Business Buzz - Making You Famous

In an increasingly online world the skills required for a Public Relations professional have significantly evolved from what they used to be. We no longer do all of our work in the newspaper and telephone conversations are becoming a thing of yesteryear. These five skills will help you take your PR from the 1920’s to the future and ensure your success.

1. Web Skills: With almost half of the world’s population online now it is an absolute essential that every PR professional learns more than how to do a Google search. From building a website to optimizing your websites for search engines, you need to be able to survive in the online world. You need to know how to build web pages, whether you want to create a WordPress site or build one from scratch with HTML and CSS. W3 Schools is great for learning HTML and CSS and WordPress provides advice on building a WordPress site. Learning how to do proper SEO will help you get the awesome content you create out into the market for people to see and buy. Follow these top tips for awesome SEO.
2. Writing: News moves so fast on the Internet that every PR person needs to know how to write for the online world. Pitching reporters is so much more than writing a quick email. It’s all about making their job easier. The best way to make their job easier is to provide them with press releases and other written content that makes writing about your organization quick and painless. Writing for the web is constantly evolving, so be prepared to change your style to fit with what works. For example, people no longer read long form content, but prefer everything to be handed them in a quick two minute read. That said, it’s important to give them access to more information if they’re interested. Short, to-the-point blog posts can be enhanced with links to more detailed pages within your website.
3. Content Creation: Content is king. It’s the saying you hear almost everywhere you look for help with content. And they are right. The Internet is content driven. People are on blogs and websites looking for content to teach them something new or to entertain them. Make your content as easy as possible for them to read. Creating videos, infographics and images is the best way to provide easy to understand content that drives views and shares. There are a lot of inexpensive ways to create visual content, such as Canva and Piktochart that make it easy to create great looking infographics.
4. Social Media: Social media lets you reach hundreds of thousands of people quickly. Everyone knows what it is and how to use it which gives you a huge opportunity. If you can master the art of reaching people through social media you can be an extremely effective PR professional. Check out our top tips for reaching people through social media.
5. Research: With so much information available to the everyday person it is essential to learn about your target audience. We are now dealing with an informed public. And anything they don’t know they can Google and learn about quickly. Learning about what your audience likes has never been easier and you need to use this to your advantage. Various analytic tools allow you to learn about the online habits of your audience and help you to optimize your content for them.

Take the time to develop all of these skills now to stay ahead of the game and take your PR from the past to the future.