5 Things to Do at NSPRA 2015 to Expand Your Personal Brand

What better way to expand your presence in the School PR World then at the biggest conference of the year? Professional conferences are not only to learn, but they are also a great networking opportunity.  NSPRA 2015 is a great place to build Brand You.

Here are 5 Tips to expand your personal brand at NSPRA 2015:

1. Announce Your Arrival

Before you do anything, you have to let everyone know you are here. When you land at the Nashville Airport or cross the Tennessee border in your car, take a moment to snap a pic and post it to your social media.

I know “selfies” might be over-used, but do one anyway.  Taking a picture of yourself announces you are in the building and it gives everyone an opportunity to put a face to your name. Who know? They might even recognize an article of clothing you are wearing in the pic and make an effort to say hello when you check in.  Make sure to use the official NSPRA hashtag #NSPRA2015 for better exposure.

2. Live Tweet an Informative Presentation

If you want people to follow you on social media or respect your opinion, you have to deliver great content. And your content you share does not always have to be your own.  You can be the vehicle that delivers someone else’s expert advice.

Your conference speakers were chosen for a reason.  The have insightful, useful ideas that have worked in their districts. Share their ideas and publicize the key points they are delivering. Make sure to credit the speaker and try to include their Twitter handle to give them a shout out.

By sharing great content, your followers will trust you as an informative source on certain topics.  The more they trust you, the more retweets and shares you are going to get, which means more followers for you to share your own ideas and content.

3. Follow Five Fellow PR Professionals a Day

Have you ever heard the phrase, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours? The same thing applies to social media. Most of the time when you follow someone in your field of expertise, they will follow you back.

The more people you follow, the more people are going to follow you. Conferences are a great way to boost your social media numbers.  Social media is the 21^st century business card. Once they see the valuable content you are sharing on social media, the more likely they will share it to their followers. 

4. Gather Your Colleagues for a Periscope Roundtable

Video is all the rage these days. The newest and coolest thing right now is streaming, live video from your smartphone. The top two apps in this category are Periscope and Meerkat. Choose an app, gather some colleagues, pick a location and stream away.

It might be a good idea to choose a theme before you start filming. Let people know the topics beforehand, so they have more talking points to add to the conversation. Make sure everyone involved knows they are being filmed. Some people get a little uneasy around cameras and might not want their face on the World Wide Web.

5. Interview a School PR Professional for a Blog Post

You’ve gotten more followers; you have made some new friends, now you have to provide them with excellent content.  What better way than to interview a speaker or PR colleague and turn it into a blog post.

Find someone that really stood out at the conference and ask them for a quick interview.  Take good notes during their session, and create questions that you feel people would want to know the answers to. Most PR Professionals will love the publicity, and since you are asking questions about an area they’re experts in, it won’t be too much trouble for them answer.

The great thing about interviewing a speaker is that you have a built in audience for your post.  Tag the speaker when you publicize your post and the audience that was in their session will most likely be interested in a follow up interview that expands on the topic.  This way you can publicize the speaker and publicize yourself at the same time.

Make yourself stand out at the conference. Learn as much as you can, and expand your circle of friends.  Follow these tips and become one step closer to becoming the go to source for School PR.