At B2 Communications, we believe community involvement is essential to our agency and industry. From supporting industry associations to educating future PR professionals, B2 team members support our communities. Here’s a look at B2’s involvement over the past year.
Building Our Local Communities
Though our day-to-day client work has us working across the country, we stay true to our roots by being actively involved in the Tampa Bay community.
Kyle Parks is involved with the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership’s Developers Council, which ties in with B2’s real estate work. The group shares best practices and advocates for common-sense solutions to challenges like managing growth and addressing housing affordability.
This year, B2 worked with the Partnership on media relations for the Inaugural St. Pete Development Summit, which brought community leaders from Austin, Baltimore, Boulder, and Philadelphia together. The summit offered the leaders a chance to share their most effective strategies and attendees got tons of ideas to take back to their local communities. Attendees heard about how an underserved area of Baltimore is being revitalized; how landscaping has transformed corridors in Philadelphia, and how Austin and Boulder are dealing with impacts from their popularity, such as housing affordability.
Elevating Our Industry
Missy Hurley, APR is highly involved in the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) locally and nationally, and other B2 members are also members of the Tampa Bay chapter.
Most recently, B2 sponsored PRSA Tampa Bay’s Professional Development Day, where participants got tips for navigating their careers in today’s ever-changing landscape. Missy spoke on the “Working Together” panel, where she and other PR pros discussed how agencies can best work with clients. Professional Development Day provides an excellent opportunity for learning and mentorship for upcoming PR professionals, which made it natural for B2’s involvement.
Whether it’s sponsoring PRSA events, guest lecturing at local universities, or engineering the agency’s robust internship program, B2 has become a leader in teaching young PR pros.
Colleges and universities are incubators for the next generation of PR professionals, and B2 has built relationships with professors at institutions around Florida. In February, PR Director Shannon Burch spoke to a PR class at The University of Tampa. She emphasized the importance of having a mentor and getting real-world experience, both of which are key elements in B2’s internship program.
Involvement Across the Nation
As a national PR firm, B2’s community is wherever our team operates. Missy spearheads our national industry involvement through her role as a PRSA Counselors Academy Executive Committee member. Counselors Academy’s agency leaders build close relationships, participate in seminars, and share best practices for running PR agencies.
At this year’s Counselors Academy’s Conference, Missy spoke about the importance of mentorship in her presentation “Intern Today, Employee Tomorrow: How to Shape the Next Generation of PR Pros.” In her call to action, Missy challenged the PR leaders at the conference to each take on just one intern; together, that room could raise over 300 qualified professionals.
The importance of community cannot be overstated. At its core, community involvement is a way to help build neighborhoods, regions, and industries that helped all of us thrive. B2 Communications is proud to do our part and provide opportunities for others to do the same.