7 skills for the future PR practitioner:

It has almost become a sport whenever PR practitioners get together for the profession to beat itself up about its lack of progress in areas such as digital communication and measurement.

In my view the profession is polarising between those practitioners that are cracking on and using new forms of media to engage publics in a two-way dialogue and those that continue to spam journalists with press releases. The former have a great future in the business. The latter will be out of job within a generation.

An academic and historical perspective

One of the characteristics that mark out an industry from a profession is a memory and body of academic work. Other professional disciplines such as management consultancy firms aren’t shy about incorporating theoretical models into their pitches but when it comes to PR more often than not we rely on instinct rather than academic rigor and data. Practitioners joining the industry should have, or quickly acquire, foundation knowledge. There’s a related point, the role of universities isn’t to turn out industry ready graduates. Instead there needs to be a period of training as there is in any other profession.   

Big data, little data

We have access, unlike ever before, to data to understand audiences and listen to what they thinks about us, our products and services, competitors and a market. This is big data.  In this sense the social web is a massive market research exercise that no one has ever commissioned. Increasingly there are tools to enable us to cut these large amounts of data down to size. We’re also able to understand how an audience engages with our content because every action and reaction on the social web leaves an audit trail. That’s little data. 

Insight and creativity

Most are corporate bollocks that don’t resonate with their intended audience and are lost in the noise. Those that reach their intended audience and resonate are almost always based on a creative idea that is integrated and engages with its intended audience across multiple channels. Campaign winning ideas are based on an audience insight, typically emotional, and are executed consistently across all channels.

Content development

Content in all its forms is the drum beat of PR campaigns. We need to get out of our comfort zone of text and images. A modern practitioner needs to be confident in working, and ideally producing, all forms of content.  We all carry devices with us capable of creating audio, images, text and video.  Experiment with creating these different forms of content and applications such as Instagram,Facebook,Twitter and Vine. Once you’ve mastered how to do all these things get in front of the camera rather than behind it.

Social and digital

The fragmentation of media and shift to social forms of media is the narrative of the last decade for the PR business. We’re shifting from broadcast as a means of communication with an audience to two-way communication. New forms of media are complementing old. Traditional media organisations are producing their own media, and journalists and other influencers connect via Twitter. It is incredibly daunting, but the best way to get to grips with social is to be social. Create accounts on social networks such as Facebook Google+, Instagram and Twitter. Only then will you understand the challenges that organisations face in adapting to new forms of media.

Confident communicator

We work in the business of communications. We need to be good at communicating. If you want to get on you need to be confident in producing your own content and presenting. You need to be able to persuade senior managers or clients of your view. I used to be lousy at formal presentations and it remains my least favourite form of communication and an area of my own professional development.

Never stop learning

The final point, like the first, relates to learning and professionalism. Continuous learning, like foundation knowledge, is an attribute of a profession. Our business is changing fast. The value of our services is increasingly recognised and appreciated by organisations. Set yourself personal learning objectives each year to tackle the areas covered .