Do you work in PR? If so, chances are you’ve experienced some pretty significant changes in the last 5 years. PR teams report that the ongoing progression of social media has created an environment in which stakeholders expect more direct interaction than ever before – no longer is it enough to rely on traditional media outlets to tell your company’s news. The implications for PR teams have been significant, as they come to terms with new means of monitoring stakeholders, and creating new types of content.
What Changes do PR Teams Need to Make?
Even 10 years on from the emergence of Social Media, many
PR teams remain optimized largely for success with traditional media (see Figure 1). The CEC has spent time recently identifying the changes that leading PR teams are making in order to succeed in a networked stakeholder environment. What is needed from an individual PR professional? What new skills are required? What’s the profile of the perfect PR hire in this digital age?
From Specialists to Generalists
It’s no secret that journalists have been forced to diversify their skill sets. We’ve seen a similar shift in the profile of new hires on corporate PR teams as well. Members that we’ve spoken to have told us that the new breed of PR professional is a generalist, rather than a specialist; for instance, where once you could probably get away with being ‘just’ a great writer, now you need to be able to do much more. One member told me that they’ve just replaced the person who managed their photo archive (narrow scope) with someone who can simultaneously manage all things visual – video, PPT, images, and so on (broad scope).
Skills Required for PR Success
The skills required of new-to-role PR professionals have broadened, and diversified:
| Traditional PR Specialist | Social PR Generalist | ||
| RESPONSIBILITIES | SKILLS | ||
| Media Monitoring | Channel Monitoring | Leverages relationships with journalists in order to respond to individual events or stories | Analyzes a wide variety of traditional and online channels to identify trends and patterns in stakeholder activity |
| Audience Understanding | Understands the language, tone, and style of communication preferred by audience. | Monitors stakeholder networks to determine preferred timing, channel, and format of communications | |
| Content creation | Writing Skills | Highly literate, excellent writer of long form messages | Able to tailor writing to channel and audience |
| Media Use | Skilled writer, uses images accordingly | Innovates with a wide range of media – video, audio, applications, online widgets | |
| Channel Management | Channel Selection | Selects the channel with the widest reach | Selects the channel with the greatest activity amongst target audience |
Perhaps the greatest difference between “old world” and “new world” that we’ve noticed is the importance attached to media monitoring. The new breed of PR generalist (who has used their web-savvy to self-teach critical skills) takes full advantage of the opportunities presented by social forms of media, using data to inform all of their outreach, and to bring their other skills to bear.
Metrics
Most of the companies we’ve seen measure performance according to the volume of messaging – the number of news releases distributed, the number of Facebook likes, or the number of Twitter followers. The CEC hopes to see a marked shift in the MBOs used by PR teams, to reflect the impact created by proactive outreach, rather than its volume. Instead of measuring the quantity of content distributed, why not measure the number of stakeholders who act on that communication? This could be as simple as the number of stakeholders who re-tweet your messaging, or as concrete as the number of people who buy whatever product you promoted – either way, it’s the number of stakeholders that do something based on your outreach, rather than simply the number of people that hear/read/see it.
Get in touch
We’d love to hear from you:
- How have the requirements of new PR staff changed?
- How have the skill sets on your team changed?
- Most importantly, where have these changes been driven from? Are they coming from the PR function itself, or are they being driven by external pressures?
Resources from the CEC
- Role Profile: Media and Press Relations Specialist
- Proactive PR in a Networked Environment
- News Releases in a Networked Environment
- How to Build a Leading Online Newsroom




One of the key activities for communicators in terms of reputation building is stakeholder engagement. Members tell us that they focus heavily on stakeholder engagement activities and are trying to be smarter about it – prioritizing key, influential stakeholders and keeping a pulse on what they are saying about the company. These activities involve not only monitoring for risks and potential issues, but also take the shape of more proactive engagement through thought leadership events, engaging and meeting with industry leaders, and promoting good corporate citizenship efforts.
Last week we gathered a group of our most forward thinking communications heads from some of the largest and smartest European companies to have a discussion around challenges facing the function.
Managing stakeholder perceptions has always been challenging, but given the growing complexity of the current communications environment, it can often feel like an insurmountable task. Think about it — as our companies’ business operations continue to change, our customers, employees, and external partners are all becoming far more diverse than ever before. At the same time, the channels and sources that these stakeholder groups use to consume information continues to evolve. It’s no wonder that a recent CEC poll Heads of Communications revealed that proactive reputation management was the 2nd overall priority for 2012, only two percentage points behind employee engagement efforts.
As a former journalist, ohhhhhh how I HATE media hyperbole. Don’t you? Every bad weather system that’s described as (this year’s) Storm of the Century…every one-day drop in the stock market that has investors reeling…every tragedy that forces local residents to rebuild the shattered pieces of their broken lives. Uhhhhhhgggh.
Building a Bank of Goodwill
As the world becomes more and more connected by technological innovations, it’s no wonder that communicators have become far less reliant on reactive response strategies. Waiting for a reputational threat to arise before thinking about solutions just won’t cut it. But no matters how fast information spreads, communicators — even those well-armed with response tactics — can only move so quickly.
Every year, corporate crises hit the news, and remind us of their potentially devastating impact on the reputations of those organizations involved. The UBS