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One of the pitfalls in Indian PR is the lack of a defined job profile of a PR manager as approved by the CEO. However, there are some PR departments which have clear-cut functions. What do PR people actually do? This is an often asked question. If in-house PR staff does PR activities of the company those who work outside in PR consultancies offer PR services to the client on relationships management.
Activities of PR people
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PR people plan: Endlessly they plan, determining the objective, the needs, the priorities, the desirable ends, the targets for PR messages, the time frame and of course the costs. With their focus on the importance of ethics, PR people have often taken the lead in the establishment of codes of conduct and even codes of ethics in many areas of national and international business and industry. Therefore planning is the first task of PR manager.
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PR people manager: PR is a strategic management function. PR managers need to be able to administer the allover programme to ensure that it runs on time, to budget, and see it ends up with a particular record of achievement. However, for the person keen to be perfect at PR, it is important recognize the need to hone up management skills as much as to develop the operational PR skills.
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PR people maintain relations: They maintain relations with journalists, technical experts, politicians, academics, opinion formers of one sort and another, also with employees, customers of the organizations concerned, with charities, community leaders and so on. All PR communications should be to agreed and identified purpose which helps achieve their overall objectives in due course. This job of PR is otherwise known as stakeholder’s relations with employees, shareholders, customers, media etc through IT new media networking.
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PR people organize: PR managers arrange special events from press briefings and conferences, from annual general meetings and press tours, to open houses and anniversary celebrations, award functions and charity or sports sponsorship events. Managing events related to media and image building is the responsibility of PR managers.
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PR people write: They write news releases, newsletters, letters of all sorts, to groups from opinion formers to journalists. They write reports, speeches, copy for booklets, posters, radio and television scripts. They become sometimes as ‘ghost’ writers for clients.
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PR people edit: They not only write but also edit house journals, newsletters, reports to share holders, letters written by peers, communication material prepared by technical and other experts for dissemination to external and internal publics. Editing of corporate publications is an important task of PR managers.
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PR people publish: PR people have the responsibility for welding together many aspects of communication involving the use of print, photography, design, art, audio and video materials, so that these are created into the communication tools which are needed to transmit the messages relevant to the job. Production of folders, house journals, posters, films, audio visuals is the job of PR professionals.
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PR people speak: Public speaking is an essential quality for a PR manager. They speak at meetings, at presentations, at press conferences, in front of television cameras, on radio shows, at private and public functions of one sort or another. PR practitioners therefore adopt interpersonal media and spoken word for effective communication.
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PR people research: PR people need to know where to go for information, what to look for, how to analyze it and monitor and update the information, evaluating it so that it can be ‘mined’ if needed to assist the campaign or project on hand. PR manager is the source of organizational information, which has to be gathered, stored and disseminated.
- PR people train: As a part of training, a PR manager has to create PR conscious in every employee of the company. PR for non-PR people has to be organized to educate all employees. Organizing in-house PR training is the responsibility of PR manager.
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Participants