A trend you may have seen
a lot of on TikTok is the "that girl" trend.
Essentially, videos that followed this trend depicted hacks for young ladies to improve their lifestyles with tips and tricks on how to become "that girl" — a girl that basically has it all together and is #winning at life.
This trend spurred many video clips depicting everyday girls doing activities to boost their physical and mental health, as well as their productivity. All-in-all it showed these ladies that they
don't always have to be the spectators of success and that they can also be successful in their
own right. So, we decided to do a spin-off article on this very trend to stop PR professionals from asking themselves, "How does
that PR practitioner
do it?"
Join us as
media update's Lara Smit gives you all the inside information on how PR pros can harness this glow up trend.
This is your sign to become that PR pro.
1. Evaluate your capabilities
A part of being
that PR pro means that you have to be honest about your capabilities.
In order to be good at what you do, you have to be able to do it —
right? Especially when you have clients involved. Otherwise, as
Warren Cohn said, "misrepresenting your capabilities could be the end of you."
Rather, do a few things
really well than spreading yourself too thin and under-delivering to a client. Therefore, when working on a campaign, you must create realistic goals for yourself and then outline them to your client. Then their expectations of you will be more manageable. And, when you have done everything you told them you would do, they will always be pleased with your performance.
If you think about it, it will also be
easier to exceed your clients expectations this way. How so?
By making your work more manageable, you could be finished with the job sooner than you expected. Then you will have the time and energy to play a bit and add to what you have already done for your client. In this way, your clients will see you doing more than what they expected of you without you pushing yourself too hard to get this extra work done.
However, it's also no good being a big fish in a little pond. You also have to be honest with yourself about whether you have the capacity to do more. In other words, you shouldn't sell yourself short either. Instead, you have to find a healthy way to push yourself outside your comfort zones without overexerting yourself. To do this, you have to decide for yourself whether your goals are realistic and achievable ambitions or could lead to
burnout.
*Image sourced from Canva2. Focus on what makes you unique
Being that PR pro also means that you have
strengths and qualities that make you stand out.
Technically, every PR practitioner has attributes that are unique, but it's what you
do with them that counts!
In order to focus on your special qualities, you need to assess where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Then you must decide how you can use your strengths to excel at your job.
For example, if you are an
exceptional writer, you could tailor your strategies in a way that will allow you to flex your writing muscles — like focusing on doing more content marketing, or creating killer social media copy.
By zoning in on your strengths, you will make yourself stand out to your talents. Clients will then find these talents noteworthy and see you as
that PR pro that they can contact when they require your skillset.
*Image sourced from Canva 3. Be more proactive
In times of crisis, PR practitioners often have to think on their toes and be reactive to the situations that they are in. However, the world of public relations also provides them with the opportunity to grab a campaign by the horns and be
proactive. What does that mean? It means that you must aim to be in control and take the initiative in communicating any messages to the public instead of relying on outside parties.
According to
Jon Brown, "Successful PR now means having a proactive approach to campaigns rather than simply reacting to what's in front of you. Getting coverage means you can no longer sit and wait for opportunities to come your way — you need to be able to get in front of the story."
So, in short, being a proactive PR pro means that you
create new opportunities to communicate a brand’s story instead of just looking for them. This also means you have to
think ahead and put plans in place for what could happen instead of just reacting
when it happens.
But how does this help?
Proactive PR gives you
full reign over your campaign, which means that
less can go wrong. Besides this, relying on third parties to communicate your messages on your behalf can be extremely time consuming and you can't always depend on them to publish it.
By creating your own opportunities to communicate, your only limiting factor is how much content you are able to produce. Therefore, you have a lot more opportunities to strengthen a brand's image and get the word out there (because, frankly, you can create as many opportunities as you like). This puts you ahead of competitors who rely on third party publications and makes you
that PR pro who takes initiative and has
everything under control.
*Image sourced from Canva
PR pros, do you want some more tips on how to be the best you in 2022? Then it’s time to prioritise your mental health and read our article 2020 version 2.0 — Three tips to make this the best PR year yet
*Image courtesy of Canva