What sets apart one PR professional from the rest?
Besides the appropriate training in the field, when outsourcing PR services to a firm, you need to be certain your PR professionals have the requisite skills and experience to provide an exceptional PR service. To succeed in the PR business, you must possess not only the traditional skills, but also other emerging skills that are redefining the PR sector today.
Below are 8 essential public relations skills for the modern PR professional:
1. Ad Copywriting
Today’s PR professional is not just a writer with above average writing skills. They are also expert copywriters with the ability to write a compelling ad that actually gets a target audience to take action. This is especially an important skill since, increasingly, online advertising is becoming message-driven as opposed to merely being creative.
As messaging experts, it makes sense for PR professionals to drive social media and internet advertising outlets such as Facebook advertising, e-newsletters, Google Adword, and a host of other advertising platforms. The ability to write a compelling ad copy has never been as key for a modern PR professional than it is today.
2. Video Production and Editing
Long gone are days when all a PR professional needed was the ability to write a press release or a press statement. Although this is still an important skill, the demand on today’s PR professional is more stringent. Any PR professional worth their value needs to be able to create, edit, and distribute a company’s content in various formats.
These include video, photos, blog posts, etc. To do this, you need to know how to use tools such as social networking platforms, PhotoShop or Final Cut Pro, among many others. You also need to know how to use analytics and monitoring tools such as Radian6, SM2, Sysomos, etc.
3. Mobile as a PR Strategy
The ability to leverage the potential of the mobile phone is another key skill a modern PR professional must have. To take advantage of mobile technology, we must go beyond QR codes and use the platform in a way that sends messages out with the greatest impact.
The mobile technology should be a key part of the PR strategy, not an on-and-off incidental. Since mobile technology is a key part of communication among clients and individuals, it makes sense for the modern PR professional to embrace it.
4. Social Media Content Creation or Curation
Most of the social media content out there is too salesy to have an enduring impact. This is not accidental since it is mostly created or curated by marketers, salespersons, executives, etc.
Today’s PR professional should be able to take charge of digital content and create or curate content that connects with audiences in an enduring way. A PR professional’s ability to write content that is both valuable and engaging is an important skill that will gain more prominence in the years ahead.
5. Analytics
The scattered nature of today’s audiences and their information consumption habits has left today’s PR professional frantically seeking for the best strategies of reaching them. Faced with immense sources of audience data, the ability to analyze swathes of data that reflect the behaviour of audiences on social platforms such as Facebook and others is perhaps one of the most critical skills of today’s PR professional.
Getting insights from such data and streamlining your communications and PR strategy to messages and media with the greatest impact is a key skill. While you don’t have to be a data analyst to make sense of audience data, without some level of appreciation of data analytics, you are likely to have challenges staying relevant in the market.
6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Besides creating or curating content, the modern PR professional must be involved in making it discoverable. It makes no sense to have killer content that no one knows exists. To make content discoverable, a PR professional need SEO skills. Content that is not search engine optimized is almost impossible to discover.
However, a PR professional should resist the temptation to over-SEO content at the expense of quality. While it is bad enough to have beautiful content that no one knows exists, it’s even worse to have garbage content ranking at the top of Google searches.
7. Fast Access to Helpful or Damaging Information
A modern PR professional should be able to anticipate challenges and opportunities before the competition gets wind of it. To take advantage of an opportunity or to stem a crisis, you need to be aware of it before your detractors or the competition goes shopping with it.
8. Ability to Manage Virtual Teams
In today’s digital marketplace, the workplace is assuming virtual dimensions. It is no longer critical for a staff member to report to a physical office. Terms such as Virtual Assistants are becoming popular by the day.
In this technology-driven marketplace, a PR professional must know how to work with virtual teams in different locations. For this, you will need online expertise and skills to use tools such as Skype, zoom, and many others to communicate and network with them.