How to Become a Public Relations Manager? Skills and responsibilities

A Public Relations Manager is a person who is responsible for maintaining the reputation of their clients in the market. In this competitive world, every person looks for a strategic PR Manager. As a PR, you will be responsible for spreading information about the client’s services to the audience in a more strategic manner. In the current time, having a good reputation in the market has become crucial for the success of the business. Let us learn more about who is a public relations manager and how to become one.

Quick Takeaways

• The public Relations Manager needs to build on and nurture the image of the brand or the company in the mind of the targeted audience. 
• To become a public relations manager, you need to get the right education, gain experience and start getting training.
• The average annual salary of a Public relations manager is $119,860. 

Though we will be discussing the process in detail, you must read till the end so that you do not miss any important information on Public relation manager.

Who are Public Relations Managers?

The public Relations Manager needs to build on and nurture the image of the brand or the company in the mind of the targeted audience. As, a PR Manager, you need to organize press conferences and deal with negative publicity. You need to report all the ongoing promotional activities to the head of the company or the organization. Sometimes, you would also be responsible for raising the funds for the company. To get a better understanding of what public relations managers do, let us learn about the Responsibilities of a PR manager. 

Responsibilities of Being A Public Relations Manager

Some of the duties that you will perform as a PR manager are – 

• The most important task is to maintain the image of their clients in the market.
• Helping in classifying the targeted audience and developing ideas to reach them.
• To make communication plans and strategies. You will also provide support to the audience.
• Performing various marketing programs. You may also create brochures for the clients.
• Coordinating with all the internal departments and helping in smooth functioning as well.
• Assigning duties to the team members and supervising them.
• You may also need to review the content of each social media platform.
• To write press releases for clients.
• Planning and implementing various public relations programs.
• Performing recruitment processes like onboarding and training new team members.
• Raising funds for the organization/institution.

How to Become a Public Relations Manager? – A step-by-step guide.

Are you interested in being a Public Relations Manager, but don’t know how to become one? You might be looking for some short courses but still do not find them worthy. Therefore, here are some easy steps to becoming a Public Relations Manager:

1. Get The Right Education

To become a Public Relations manager, you need to have a minimum Bachelor’s degree in Communication, Advertising, Journalism, or a related sector. Take the relevant four-year program, so that you can gain the required skills and knowledge for becoming Public Relations Manager. There are so many online courses available that will help you to gain the required skills. 

2. Gaining Relevant Experience

After getting the educational degree, you must go for internships or can go for volunteer PR programs. Doing an internship is the best way to get experience in the field. Having internship experience can result in getting the required job role as a PR manager. There are many PR agencies and T.V. stations that offer various internship programs. Many companies provide full-time employment after the successful completion of the internship. You can also try for entry-level positions in the PR industry.

3. Management Training

Various opportunities will train you in this field. There are many seminars, and courses by professionals that will help you get the relevant skills. Some companies give training programs and sometimes they even pay you.

4. Expanding Your Network

As a PR Manager, you need to expand your network. You must connect with other professionals and related people in your field. You must be connected with various relevant groups or forums where you will find people from your profession. People in these groups may help you to land your dream job. 

5. Start Applying

After completing your training programs and internships, start applying to PR-level positions. Start applying using the network that you have built or there are many job portals where you can find related job opportunities. There are many advertisement agencies, government agencies, etc that need Public Relations Managers. You can consider applying to these agencies.

Skills Required for being a PR manager

To become a Public Relations Manager you must have the following skills –

• Interpersonal Skills: Having interpersonal skills is a must for the success of PR managers. You must be able to do teamwork and should be capable of listening to others. Keeping a positive attitude and being respectful to others are also important factors.  
• Leadership: A PR manager is the one who guides the head of other departments for the smooth functioning of the company. You will be guiding and leading the other departments on what to do next. Therefore you should have good leadership skills.
• Problem-solving: PR managers have to deal with a lot of problems on a daily basis. Therefore, you must be a good problem solver.
• Marketing: Being a PR manager, you are responsible for creating the image of the company/organization. Therefore, you must have marketing skills, so that you could easily promote the brand of the company. 

• Communication Skills: As a PR manager, you need to communicate with every department head of the organization. You should be able to express your thoughts clearly to people. 
• Multi-tasking: The job role of a PR manager is based on multitasking. There are a lot of duties that you will be performing simultaneously. You may organize press conferences at one time and at the same time, you may need to create content for your social media. Therefore, you must be a good multi-tasker. 
• Creativity: Another responsibility of a PR is to create attractive content for the company/organization, they are working in. To become a PR you must have a high level of creative skills. You must be able to produce innovative ideas for promoting the brand of the company. 

Related Jobs to Public Relations Managers

Many other opportunities are similar to the Public Relations Manager job-

• Social Media Specialist: As a social media specialist, you would be responsible for creating strategies for creating content and promoting it on social media. 
• Community Relation Coordinator: You will be improving the relationship of the company with its community. 
• Publicist: Main responsibility that you will be performing as a publicist is to create a press release for your clients.
• Copywriter: If you possess excellent writing skills, then you can choose your career as a copywriter. As a copywriter, you will be writing marketing and press release content for your clients/company.
• Investors Relation Manager: As an investor relation manager you will be responsible for building up the relationship between the company and the investors. You will be creating annual plan meetings with the investors.

Conclusion

We hope your question or doubts about How to Become a Public Relations Manager are answered. Today to have a successful business, you need to have a good reputation. And for a good reputation, the company needs PR managers. Being a PR manager, you would be responsible for creating the image of the company in the mind of the targeted audience. Public relations is a growing industry and you need a lot of skills to get into it. It is expected that there may be an increase of 8,900 job opportunities in the PR industry over the next decade.