In the past generations, PR marketing jobs might involve writing boring press releases, but those that hold public affairs jobs in today's public relations fields realize that public relations jobs can involve innovative things to make the customer feel better about a company than some phony press release that is a company PR director's version of legal protection, at least in the consumer's mind. That is why Twitter, Facebook and other social networks have become an important part of today's public relations strategies.
The new generation of public relations executives realizes that it takes a multi-strategy approach to be the most effective. When it comes to those that are most successful in public relations jobs or public affairs jobs, it will be those that realize PR marketing jobs can involve a number of skills that involves a wide range of audiences and different approaches.
It used to be that public relations involved dealing with company spokespeople that said legally worded statements made up by lawyers and public relation spokespeople. They would stand in front of the press and different journalists and say the same things. Press releases were just written copies of these speeches.
Today, it can make corporate executives appear very robotic, if they use this same approach and can have an opposite effect, making the company and the top executives appear uncaring.
Since today's generation of consumers hold companies more accountable and want acknowledgements of their concerns, today's PR executives have to be creative with new strategies that give the company a voice, yet doesn't admit liability that can get them sued. There are so many consumers that are just waiting to file a lawsuit to get-rich-quick, that it is important that the public relations department understand how to walk this fine line with consumers and legal liability.
Today's new generation of public relations jobs demand that strategies can get the point across that the executives and journalists want to get across, but also satisfy consumers that want an apology or explanations. Perhaps, it might seem that public relations just demands a degree of honesty, but most importantly, it demands the ability to communicate with different audiences to tell them what they want to hear while disseminating the proper information that will keep the lawyers away.
For the most successful public affairs officers, they realize that this might seem like talking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time, but this is essentially what it takes to protect a corporation, get the message across that the executives want to express and give the press a story that they can be satisfied with. Of course, the new generation of public relations executives realizes that customers have more access than ever before to trash a company's reputation with the Internet, so the new strategies demand a multi-faceted approach.