The 13 Skills of the Public Relations Pro of the Future

Marketing and public relations are coming together. PR is growing as an industry while "traditional" advertising - what ever that is - remains flat. Still, we have taken no new ground in 'measurement' and articulating the tremendous ROI of PR. (What happened to the tremendous affirmation and call to action from AG Lafley?)

As I suit up to take on the graduate students of Johns Hopkins Communications program again this fall, I am mapping out the skills sets needed by the communications expert of tomorrow. I started this in another post and needed to add and consolidate some thinking.

Over the past few years at Ogilvy, we have unleashed one of the most intensive training regimens I know of for our staff. While our focus is on digital and "digital influence," there are a lot of other skills that will help the next generation of communications experts (do we need to retire the "public relations" term?).

The next generation will need to get strong in the following. I have begun the process of drilling down into each to offer some practical "how-to's" for each. Look for more in the future or even create your own and link back here:

13 Skills of the PR Pro of the Future

1. Create integrated marketing and communications strategy
2. Deploy live 'listening posts' online and offline
3. Design and deploy an advanced search engine optimization program
4. Plan and run a new media relations program inclusive of head-of-the-tail and long tail "media"
5. Identify & engage with influencers online and offline
6. Manage communities
7. Integrate new technologies into their own lives
8. Model measurement and performance metrics including new "engagement" metrics
9. Run quick pilot programs and evaluate on-the-fly
10. Train staff and clients continuously
11. Participate in conversations, not just 'messaging'
12. Create and execute content strategy including video programming (hifi and lowfi)
13. Use digital crisis management

Thanks to Nate Pagel, Rohit Bhargava, Virginia Miracle, Kaitlyn Wilkins, Brian Giesen, Chris Brogan, Chi-chi Ekweozor, John D. , Phil M., Harro and Brendan Hodgson for ideas and insights on this list.

If you know #14 - please add it as the list will always be changing.

source: JohnBell