Digital Diva • The PR professional of the future

The PR professional of the future

Lucy Allen (Lewis PR) posted a good article (via prarticles) about the PR professional of the future. What will he or she look like?

She said…

We’ll see a growing emphasis on specialized skill sets. Our industry is becoming commoditized, and agencies must safeguard their margins by being more efficient and effective than ever. Hiring highly skilled individuals who can execute quickly and bring unique value will be critical.

I agree. PR professionals have competition from lots of different areas now. We’re no longer in the ‘safe’ days of big retainers and long lunches. The PR professional of 2011 needs to skill up, get very efficient, effective and be adaptable.

Specialists also bring access to a ready-made network of relevant contacts – not just reporters, but all forms of influencers. A PR professional’s network will become even more important, but the good news is that creating a network no longer relies on simply having the right personality. Thankfully, we should see the end of so-called PR pros whose only skill is the ability to work a room.

I’m not sure I agree with this statement so much. I think a PR professional’s personality is very important for the job. Networking with people online is just the same as networking with people offline. Bloggers these days need to be treated like reporters, so the skillset is the same. What the PR professional of today needs to learn is the technology side of online - they need to learn good SEO principles to make sure they are getting the best results from their Online PR efforts.

The ability to create content – from the written word to images, video, and interactive media – will be a key skill. Agencies will need content producers and visual directors and today’s account manager will evolve into a project manager, who is able to coordinate complex, multimedia campaigns.

I absolutely agree with this. It’s something we are doing much more within the PR team at Brass.

Gaining good Online PR is very dependant on the quality of content. This is why an agency like Brass is well placed, as it is an integrated agency - we have a dedicated creative team that work on all campaigns. They work very closely with our PR professionals, making sure that we are producing the best content…whether that is copy, images or video.