The question is how many qualified PR professionals actually exist
- Posted by Ephraim Cohen on December 26th, 2005 filed in General, Public Relations
- Comments
On too many blogs I see the same old question with no good answers – will PR exist in the future or is public dialogue moving beyond PR. It’s the wrong question. The questions is how many qualified PR professionals will exist.
The latest discussion on this topic that I caught started with Shel Israel ( pointing out that Richard Edelman was not linking as he should as a blogger). This brought a few comments from Trevor Cook and Peter Dawson that then started touching on the discussion of PR professionals and agencies not getting it and becoming out dated. I agree with them in the immediate sense but I don’t agree with where these arguements go – that PR professionals and agencies in general are becoming outdated (note: I am both).
PR professionals will always exist in some form as companies all too often need help figuring how best to communicate with their constituencies. The real challenge is coming up with enough PR professionals that do understand today’s communications environment. Agencies and companies should be looking at not just blogging but beyond. I don’t consider myself an expert in everything, but, as a manager, I am looking for expertise that starts with the traditional and goes into today’s, and tomorrow’s environment. Some sample questions:
- Why does blogging have such tremendous peer influence (both from a communications and a technical – e.g., linking – perspective)?
- How can PPC and SEO be used for public relations?
- What demographics tend to be heavy blog readers, print newspaper readers and broadcast news watchers (I’m shocked at how little people study demographics)?
etc.
Anyway, I’d be interested to see less questioning of the value of PR professionals and more not-blog-centric questioning on the important point – what skill set should today’s and tomorrow’s PR professional have. Who nedds to know media relations? Who needs to be an expert blogger? Who needs to understand search engines and their impact (after all, they are the first stop for information for so many)?
