Which New Media Skills Do PR People Need to Compete?

This post is a follow-up to a great post by PR Pro Sarah Evans called, "Top 4 new skills all PR professionals must have." You MUST read this post. Evans' top four skills are: basic HTML coding, SEO for PR, how to use a Social Media Release, and online presence (on Facebook, Twitter, blogging, et al).

I'm just going to add on here with some additional thoughts:

• HTML coding, while critical, is not as important as having the basic ability to use a Content Management System (CMS). What's a CMS? It's the blogging software I'm using right now to write this post. Using it successfully doesn't require any knowledge of HTML, though such knowledge does help. A CMS can also be used to manage a web site (I use one to manage the web site of my client, El Dorado Ventures), and again, using it doesn't require HTML knowledge, though again, it helps. Either way, if you are scared of using a CMS, get over it -- fast.


• Need to know more about HTML? Needless to say, there are a gazillion web sites devoted to HTML and web programming, but for starters, here's one to bookmark: HTML Code Tutorial.


• Newswire distribution services: It has gotten to the point where I rarely if ever rely on the traditional newswires to disseminate my press releases. I think it's much more useful to distribute your release via a quality email distribution list of journalists you think might cover your news. What the newswires do offer that you can't get anywhere else is third-party web site distribution of your release. Which means: when you put a release on a newswire, they turn around a push it out to potentially hundreds of web sites that immediately create a new web page with your release. For example, here's a list of the sites that re-use Business Wire releases, and here's an example of a release I put on Business Wire that is now also posted on Reuters.com.


• Using online media databases: do you know how to navigate and use online media databases such as Cision or Vocus? You must.


• Video: Do you know how to make a low-cost/free video and post it on YouTube? If not, get up to speed ASAP.


• Blogger relations: very different from traditional media relations in every sense. Every single blogger is different (take the difference between me and Sarah Evans for example -- same 'beat' but totally different blogs) and needs to be approached in a customized way.

These skills, of course, are in addition to the three core skills of PR: writing, pitching and being a communications strategist.