PR Job Responsibilities

A Guest Post By Corina Manea, Chief Community Officer for Spin Sucks, & Founder of NutsPR

We live in very exciting times.

Like it or not, social media gave us a fantastic gift: The gift of professional development at our fingertips.

It used to be you had to take accredited, in-person courses if you wanted to do something new in your job as a PR pro.

Now you are at a Google search distance from the future you.

PR professional development has never been this accessible. No, I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s way more accessible than it used to be.

Want to learn about social media? Through a simple Google search, you’ll find hundreds of articles on the topic. If you want to narrow your search, you can start by asking your online connections for recommendations.

Whether you’re just starting out in social media or want to learn more about the latest, shiny platform, there are online courses out there for everyone.

The same applies if you want to improve your pitching journalists or learning how to prove your PR work is tied to business results.

If you want to learn more about a specific topic, someone thought of it and built a course or written articles about it.

All of these changes affected the way you do your job, the way you think about it.

It expanded your role as a PR pro.

Your Role Has Expanded

Regardless of your title, your role has changed. It has grown.

You may have a title, but behind this your everyday work is so much more than your title.

You manage your brand’s community on social media, interacting with people, talking and listening to them.

You create communication strategies that go hand in hand with your company’s business goals.

You build relationships with journalist and influencers. You are the art director behind your brand’s social media channels.

You are the project manager of every new launch that involves social media, media relations, internal communications, etc.

If you look at everything you do in a day, in a week, or in a month, you realize how much your role as a PR pro has evolved.

From traditional media relations to social media, influencer marketing, content marketing, building community, measuring results, and so much more.

There has never been a better time to start a career in public relations, and the best is yet to come.

Become Fearless

We are human beings and as history has proven we don’t like change.

It’s time to leave your fears and comfort zone behind and embrace the challenges and changes ahead.

In a five-year time, our roles as PR pros will be very different than today.

Artificial intelligence is slowly (or maybe not that slow) conquering the world.

As a result, we will see lots of changes on the job market. Automated tasks will be delegated to AI, some of them already are.

You may think the PR industry and your job will never change, but they will and it will happen very fast.

It’s up to you if you choose to embrace the changes ahead or stay behind and eventually lose your job.

Why not invest in yourself, expand your knowledge, learn new ways to measure your work and show results to your CEO and stakeholders?

Why not become a partner at the executive table rather than an executant?

How can you do that?

Show how you bring value and improve company’s bottom line. Show your work is measurable and how it ties in with company’s business goals.

Make a commitment today to invest in your professional development, to build the future you every single day.

It’s not easy, there will be times when you will feel overwhelmed with work, or too tired to think about anything else. When you feel that, take a step back, breathe and remember this is for you.

Take the steps to build the better, future you.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

Corina Manea is the Chief Community Officer for Spin Sucks and founder of NutsPR. Connect with her on Twitter.