Today’s Top #Tip: #PR Industry Predictions | 3 #Tips for Superior Performance
I was perusing PR Daily this morning like every morning and I found another set of PR predictions for 2012.
This is my FAVORITE!
2. PR skills move well beyond media relations
Recruiting is a challenge for the PR industry, which is enjoying a nice period of growth (a November 30 Forbes article cited the PR industry’s growth at 11 percent in the past 12 months).
At InkHouse, the firm I co-founded, we call this a good problem, but a problem nonetheless. A successful PR professional today must have a wide array of skills. Gone are the days of cranking out press releases and simply excelling at selling stories to the press.
PR pros have to be good at both of those skills, but they also have to understand the fast-changing social media and content marketing world and be able to write like never before. It’s one thing to write a formulaic press release, but an entirely other writing challenge to ghost author a blog post for a CEO in his or her tone and style.
I’m not sure whether it’s my time spent as a “middle-school turned high-school thespian,” my love for drama & crisis communications, or my being a writer that spends days on end entertaining the voices of others in my head, but, I LOVE this advice!
Daily, I realize the necessity for cultivating and maintaining a collapsible set of skillsets. The information below is important whether you’re a PR or not.
Collapsible what?!
By collapsible set of skillsets, I most certainly do not mean a set that loses all value or suddenly gives out on you at the first sign of struggle. I mean, as people, we take in a lot of information every day. Somehow, we need to figure out how to develop that information into particular marketable skills; skills that can then be folded compactly into a neat title like “PR,” but unfolded and wielded as necessary weapons in the right situations.
Where to Start | Ask Questions
- What do you want to do? | Ask yourself this really carefully. When I ask friends and clients this question, they tend to give nominal responses like “I want to be a PR” or “I want to be a writer.” They sometimes give answers to something closer to what I’m asking, saying things like, “I want to teach.” When I say, “Ask yourself what you want to do,” I mean “REALLY, what do you want to give your time and energy over to every day?!” Do you want to spend all day on a computer? Do you want to teach? Who do you want to teach? Do you want to write? Does the subject matter? Do you want to be in constant contact with people all day long? YOU DECIDE.
- What skills do you need? | Think back to the quote from PR Daily above. Once you decide what you want to do, you must decide what skills you will need to do that successfully? Then, you must decide what skills you need to do that better than anyone else doing it. This is the only way. There is no other option. The goal is superior performance at ALL times.
- How can I get better? | Every day your new goal = beating the goal you set yesterday. It’s that simple. Take online courses. Read more. Attend workshops. Do whatever it takes. This is your life. You are your best product. Be clear about how you will develop it and for whom.
Got it? Good.
You stay cool. I’ll stay khoLi. <3
Tags: business, collapsible skills, marketing, pr, pr daily, self-improvement, self-promotion, skills, skillsets, top tip
