6 tips for a successful public relations career

6 tips for a successful public relations career 

My aim here is simple, give you the tips you must know about the careers and places I have captured on this website. From marketing communication to organizational communication and public relations, my study of strategic communication has exposed me to all these areas. It doesn’t mean that anyone who reads strategic communication has mastery of these things. One advice that I took very seriously before I entered the tertiary is don’t pass through the school, let the school pass through you. Don’t go and just make the grades or get any qualification at all, but go and expose yourself to things you don’t know of some may even be out of your program. 

6 tips for a successful public relations career by quikcounsel.com

Strategic communication has nothing to do with web design but through the connections I built with my program of study, I met people who took me through web designing and that is how I have been able to create a professional website to share my experiences with you in the career journey. I have always loved public relations because of the responsibilities that come with the role. I am going to give you six (6) practical tips that every public relations practitioner can adapt and use to achieve a successful career in 2024 and beyond.

To become a public relations officer, I would, especially in the making process get some skills attached to whatever you learn in the classroom enclosure. That is going to be a big advantage for you when you go out there to seek this role in an organization. No organization would want to spend extra money on flyers and other designs while the office of the PR person is active. In some organizations, they have a graphic designer aside from the PR but how many of them are real here? To be on the safer side, get some skills in addition to what you have learned to make you all ready for any role that you get. Now, back to the subject matter of this article, let us discuss the 6 tips you can apply to achieve a successful public relations career.

The first tip is to know effective press release writing. I know this is the common skill that every public relations officer has but how well do they even do it? How well do they design their press releases? What grammar do they use to communicate with the public? It is not just about creating something and putting it out there for the media to pick it up, your choice of words and how you brand your outlets should all communicate something about your organization and something good for that matter. Because of artificial intelligence, some public relations officers do not even sit to create press releases themselves, they just instruct the AI to do it and people think they do it themselves. 

I am not against the use of AI. You can seek some guidelines from AI but to use it for the role you are supposed to perform, it would be a disgrace when people find out that press releases from let’s say organization A are AI-generated. Even though it is a disgrace to the organization you the public relations officer have nothing to call a reputation of your own again, it could even end your career. Every organization has its style of writing press releases, ask, learn, research, and improve your writing skills, use good designs and formats and you are good to go. I remember back in my school days, the president of my association had to assign writing proposals to me to help him because his PRO was not able to. But yeah, I guess he was still learning but when you are out and still can’t perform some writing, it is very dangerous. You must be creative too.

Another tip is to build media relationships. With my program in my tertiary days, we were three programs combined until the third year. It was a combination of strategic communication, development communication, and journalism and media studies. So, you can imagine, I have friends who are in the media, and that has been an advantage to me. But your case may be different, you might have to build media relationships from scratch and it is possible. You see, every public relations professional needs a media relationship with a media person; if you release a press release and no media house takes it up aside from maybe your social media handles and pages, no public is going to hear about whatever the press release entails. This is why you must build connections, you might need someone tomorrow and someone might need you too. Be in relationships with people in the media firms to help you execute your public relations roles especially when it comes to reaching your public at a go.

You must be a social media manager to help you have a successful public relations career. We are in what the scholars term a global village now. Internet has taken over and people are all over social media. Some organizations build their communities and publics through social media which means such organizations have social media managers. We are talking about advantage and success here, and even in my days of strategic communication, I was taken through social media management, how much more are you a professional public relations officer? You must know how to manage social media pages and handles to connect with your organization’s public that are active online. That could even save you some money from paying media houses to pick up your press releases as some have to pay. You can use Hootsuite to help you better your skills in social media management as that was exactly what we were taken through for our social media management studies.

Last but not least, you must be an event planner at the same time a public relations officer. Don’t get it twisted as they are two different professions but, in most cases, a PR can perform the roles of an event planner but the latter cannot perform the roles of the former. When you promote events of your organizations, you are acting as an event planner despite being in the office of the PR. Getting media coverage and engaging people who attend organizational events are all doable by a public relations officer and you must know these. You must be able to deliver wherever your services are needed. If anything is public, know that you are responsible.

Finally, you must be a content creator. All these were not necessary at first but because of globalization and the majority of the public now on social media and internet, you must engage with them there. Sometimes you need to play the role of a content creator so that your online presence can be appealing to the sight of your audience on the internet. You can create branded content in the form of videos and images just to communicate something to your public online.

Every profession has become competitive today and it takes someone who can meet the demands of an organization with regards to public relations to have a successful career. Avail yourself to learn, explore, and, be useful in all areas of public relations and you are good to go.

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