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A common question I receive from family, friends or potential clients is, “What does a PR professional do?” It’s one I’ve found difficult to answer but necessary for others to understand.
The difficulty of this question comes from the many hats a PR professional wears. Responsibilities and tactics vary by industry and individual organization, but there are core responsibilities essential to each PR professional.
To start, public relations professionals work to gain free publicity for their client and to maintain positive relationships between an organization and its publics.
So, what goes into all of that?
Writing
Public relations stems from strategic communication. Aside from verbal communication, PR is heavily reliant on strategic writing. This means writing well in order to generate exposure with a particular audience. PR professionals often write press releases, media advisories, briefing sheets, blog posts, emails and speeches.
Listening
While PR professionals create high volumes of content, listening is a necessary skill.
- What does your client want?
- What does your client need?
- What are people saying about your client?
- What is the industry saying?
By listening, content is generated to please both the client and its publics.
Storytelling
The difference between PR and advertising is that in PR exposure is free. It’s important to highlight an organization in a way that will gain media attention but maintain brand identity and key messages.
Acting and reacting
In public relations, it’s impossible to predict each negative event. With a proactive strategy you can foresee some negative events and plan accordingly. It is equally important to create a reactive strategy after a negative event to minimize brand damage.