PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS

Brand journalism boot camp to transform your PR and content strategy

Are you ready for brand journalism? The approach combines real reporting and lively storytelling (that’s the journalism) with your organization’s experts and experiences (that’s the branding). A few organizations have figured out how to tell their stories using the tried-and-true methods of journalism to engage their audiences and boost their competitive advantage.

You’ll leave this workshop knowing how to:

• Write and manage content that appeals to today’s harried reader
• Organize your communication strategy around a standard newsroom
• Use original and curated content to be the leading publisher in your niche
• Create content that is so useful that people will be compelled to share it—over and over again
• Become the No. 1 destination for customers and potential customers—even with a tiny budget
• Master the 10 email techniques that increase readership and brand loyalty
• Integrate social media and content to boost your website traffic
• Measure the success of your content strategy
• Build a subscription list of customers, journalists and key influencers and keep them coming back for more

Lunch break

What happens after your video is finished? The answer is crucial to your success

If your video runs on social media and nobody sees it, did it really play? It’s a new take on an old philosophical question, but it’s the reality we live in with social media. You can create something amazing using the coolest new tech, but if you just post it on your social media feeds without a solid strategy to get results, it will disappear. To avoid that fate, this is the training session you need to attend.

In this workshop, digital/social video expert Justin Allen will show you:

• Gadgets galore! All the cool new camera tech that makes social video so engaging—and Allen will show you what’s worth your money and what’s not
• How, when and where to do live video
• Best video practices by platform
• What a good social distribution plan looks like
• How much engagement really costs—Allen will give you the only equation you need to determine how much to spend promoting your video (until Facebook changes the algorithm again, of course)

What’s next? The technologies that are changing the way we communicate

Communicators historically have been caught unawares by technologies that massively disrupt the way we work. Desktop publishing, the World Wide Web, social media, the rise of visual communication and the transition to mobile have all challenged communicators to rethink their messages and their tactics for delivering them. The pace of change isn’t slowing down; if anything, it’s accelerating. In this eye-opening workshop, communication technology writer and consultant Shel Holtz will share the technologies that will shake the communications profession in the next few years.

You’ll learn:

• The key technologies that will have an impact on communications, including artificial intelligence, smart audio, chatbots, livestreaming video and other video trends, virtual/augmented/mixed reality and blockchain
• How these technologies will affect organizations
• The ways forward-looking communicators are already addressing and using these technologies
• Ways you can apply these technologies to address communication challenges and opportunities
• How to acquire the skills you need to implement these technologies as communication tools and resources