Social Media Rewrite

CONTACT:

Tara Foster, Co-chair

Woloshin Communications, Inc.

503.241.3834 (office)

Professionals and Students get the Opportunity to Master Social Media

PORTLAND, ORE. – The world of public relations is diving head-on into the world of social media. This year, the Communicators Conference is the ideal place to learn social media. Social media topics include blogs, RSS, search engines, social networking sites and other Web 2.0 technologies.

The 2008 North Pacific District of the Public Relations Society of America Communicators Conference is slated for May 7-8 at the Downtown Portland Convention Center Holiday Inn. This conference is an excellent networking and professional development opportunity for public relations and communications practitioners, as well as for students who are entering the field.

One of the main attractions of the conference will be an educational session on the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies and the role they play in public relations. Michael Pranikoff, a director of emerging media at PR Newswire, is a key speaker who will educate attendees about the role of emerging social media and various Web 2.0 technologies. Pranikoff’s speech, PR in a Web 2.0 World, is geared toward the emerging social media culture in public relations. Pranikoff is a social media expert who immersed himself in the technology industry at the start of his career and worked for clients such as XM Satellite Radio, AOL and the Consumer Electronics Association. Pranikoff assists PR Newswire account executives with work for technology companies and organizations.

Other keynote speakers at the 2008 Communicators Conference include Joel Stein, who is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and a contributor to TIME, and Ronald Alsop, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. These, as well as 13 other speakers from across the country, will enlighten conference attendees about various other topics on intergenerational differences in communications. The conference is an event that has fostered extraordinary growth since its humble beginnings and this year the event is predicted to be one of the biggest and the best in its history. The co-founder of the conference and the vice president and manager of corporate communications at Wells Fargo & Co. in Oregon and Southwest Washington, Tom Unger said, “This conference is very ambitious. You get the chance in a short period of time to learn from a number of speakers, pick their brains and learn from the best.”

Since 1996, the Communicators Conference has been educating developing public relations and communications professionals about a variety of topics in the public relations and communications industry. After realizing that a monthly lunch meeting was just not enough, Tom Unger, along with the members of OCIABC (Oregon-Columbia International Association of Business Communicators), suggested that an organized event that would address the topics discussed in the monthly meetings is a viable alternative. Since then, the Communicators Conference has grown rapidly and attracted a diverse audience each year. “This is one of the best networking and development opportunities for PR practitioners on the West Coast. It’s an exceptional weekend with many activities in the fun-filled City of Roses, Portland,” said John Mitchell, a North Pacific District PRSA Chair.

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Multimedia Elements

Michael Pranikoff,

director of Emerging

Media at PR Newswire.