What is Public Relations? On the promotional side of PR, professionals help businesses or individuals develop a positive reputation with the public through various unpaid or earned forms of communication, like placements in traditional media, social media, and blogs. Since journalists need to write stories that resonate with their own audiences, public relations professionals have to account for the interests of news outlets when they develop their PR strategy. Careers in Public Relations Promotional Side of Public Relations On the promotional side of PR, your main job is to convince the media to write a positive story about you through press releases, story pitches, and press conferences. You can also manage your online and local community relations, handle investor relations, and even be your brand’s spokesperson. Social Media Community The social media community team tracks and manages their company or client’s image on social media. They use social listening tools to gauge the company’s public reputation, and to bolster it, they interact with their social media following, make company announcements on social media, and find social media influencers to promote their brand. Community Relations The community relations team makes sure their company or client lives up to their potential as a socially responsible corporation. You can usually pursue two career paths on this side of PR: managing a brand’s reputation or managing a company crisis. Entry Level Public Relations Assistant - $36,576 Public Relations Coordinator - $42,663 Mid-Level Public Relations Associate - $44,222 Public Relations Specialist - $53,241 Management Public Relations Manager - $71,468 Public Relations Director - $83,343 Public Relations Internships With over 5,000 public relations internships listed on Glassdoor right now, public relations interns are high in demand.
Choosing your career path is arguably the most important decision of your life. But how do you know what a job is actually like if you’ve never had any experience working it?
If you landed on this blog post, you’re probably considering a career in public relations. The work definitely appeals to you, but you’re not entirely sure it’s the right choice. What if you realize it’s not actually your passion?
To help you answer these tough questions, we created this public relations career guide that’ll describe what exactly public relations is, the different career paths you can pursue, the industry’s salaries, internships, and the disciplines a public relations degree will cover.
Read on to find out if a career in public relations is right for you.
What is Public Relations?
Public Relations can be boiled down into two main responsibilities: promoting a brand and protecting it. On the promotional side of PR, professionals help businesses or individuals develop a positive reputation with the public through various unpaid or earned forms of communication, like placements in traditional media, social media, and blogs. On the protective side of PR, they help their company or clients maintain their public reputation or defend it during crises.
PR is unique because it allows brands to build a relationship with an audience through credible sources, like trusted news outlets.
But free publicity isn’t easy to get. Since journalists need to write stories that resonate with their own audiences, public relations professionals have to account for the interests of news outlets when they develop their PR strategy.
Another challenge in public relations is protecting a company or client’s reputation in the digital age. Humans have a negativity bias, which helps us be more aware of threats, so, naturally, negative news grabs and holds our attention better than positive news. It also fuels the virality of bad news on social media and Google, so it’s crucial for PR professionals to quickly react to any negative claims about their brand and mitigate the damage.
Careers in Public Relations
Promotional Side of Public Relations
On the promotional side of PR, your main job is to convince the media to write a positive story about you through press releases, story pitches, and press conferences. You can also manage your online and local community relations, handle investor relations, and even be your brand’s spokesperson.
Here are some roles you can pursue on the promotional side of PR:
Content Creation
The content creation team usually crafts positive stories about their brand that the media relations team pitches to journalists. These stories can also pique journalists’ interest on their own, like a press release about a major company merger. A member of this team writes press materials, bylined articles for news outlets, and can even make brand awareness videos.
Media Relations
The media relations team develop and maintain relationships with journalists, so they can pitch stories to them and seek out interview opportunities for their executive team. They also track all their press, social, and blog placements and measure and report their…
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