Adding New Skills and Capabilities to Create Collaborative Magic

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Think back to your very first PR job, to the PR briefs you dissected and the deliverables required as you planned the scope of work or delivered the implementation. Now bring your mind back to today and your current tasks at hand. Take a look at the expected outcomes you’re tackling for the work you’re delivering.

The demands of PR briefs today require a much broader spectrum of skills. Let’s start with the services that remain a constant offering at the core of our profession:

  • Media relations
  • Stakeholder relations
  • Publicity
  • Reputation Management
  • Issues and Crisis Management
  • Media training

Now look at the the other bits of magic you’re creating in your work today. In no particular order and by no means definitive, consider which of the below capabilities you now have in place, or need to acquire, to service the full scope of work demanded from PR agencies today:

  • Digital
  • Social Media
  • Content
  • Community
  • Influencer Engagement
  • Experiential
  • Talent Management
  • Partnerships
  • Sponsorships
  • Data and analytics
  • Design
  • Photography
  • Video production

And what about some individual talents that could come in handy for the content piece you’re no doubt delivering:

  • Set design
  • Lighting
  • Sound and music production
  • Fashion styling
  • Food styling
  • Illustration (or someone who can paint really cool handwriting font for quotes to share on Instagram)
  • Professional talent (hand model, legs or hot dogs model, hair-over-my-face-in-the-sun-beachlyf model… the list goes on)
  • Cat video production
  • Extreme sports stunt person
  • Director of #yolo moments

With so many new capabilities and skill sets required to deliver on expectations of the PR brief today, it’s more important than ever to know what your strengths are and where you need to collaborate.

Think differently about the value other talents could add to what you’re already doing. Expand your creative perspective by reading, experiencing, experimenting and learning from others in areas you know little about.

Look to the different strengths, talents, and interests of people in your team beyond what’s in their current job description and encourage them to bring these to the table in your planning sessions. Then look beyond what you already have and see what collaborative magic you can really make.