Three P’s of PR Success
By Amanda Pecora, Intern
My friends and family have always asked me… why PR? Granted, when I was young I did have many different career ambitions. I went through the typical singer, actress, doctor, and teacher phases throughout middle and high school, but when I was in college I started to grasp what I really wanted to be “when I grew up.” After taking classes and experiencing internships, I was introduced to the industry of public relations and I fell in love.
During my internship experience I got to brainstorm pitches, assist with PR plans, and work on client events, which meant going all out creatively, logically, and fiercely. I quickly discovered “my own three P’s of success in Public Relations.” The first is having a good personality. This is very beneficial when communicating with media outlets. People in the editorial field receive hundreds of emails a day; what was I going to do to make myself stand out? Being determined, enthusiastic, and creative really helped when I was given responsibilities in my public relations internships. I loved being able to do tasks that allowed me to use my personality as an advantage. Being able to develop relationships with editors helps public relations employees immensely when they are trying to obtain media coverage for a client. This is why being sociable and relatable are important personality traits to have in PR.
Persistence is another necessary P of PR. Trying to build up your clients’ reputation or get your clients noticed in the media world is not easy and it takes time. Editors can only do a certain amount of stories for an issue and thousands of companies want their name in those features, so you are bound to hear the word NO a lot. It’s how you take that rejection that matters. It’s easy to give up and get frustrated, but don’t! You should turn your frustration into a positive by motivating you to write the pitch a different way or contact another editor. Pitching in PR is like the famous saying, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
I can’t forget about passion. Passion is what drives us to want to work for our clients and take them to the top of their industry. Passion for clients is necessary for public relations employees to set and achieve goals. It produces desire and motivation to do all that you can do for a client and reminds you why you come to work each day.
Conversely, the three P’s that do not best represent PR are predictable, peaceful and pessimistic. PR is changing every day and will continue to transform for years to come. You can’t predict what happens with your client, let alone the business economy. PR is not peaceful and consistent either. Instead, it is fast-paced and exciting as clients are constantly changing and refining their needs. Pessimism is also not the way to go as having a negative attitude can only hurt what you’re trying to accomplish with your client and with yourself. A client wants their public relations firm to believe in the company and what they stand for just as much as they do. All in all, if you address PR with personality, passion and persistence, you can end up enjoying the industry like I do and feel a great sense of career achievement along the way.
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