I remember one time I was scrolling through my feed, and everyone seemed to be talking about some particular Nigerian brand. They were obviously the talk of the town, and everyone wanted to be part of this hype. One might be left wondering, “What’s going on?” “Why is everybody saying a lot of positive things about this brand at the same time?” Well, most times this kind of buzz doesn’t happen by accident. That’s where PR comes in. A PR team works behind the keyboards to bring out positivity about a brand to increase its public image; sometimes they can become the face and voice of the brand.
Public relations is the act of networking and the act of making people fall in love with your brand. Sometimes you don’t even need a professional PR team to handle PR services for you. When you have good customer service, your customers, your friends, and you can become your brand’s PR team. Just because this is one of my specialties, I will be discussing the meaning of a PR team, what they do, and how to grow one in Nigeria.
What Is a PR Team?
A PR team, or public relations team, is a group of professionals that offer various public relations services and manage the public image of individuals, organisations, or companies. A PR team may consist of different roles and functions, depending on the size and nature of the organisation. Your PR team plays an integral role in shaping the public perception of your company through social media. Learning more about PR teams can help you determine when they are best used to promote public positivity.
The PR team builds relations with the public and creates a positive image of the individual or company in the public. A professional PR team must be able to work together and also develop their interpersonal skills to ensure that the individual or company succeeds. The core job of a PR team revolves around using recent information and content to put out a positive review for the individual or brand.
Key Points
- PR team plays a crucial role in shaping public perception, leveraging various services to enhance brand image and reputation
- Building a PR team involves defining goals, selecting skilled individuals, fostering essential skills, scaling as needed, and establishing a collaborative work structure for efficient PR outcomes.
- A successful PR team comprises professionals like social media specialists, business spokespersons, copywriters, and publicists, ensuring positive brand representation and effective crisis management.
What Makes up a PR Team in Nigeria
A good PR team should have different professionals with good skills that will leave the clients satisfied. Some of the team members include:
#1. Social Media Specialists
A good PR team should have at least one professional social media manager to build and monitor social media campaigns. The person can also be in charge of monitoring content, giveaways, and creating and scheduling new posts.
#2. Business Spokesperson
The individual acts as the voice and the face of the brand. He can help speak to the public through the press, radio, and television. This is especially important if you are not comfortable with addressing the press.
#3. Copywriter
Copywriters will write blogs, content, articles, news, pitches, takeaways, and social media posts. They normally work behind the scenes and are always on their keyboards on behalf of their clients.
#4. Publicists
They are people with the most nerve-wracking job, which is crisis management. They develop counter-narratives, find flaws, and monitor the internet to find other troubles. Also, they are people you want to have in your corner whenever there is trouble.
How to Grow a PR Team in Nigeria
Building a PR team requires a combination of planning and careful execution. If you are building a PR team from scratch, you must plot out the key focuses and responsibilities that will fall to the team. Here are a few steps that you can take:
#1. Define the Team Structure and Goal
Factors to consider while choosing a PR team include the size of the company, the objectives of the PR campaign and available resources. It’s important to have a team goal and strategies to achieve it before you bring together a team. Once you have a clear idea of your goals and strategy to achieve them, you can go ahead and form a team that can help you achieve them.
#2. Choose the Right People
Working with people with influence and bloggers can help your team produce positive content and videos. Always choose people with the right skills, vibe, and experience. People who are creative, well-organised, and can manage multiple projects at the same time can make up a very good team. A team should have professionals with strong writing skills to produce press releases, social media content, and other positive content that accurately represents the brand.
#3. Develop Essential Skills
Essential skills to develop for PR services include relationship management, which is achieved through outreach to journalists and news outlets, content creation, which enables the team to create and share compelling stories that can build the brand’s reputation; and crisis management skills, which involve identifying the root cause of the issue and developing a communication plan that outlines how to respond to the media. Having people with different skills in your team will help you create a well-rounded team that can offer different ideas on PR services and strategies.
#4. Scale Your PR Team as Needed
Evaluate workload demand and consider hiring extra team members when there is an increase in demand, when specialised skills are needed and when a global presence is needed. You can consider outsourcing if finances are not available. Scaling is required for every team as the business grows. This is done to ensure you are still meeting the needs of the brand or individual you are working for.
