With the changing media environment, the multitude of platforms and digital technologies, it can be difficult to find an all-in-one resource platform to stay on top of latest trends in PR and Communications and find opportunities to network with seasoned professionals. Let’s consider Stacy, a Communications Specialist who is ambitious and wants to meet interesting people in her field and draw on their experiences. After hearing about CPRS from her colleagues and attending a few events, she discovered the vast amount of benefits offered through the membership program. Since then, she has been a member for over a year and has been utilizing CPRS Vancouver to her full advantage.
Let’s see what a week of CPRS membership would be like when taking advantage of the things that CPRS Vancouver has to offer:
Monday is usually one of her busiest days where she would hop in and out of meetings one after another. Stacy starts her morning by responding to all emails, calls, and leafing through her daily to-do list. She was assigned to come up with ideas on how to get more reach for their upcoming campaigns that they were going to roll out on their company’s social media accounts. During a brainstorming meeting, she suggested an idea to create a company TikTok account because she had insights from recently attending a CPRS Vancouver event on “Going Viral with TikTok,” with real-world examples of how to reach a younger demographic with important healthcare information. She thought this would be a great platform to showcase their campaigns to get more reach, and planned to follow up with her connections from that event before pitching the leadership team.
On Tuesday, Stacy booked her ticket for the annual CPRS National Conference and saved $600 at the early bird rate. She attended a previous year when hundreds of Canadian PR practitioners and academics came together, learned, and networked in small break out rooms with ideas and topics that were new to her.
Since the pandemic, most events are virtual. That means it’s possible to join virtual events from all over the country, and she was able to hear from members in other cities and their insights. Before the end of her most recent virtual event she received new connection requests on LinkedIn.
During lunch another daya, Stacy engaged in a webinar on Advancing a Conversation about Anti-Racism in the PR and Comms Profession. She also booked her calendar in advance for Get the Dirt from Entertainment Publicists and workshop at Canada’s MarComm Forum for further professional development.
On Wednesday, Stacy scheduled a quick call with her mentor. The conversation ranged from her career to accreditation and how to approach challenges at work. She is driven to excel and advance her career but worried about not exceeding expectations. Her mentor encouraged her to get accredited in Public Relations (APR) as this would be a distinction to make stand out among her peers and position her as a leader and mentor in this competitive field. So after work, Stacy did some more research on APR accreditation and looked into enrollment requirements.
On Thursday, Stacy’s team had finally completed the biggest campaign of the year for their client—social awareness on growing electronic waste. This took a couple months of research, revisions and late nights. She wanted to enter the campaign for a communications award through CPRS to give her client and her team the recognition they deserved. Before entry, she reached out to other clients for testimonials, got valuable feedback, and they happily provided recommendations to include in the submission.
On Friday, Stacy received approval to post for a new team member, a PR Specialist, to add to her department. Stacy was thrilled about the news because their small agency was piling up projects that needed extra help. She quickly went on CPRS Vancouver job board and created a posting to get the most qualified professionals applying. She shares the news on her social media channels and quickly gained traction with likes and reshares of her job posting by a few of her new contacts she connected with at recent CPRS events. They were sharing her post around their networks and within the same evening she received a few recommendations for promising candidates. Stacy ended her Friday night by reaching out to the candidates for a quick interview call scheduled for next week!
Stacy enjoys taking advantage of CPRS events and all the benefits that it has provided her. There was a great network of people she met and a wealth of knowledge she gained from being a member.
About the Author
Graduated with a BA in Communication from Simon Fraser University, Connie Lin is fascinated with all-things digital marketing and communications. She is driven and curious by the impact of the ever-changing landscape of digital media and technology for today's audience. When she’s not writing, you can catch her at the hippest food joints in Vancouver. Get connected with her on Linkedin.