Do or die: 7 crucial skills for PR professionals in 2022

Let’s imagine the situation. You have hired a PR person who has built a promotion strategy and placed publications in the top media. Everything seems to be going well. But are you confident that the professional is engaging your target audience, not everyone? Can you estimate by how much the PR activity has increased your company’s revenue?

As Harvard’s research states, ‘85% of job success comes from having well‐developed soft and people skills, and only 15% of job success comes from technical skills and knowledge hard skills’.

In this article, we’re going to talk about 7 soft skills that determine a successful PR professional — the ones we pay attention to when hiring people for our agency.

The number of professionals is limited

It is a fact — there is a shortage of qualified staff in the market. Many companies have PR people who graduated 10–15 years ago who mechanically write pitches and send them out to journalists while their company sags in the market and start-ups in their field make millions in revenue.

Soft skills are the key quality of a good PR person. Professionals will not just build a promotion strategy that the bosses can understand. A real specialist will become the best friend of bloggers and journalists of relevant media, build an internal PR system and make friends between departments, and then report back to you on the work done and close misunderstandings.

What are the soft skills a PR person needs?

• A broad outlook and knowledge in related fields

The professional understands the market and goes to bloggers and media with relevant messages and develops other promotion channels based on the PESO model. In addition, research related fields; for example, if you work in a startup, learn how to pitch investors.In other words, a specialist builds a long-term success formula for the company.

• Understanding the context and knowledge of the news agenda

Remember when, following The Squid Game, everyone was publishing biscuits from the series in the form of their products? That’s the mark of a good brand promotion team. A PR person needs to understand what the brand’s target audience lives by — what they read, where they go, and whose opinion they trust. Then the company doesn’t miss the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time.

• A sense of responsibility and the ability to answer questions

A good PR person knows the company’s goals and values and can defend them. Specialists answer questions clearly, which ensures a high level of credibility for the company. When problems arise, acknowledge your mistakes and take responsibility for actions that emerge from persuasive and relevant statements.

• A high level of emotional intelligence

The professional understands the psychology of personality — knows the principle of water and fire, approaches difficulties with a cool head but also provides support to colleagues when needed. A qualified worker tries to keep a safe and friendly atmosphere in the team and with people outside the company.

• Strategic thinking

The specialist works where skills are valued thinks globally and sets ambitious goals to become a full-fledged business partner of the company.

• Self-sufficiency

A good PR person is proactive. Ready to break down the goal into steps and present it to the company owner with a positive result of the actions. When the environment changes, doesn’t get into the position of a resentful child — gathers thoughts and achieves the goal.

• Curiosity and a willingness to learn

The expert is not satisfied with the available knowledge. Tries to make routine processes efficient and to reach goals by using workarounds when the straight path is closed. For the PR professional, it is important to get to the bottom of things, improving the quality of their work in the process.