PR specialist

A PR specialist is an expert in public relations (PR). PR is the practice of managing the spread of information between the client and the public. A wide range of different organisations employ PR specialists, including companies, governmental agencies and charitable organisations. Individuals, such as celebrities and politicians, can also find PR specialists useful.

PR specialists have been around a very long time, but the term itself wasn’t defined until the early 20th century when Ivy Lee and his friend Edward Louis Bernays stated that PR was “a management function, which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures and interests of an organization… followed by executing a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.” Ivy Lee is chiefly known as the man responsible for drastically changing the public image of the Rockefeller family.

Specialists

Today, it is common for PR experts to focus on a specific fields. If you want to hire a PR expert, it can therefore be a good idea to search until you find a good one that specializes in your particular field, rather than just go for a generalist PR expert.

A specialist PR expert isn’t just more likely to be knowledgeable about the specific field, but will also have spent time and effort cultivating good relationship with people and organisations that are active within this specific field or nearby fields. This can make it significantly easier for the PR expert to carry out his or her job in an optimal fashion.

Here are a few examples of fields where you can find specialist PR experts:

• Corporate public relations
• Governmental public relations
• NGO public relations
• Religious organisations / faith based public relations
• Product public relations
• Financial public relations
• Employee public relations

Examples of tasks

Here are a few examples of tasks that can be carried out by PR experts:

• Creating an overarching PR strategy
• Creating brand awareness
• Designing individual communications campaigns
• Writing news releases and selecting images and other media for them
• Arranging interviews, and preparing the interviewee before the event
• Arranging press conferences, and preparing relevant staff before the event
• Producing content for the client’s online presence, including social media content
• Writing speeches for spokespeople and other staff
• Being the client’s spokesperson
• Maintaining good relationships with members of the press and other media, including trade media and other niche media
• Working with influencers
• Sending out promotional material, including PR-gifts
• Managing company reputation, both proactively and reactively (crisis management)
• Managing internal communications

Find a PR specialist

This article was last updated on: December 12, 2017