Blog post

The top 7 events for media professionals in ANZ in 2020

With a new year brings new organisational goals and strategies. To help you achieve success in 2020, we have chosen the top 7 events for PR and Communications professionals to attend across Australia and New Zealand.

1. Mumbrella CommsCon

Event details: 2 April 2020. Sydney, Australia

Learn about: Brand building, behavioural science, cultural trends.

For: 

A must attend event for public relations, social media and communications professionals. Mumbrella’s CommsCon explores the major issues affecting the PR and communications business and helps industry professionals navigate the ever-changing landscape. The event features the industry’s most senior leaders discussing the biggest topics in PR and communications to better understand meaningful brand building, behavioural science, cultural trends, pitching and more.

Attending the Mumbrella CommsCon event will enable you to distinguish a clear plan for how you’re going to drive business value and gain trust and confidence with your audience.

Emergency Media & Public Affairs (EMPA) Conferences

2. Australia: Communicating and Engaging Communities in Emergencies

Event details: 3 – 5 June 2020. Sydney, Australia

3. New Zealand: Emergency Communications Conference

Event details: 12 – 14 August 2020. Wellington, New Zealand

Learn about: Disaster communications, public affairs responses, crisis communication best practice.

For:

• Communications professionals
• Emergency services professionals
• Response and recovery agencies
• Public information managers
• Public relations practitioners
• Researchers
• Social media specialists
• Community engagement

With recent catastrophic events occurring across Australia and New Zealand, the importance of strong crisis communications is more prevalent than ever. The Emergency Media & Public Affairs (EMPA) is the only representative organisation of emergency service and disaster communications practitioners in the world. Their conferences held in Australia and New Zealand assist with empowering communications professionals to deliver the right message to their audience during and after an emergency or crisis.

As a comms professional, communicating with employees, stakeholders, and lifeline organisations is critical to the resilience and safety of communities. During times of crisis, there is a highlighted need for communications that can influence individuals and organisations to make necessary decisions, quickly and comprehensively.

The rationale behind this event is to benchmark the best media liaison and public affairs responses to disaster across Australasia for comms professionals in emergency services, response and recovery agencies, public relations and similar.

4. 5th Corporate Comms for Leaders

Event details: 31 March – 2 April 2020. Melbourne Australia

Learn about: Stakeholder management, strengthening leadership skills, measuring value of external communications.

As a comms professional, it’s important to understand how to effectively build and execute corporate communications and social media strategies. It’s also essential to keep brand loyalty during disruptions in the market and throughout organisational change.

Establishing trust and transparency in brands through social media and corporate communications is equally important and this event will ensure you are equipped with all the tools required to execute effectively.

The most innovative strategies are explored to strengthen leadership skills in communication and address real-world challenges and opportunities.

Targeted to corporate leaders in today’s digitally connected world, the key drivers of this forum are:

• Maximising stakeholder engagement through storytelling and humanising the narrative being told
• Building agile communications teams
• Measuring value and effectiveness of external communications.

5. Corporate Affairs summit

Event details: 20 – 21 May 2020. Sydney, Australia

Learn about: Storytelling the in Corporate communication, crisis communication, reputation and social media

For: 

• Corporate Communications
• Internal Communications
• External Communications
• Corporate affairs
• Investor relations
• Government relations
• PR and public policy

This event focuses on insights to influence, and discusses the forces affecting the corporate affairs and communication landscape. From discussing ideologies and the divergence of civil discourse, to artificial intelligence solutions and the frameworks of communication.

The practice of corporate affairs holds the main responsibility for everything related to internal and external communications, government relations, PR and public policy. Corporate affairs now includes an added challenge of relaying those messages in various channels to accommodate business’ inevitable leap into digital.

Although corporate affairs continues to evolve and differs across various sectors, the goal is the same: to effectively communicate a message to the right audience.

Attendees are screened for seniority, so you can be assured you’re networking with similar minds shaping business today. Whether they’re users, consultants, channel partners or dealers, the Corporate Affairs Summit generates countless opportunities to learn, network, explore and to keep up to date with all that is taking place in the field.

6. Social media for Government NZ

Event details: 24-26 March 2020. Wellington, New Zealand

Learn about: Social media content, social storytelling, social media strategy

For: 

• Social Media Manager
• Social Media Specialist
• Communications Advisor
• Digital Communications Manager

Optimising social media is a critical tool for the New Zealand government sector. 

By attending this event, you will gain an understanding on how to find your target audience and learn what resonates with them using social media analytics – (to ensure your messaging cuts through the noise.)

Discussions will include the significant challenges being faced today across social media and how they’re being addressed. Appropriate strategies and technology options are uncovered to demonstrate where the impact and value of social media efforts can be improved. 

As building and maintaining a two-way dialogue on social media is imperative to improving service delivery and citizen satisfaction. This event will provide insight into the most innovative strategies to maximise social media success, how to create a personalised approach and connect experience whilst driving trust and confidence in government.

7. World Public Relations Forum

Event details: 12-15 October 2020. Auckland, New Zealand

Learn about: Building authentic relationships, communicating across cultures, Public Relations strategy.

For: 

• Public Relations
• Communications Manager
• Internal Communications
• External Communications
• PR and public policy

The World Public Relations Forum will explore the theme ‘connecting with courage’ through the four lenses of conscience, culture, capability and courage. It will reflect on key topics and trends that matter to the global communications community while also drawing on New Zealand’s ingenuity, creativity, and diversity to generate inspiring conversations.

Media today

As a PR or media communications professional, you’re the first to know when something important happens. You get the critical head start needed to course correct, alert the right people to target their efforts more effectively.

With the transition to a digital news environment, challenges to contemporary journalism have emerged due to a 24/7 news cycle. The new model of assertion means news is disseminated as fast as possible instead of an overarching concern surrounding the value of accuracy.

Attending any of the above events would be beneficial for a PR or communications professional as various strategies and operational phenomena are uncovered. These strategies will assist with effective communication and help with the leadership of media enterprises.

If you would like to understand more about real time analytics and what it can do for your organisation, get in touch with us today.