Category: Counselors Academy

Clairemont CEO Named PRSA’s Counselors Academy Chair

Tracy LathanBlog, Counselors Academy, Raleigh PR Agency, , , ,

Dana Phelps Hughens Named Chair of PRSA’s Counselors Academy

Fanelli, Finley and McCormick named as new members on 2018 executive committee

NEW YORK  — The members of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Counselors Academy have elected Dana Phelps Hughens, CEO of Clairemont Communications in Raleigh, N.C., as its 2018 chair. In addition, Filomena Fanelli of Impact PR & Communications and Kate Finley of Belle Communications have joined the Counselors Academy executive committee for three-year terms, and Gary McCormick of GMc Communications as an ex-officio member for a one-year term.

Counselors Academy is the national professional interest section of PRSA that focuses on the business of agency PR. Its entrepreneurial members are owners or senior managers of leading independent firms in the U.S. and Canada. Counselors Academy’s programs foster networking, mentoring and learning, and the executive committee consists of 15 senior-level public relations professionals from across the country.

As CEO of Clairemont Communications, Hughens leads the agency to devise public relations and marketing strategies that have been recognized with 175 industry awards since opening in 2010. She is a Silver Anvil award winner and has been honored by the Triangle Business Journal with Women in Business and Forty Under Forty awards. Previously, Hughens was Senior Vice President and Global Consumer Practice Group Co-Chair of Fleishman-Hillard.

“As the owner of an independent agency, one of my first decisions was to join PRSA Counselors Academy,” said Hughens. “It is an essential resource in building and managing a business and has allowed me to build close relationships with other public relations professionals who I know I can trust.”

Hughens added, “As a long-term member of Counselors Academy, I’m really passionate about being this year’s chair. We’re focused on growing and engaging our membership while we continue to make our annual conference the premier professional development event for public relations agency owners and senior leaders.”

The section’s marquee event is the PRSA Counselors Academy 2018 Spring Conference, which will be held May 6-8, 2018, in Toronto. Known for its robust networking and learning opportunities, the Spring Conference enables collaborative peer relationships in which meaningful business counsel, operational best practices and industry trends are shared and gained.

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Fake News

Dana PhelpsBlog, Counselors Academy, Public Relations, , , , , ,

Fake news. Early this year, gathered in a conference room with PR agency owners from across North America who make up the executive committee of PRSA’s Counselors Academy, we debated how long that trending term would remain trending. While some of us thought that #fakenews would have faded by now, it is holding strong.

My fellow executive committee member, Brenda Jones Barwick, penned an article for the March issue of PRSA Tactics called Combating Fake News: How to Protect our Profession, Our Clients and Companies. It remains as relevant now as it was at the time of publishing.

As a member of PRSA‘s Counselors Academy executive committee and now chair-elect, I have collaborated with Tactics editor John Elsasser since 2015 as a liaison of sorts to secure monthly thought-leadership pieces contributed by Counselors Academy members and experts in the field of  public relations. Want to know more about Counselors Academy and its members? Read our previous posts here.

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CAPRSA Instagram Takeover v. PR Baton

Dana PhelpsBlog, Counselors Academy, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , ,

Deja vu. That sums up my initial reaction to participating in an Instagram takeover on the PRSA‘s Counselors Academy feed designed to give a sense of what it is like to work in PR. Hmmm. Why does that sound familiar?

In 2013, with the help of my Clairemont team, I launched PR Baton “to show the world what a day in PR looks like, one photo at a time.” We called it a social media experiment, and we created and synced Tumblr and Instagram accounts utilizing signup forms and calendaring apps. We also wrote rules and recruited “runners” to carry the baton. It produced 469 posts from varied PR professionals in the United States and Canada before the management of it started to become a full-time job. And then we returned to our full-time jobs of taking care of our clients’ PR and social media campaigns.

Was I ahead of my time? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it was a fun exercise that allowed us to learn even more about digital communications and led to several interesting conversations with clients and prospects about social media possibilities. Now back to my Counselors Academy Instagram takeover…

I love that members of Counselors Academy are now participating in this way to share our work, new ideas, best practices and just the everyday stuff of working in public relations. Clairemont has also utilized Instagram takeovers for our clients to collaborate with like-minded organizations to gain additional exposure.

Have you participated in an Instagram takeover or secured one for your company or client? We’d love to feature your best examples in an upcoming post. Hit us up on Facebook with your faves.

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Dana Phelps Hughens Named Counselors Academy Chair-Elect

Tracy LathanBlog, Counselors Academy, The Clairemont Team, ,

Clairemont’s Dana Phelps Hughens Named Chair-Elect for Board of PR Agency Owners

The members of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Counselors Academy have elected Dana Phelps Hughens, CEO of Clairemont Communications in Raleigh, NC, as its 2017 chair-elect.

Counselors Academy is a professional interest section of PRSA that focuses on the business of agency PR. Its entrepreneurial members are owners or senior managers of leading independent firms in the U.S. and Canada. Counselors Academy’s programs foster networking, mentoring and learning.

Dana was asked to join the Counselors Academy executive committee in 2012 and served as the chair of the section’s marquee event, the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference, in 2013. This year’s conference will be held May 7-9, 2017 in Seattle, Washington. Known for its robust networking and learning opportunities, the Spring Conference enables collaborative peer relationships in which meaningful business counsel, operational best practices and industry trends are shared and gained.

PRSA is the largest professional organization serving the U.S. public relations community. With a mission to “advance the profession and the professional,” PRSA provides news and information, thought leadership, continuing education and networking opportunities; sets standards of professional excellence and ethical conduct; and advocates for the business value of public relations and greater diversity among public relations professionals. Based in New York, PRSA comprises 112 local Chapters; 14 Professional Interest Sections that focus on specific industries and practice areas; and the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), which is active at more than 340 colleges and universities.

 

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VW’s #pinkbeetle Signals Change in Communications

Dana PhelpsBlog, Counselors Academy, Marketing, , , , , ,

Leading consumer public relations campaigns is fun and rewarding because I get to explore my own consumer preferences at times and devise creative concepts that reach people just like me…or people totally different from me! Sometimes, the best inspiration is an experience as a consumer that sparks an idea for one of Clairemont’s clients.

I recently bought a new car. But not just any new car. I bought a #pinkbeetle. Yes, that is the actually name of Volkswagen’s special edition VW bug sold in October in conjunction with Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I loved the company’s marketing tactics so much that I was compelled to write a column for that appeared in Tactics called VW’s #pinkbeetle Signals Change in Communications. I hope you’ll read it, and let me know if you want to take a spin!

As a member of PRSA‘s Counselors Academy executive committee, I collaborated with Tactics editor John Elsasser for part of 2015 and all of 2016 as a liaison of sorts to secure contributors for the publication’s monthly column called “Changing Times.” The column was started by Michael Herman, APR, Fellow PRSA, friend and mentor to many. There was no one better than Mike to write about changes in the public relations industry, but his only published column appeared in January 2015, the same month he unexpectedly left this world. Since then, members of PRSA’s Counselors Academy have been contributing their thoughts on the evolution of our profession.

Want to know more about Counselors Academy and its members? Read our previous posts here.

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