond The Beyond Blog

This list was developed using MatchPoint based on writers’ level of influence and relevance of content as of 3/8/10.

(Thanks to guest blogger Thomas Scott for his insights into navigating the dangers of PR)

Can PR kill you suddenly?
 
Probably not.
 
Can PR be hazardous to the health and well being of your company?
 
Absolutely. It can kill it in one fell swoop. Suddenly.

Public Relations practices are changing and the PR industry is in the middle of its most major culture shift in the past fifty years. We’re talking major paradigm shift here; the kind that happened when the iPod changed people’s music buying habits and Domino’s Pizza changed people’s pizza buying habits.

What’s the shift?

Journalists and bloggers, the individuals any successful PR campaign must target, have the lowest trust level of public relations companies, individuals and traditional PR content that they’ve ever had. We spent the entire last decade getting connected and wired to the internet and now we are suffering from overload. People want to have conversations where they trade tips and referrals and in order to have good conversations, you need interesting content.

Here are my 5 ways PR can suddenly kill your business – bizarre because they are counter-intuitive for those of us who have worked in the industry for lengthy amounts of time:

1. Write public relations and news releases in the traditional format. Trust me on this one – journalists have a keen awareness of ‘interesting’ and ‘not interesting.’ Those are the only two categories your content falls into. Period. Tell your story the way a journalist would tell it so it is really a story and not a release. Use traditional journalism methods to hook readers so they chose to know more. Forget to do this and your message will go right in the trash.

2. Write poorly thought of headlines. Headlines are called headlines because they serve a very important purpose: you are reading this blog post because I ‘gotcha’ with my headline. Admit it – it’s true! Take the time to write a catchy headline that people will flock to. Search Engine Optimization Experts understand this; it is at the root of the entire link baiting industry. Don’t know what that is? Google it – it applies more to PR than you realize!

3. Write content that is meaningless. As a journalist or blogger, I don’t care about your 59 cent taco. I care that your 59 cent taco kept the entire staff of a California farm employed in the down market or how a lowly 59 cent taco can decrease PMS levels in women suffering from a lack of iron (if that is true, please contact me). Be clear on what your story is and avoid stories that are not – well – stories. Journalists are professionally trained to seek out stories. No amount of calling on your part will convince them otherwise!

4. Call journalists to follow up. I know this is what real PR firms bill as a valuable service. I also know that as a journalist myself at a major market US daily, calling me to ‘follow up’ was a guaranteed way to get yourself and the company you represent blacklisted. Write better content and tell better, more compelling stories that people would want to talk about. Do that and you won’t have to call. 

5. Forget about the longevity of a release. Creating content for a PR release is a lot more than sending to journalists. Current thinking among my unscientific group of 4 PR and social media friends is that if a content piece is really good, it is valuable. Keep your content and releases in your bank deposit vault – your company blog – so people can find it long afterwards and click on the link to your website. Every release you write should be on its own webpage, optimized with search engine tools and should have the ability for readers to both click through to your website and share on their social media networks. Forget that and all you’ll get is a whimper, not a bang.

Good luck!

Thomas Scott

VP Marketing for Showhomes, a nationally franchised home staging company: http://www.showhomesfranchise.com

Thomas is recovering journalist and a new media and content specialist.

The Engage Button in MatchPoint

The engage button will open an email pitch note from you to the selected writer. You may also include any previously saved campaign elements embedded into the body of this html email. These elements can include:

• Links to videos
• Photos
• A Press Release
• Attributable Quotes
• Bulleted News Facts
• Boilerplate

 
Journalists have raved about receiving these embedded elements as opposed to attachments which often get filtered, ignored, or deleted.
 
When sending your pitch note through MatchPoint instead of via traditional email, you can also track who has opened your pitch!

.

Dan Sewell – Associated Press
Bruce Constantineau – Vancouver Sun
Katie Thomas – New York Times
David Holthaus – Cincinnati Enquirer
Janet McFarland – Globe and Mail

This list was created using MatchPoint . Let the games begin!

• Heidi Stevens / Chicago Tribune

• BlogHer Blog

• Blisstree Blog

• ThisNext Blog

• Christina Giannantonio /  Star-Ledger

• Vik Jolly / Orange County Register

• Chris MacIas / Sacramento Bee

• Elizabeth Maupin / Orlando Sentinel

• Sherri Osborn / About.Com

• Dropjack Blog