#5. Create a Team Work Structure
A collaborative structure in a team ensures the work is done accurately and efficiently, ensuring everyone is carried along at all times. When team members collaborate, they can share ideas and insights, which could lead to more creative and successful campaigns. By working together, they can ensure they are targeting the right audience. This is a concise checklist I created for easy grasping and practicing of the above points:
Functions of a PR Team
The PR team interacts with the press or public on behalf of their client, brand, or organisation. The following are a few of the functions of the PR team:
#1. Establish a Communication Goal
They suggest how much and what type of communication their client will have with the public and press. When their client wants to have an interview, they are in charge of informing the press and also determining what time the information will be released to the public. Suppose the client wants to improve their public image or resolve a scandal involving the individual or the brand. In that case, the PR team is responsible for any strategy that will help increase the client’s satisfaction.
#2. Organise Press Release
The PR team can also write a press release for their clients, which is a document shared by organisations to state their stand in a situation or to involve the public in their next step. The organisation can decide the structure and content of this document but the PR team decides the wording and tone in order to inform the public correctly.
#3. Corresponds to News Media
When the press plans to release news about a particular brand or organisation, it is the responsibility of the PR team to find out what the information is all about and when the press wants to release it. When they get this information, they must form a strategy for the press and communicate with the public to maintain a positive image of the brand.
#4. Respond to Public Events and Inquiries
The PR team must handle the guest list, send out invitations, and manage attendees at any event organized by their client. They are responsible for all the press inquiries the client receives, and they determine which inquiries are valuable and what responses should be given by the client to the public.
Skills Required for a PR Team
There are several skills required for a PR team. Some of them include:
#1. Communication
They communicate with internal contacts, such as team members and must ensure that their communication conveys the objectives as clearly as possible. Both verbal and written communication skills are needed because they write press releases, pitch stories to media and manage social media accounts.
#2. Attention to Details
Strong attention to detail is required to manage clients and their communication with the press. They also manage their clients’ contact information and their history of information. They also track how much the public is talking about their clients.
#3. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Critical thinking is an important skill for a good PR team because they constantly evaluate data and come up with solutions. They identify problems and develop strategies to solve them. This skill is very vital because they are always faced with problems requiring solutions.
#4. Media Relations and Marketing
Sometimes the work of public relations officers overlaps with marketing; they can work with the head of the marketing team to monitor the brand’s marketing activities to ensure they support a positive public impression of the brand. Professionals must know how this news outlet works and how to work with them effectively. They should also foster relationships with the press so they can be informed and easily share information.
How to Manage Your PR Team
After building your PR team, the next thing is to manage. If the team is managed properly, it will stay intact for a long time. The following are easy ways to manage your team:
#1. Set Clear Goals and Expectations
Clearly state expectations and success criteria for team members to avoid any misunderstandings about the project goals and objectives. How can you expect your PR team to deliver tangible results to your business if they are not aware of the business plan and objectives?
#2. Providing Ongoing Training and Development
You will need to ensure that your team members are up to date with trends, update their skills, and adapt to changing workplace cultures and emerging products. You can provide training to your PR team by fixing webinars, podcasts, industry, and online courses.
#3. Motivate the Team
Do not forget to always motivate your team after a job well done; this will foster a positive team environment, encourage employees to do a good job and improve the company’s reputation. You could organise launches, send employee recognition emails, and offer extra vacation time and tips.
#4. Manage Team Dynamics and Conflict
Resolve conflicts in the workplace to help your team work efficiently and effectively and ensure everyone enjoys collaborating. Some of the strategies to employ for this include open communication, strong leadership, building relationships, and actively listening to your team members.
How Does the PR Team Get Clients?
The following are ways to get new clients:
- Optimise your website
- Showcase success stories
- Create thought leadership content
- Male meaningful connections on LinkedIn
What Are the Four Models of PR?
The following are the four models of PR:
- Press agentry
- Public information
- Two-way asymmetrical
- Two-way symmetrical
What Are the Seven Types of PR?
The following are the seven different types of public relations:
- Media Relations
- Strategic communications
- Community pr
- Crisis communication
- Internal PR
- Public Affairs
- Social media PR
Conclusions
Now I hope you understand what a PR team is all about, what they do, and how to grow one in Nigeria. Creating a PR team in Nigeria is not a hard task because we have a lot of people who are very talented but you have to be careful to select the essential skills needed in the team and the best among them. Now, when putting together a team, ensure you select people who are ready to work, handle multiple contacts at the same time and deliver efficiently and on time.
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