Michelle Sullivan Communications

Quebec PR : we’ve come a long way, Baby!

Exciting things are starting to happen in the Quebec PR landscape : it may just be the burst of energy that hits the province in the spring, but I sense that social media is finally coming into its own.

When I launched this blog nearly two and a half years ago, after experimenting with a personal blog for a few months, Marc Snyder was already an old hand at blogging and Pierre Bouchard had just beaten me to the punch by a few weeks. For some, three is more than enough, but in our case, we definitely needed to turn towards other, English language resources like Brian Solis, Inside PR and FIR to get our PR social media fix and move forward in our development.

I was pleased when others started to slowly join the original triumverate. Massey Forget launched Quebec’s first PR agency blog in June of that same year, with Sophie Labelle, Aurélie Alaume, Bernard Motulsky, UQAM’s PR Chair and AGC Communications launching in 2008.

Now that social media has gone mainstream, more and more of Quebec’s francophone PR practioners are exploring the space.  Activities such as 3e mardi | Third Tuesday Montréal, YULBiz and the SQPRP’s social media workshops help introduce Montreal-based practitioners to social media.

Lately, it seems that every week brings a new and exciting blog launch from some of our industry’s leading professionals.  Among Quebec PR practitioners who have recently entered the space are: Martine Dorval. Patrice Leroux (who promises to post regularly as of June 1st), Marie-Josée Gagnon and Serge Leclerc.

I can only hope that one day, Marc Snyder, Guy Versailles, and my wonderful mentor, Alain Charbonneau, will re-open their blogs. The content generated by these senior PR practitioners was rich and the entire community would be well served if they once again shared their thoughts with us in blog format.

As for a blog for the SQPRP, Québec’s PR association, I can only hope that it will happen one day. It would be a great way to build relationships with the existing membership, recruit new members and demonstrate the value of the association as well as the industry as a whole.

I’m thrilled. So thrilled, I wanted to blog about this in English, so the ROC can hear about how dynamic the Quebec market is becoming. It’s absolutely fantastic to be able to read and exchange with professionals from my own city, in my own language, about something as exciting to me as social media.

Félicitations à tous ceux qui se lancent dans cette belle aventure. Au plaisir de vous lire!