6 key skills for PR pros in 2011

As a public relations pro you must have a variety of skills to do your job succesfully. If you want to get information out to the general public you must understand that the people you are trying to impress are the editors and writers. They are the ones who decide if your story has credibility and merit, allowing the journalists to run them. The general public will only read what you have to say if you can convince these editors and writers it is newsworthy. Gregarious, an online communication website run by Greg Matusky has a variety of different tools for PR Professionals. One that I found extremely interesting was "6 Key Skills for PR Pro's on 2011."

1. Read. It sounds basic. But the best way to understand the media is to read it daily, hourly, and by the minute. Set up RSS feeds. Download media apps. Bookmark media favorites. Start each day with The Wall Street Journal, and end it with AP. Know the news and how it's reported. And learn journalism's standards of how information is gathered, vetted, and reported.
2. Write. Every day. All day, if you can. The key to improving writing skills is to write all the time. I started my career by writing a book. It took eight months at 14 hours a day, and required me to write, rewrite, edit, and write again each chapter. It was a crash course in writing that consumed more than 2,500 hours and gave me a jump start on the 10,000 hours needed to master any pursuit.
3. Get edited. Often and always. Even after a 25-year career in public relations, I make sure all of my work is edited, and edited heavily. Editing exposes weaknesses, improves clarity, and breaks lazy habits.
4. Stay current. This week, I had a chance to listen to the first Internet broadcast of a radio show -- an episode of NPR's "Science Friday" that first aired 20 years ago. Even then, the transformation was on. The Internet was a breaking story as thoughtful people considered how it would transform human communications. It has, and the pace has only quickened. The iPad, Google TV, next-generation blogging. They're all accelerating the rate of change, and causing us to learn more, more quickly, and try new things every day.
5. Learn instant re-prioritization. In our business, refresh rates hit quickly. Plan your work, but be forewarned. You have to be able to shuffle priorities in order to capitalize on breaking news, address client demands, and meet changing expectations.
6. Think more like a newsroom and less like an advertising agency. Public relations fails the moment bias is seen or promotion is obvious. We're the insidious few who control the story and tell it invisibly, without the crass hand of promotion. Think beats, news flow, and assignment. Forget about offers, come-ons, and schemes.


http://blog.gregoryfca.com/2010/12/10-key-skills-for-pr-pros-in-2011.html