It won’t be wrong, if I call PR a content-driven profession. The appropriate messaging is essential for reputation building. One who excels at writing will have a successful career in public relations. Writing in public relations refers to several sorts of content creation. These are also referred to as various public relations tools used to establish or strengthen a brand’s reputation. People are becoming more cautious about what a brand says in public these days. In this article, I will discuss five forms of writing that PR students must excel at.

FIVE TYPES OF WRITING

Authored articles

Authored articles are those that PR specialists write on behalf of their clients. PR specialists do this to build the thought leadership of a brand’s spokesperson in their respective industry. Writing authored articles involves following certain rules, such as excluding promotional content from the article, and so on. This tool is one of the most regularly used PR tools for obtaining media coverage for the client.

Press Releases

Press releases are the most crucial PR tool when it comes to sharing an announcement on behalf of the client in the media. PR students must know how to write a press release as there is a lot of information that goes into one small note. So, the press release must be to the point and must contain an eye-catching headline. This helps in garnering multiple media coverage in one go. 

Pitch notes

PR specialists use pitch notes to send personalised messages to journalists, proposing a news story angle for the client. Here a lot of creativity and strategic thinking goes in. PR students must excel in writing pitch notes as it is the most crucial part of media pitching. Additionally, one big media opportunity can give a lot of benefits to the client in terms of right public attention and credibility.

Holding statement

A holding statement is a message that PR professionals draft for their clients during any crisis. This is one of the strategies for managing a crisis situation. The PR students must learn because the clients rely entirely on their PR team to rebuild their reputation in the public, and this can only be achieved by sharing the right message at the right time. The holding statement contains what and how much information about the situation should go to the public. One wrong word or information can finish the brand’s reputation in a second.

Whitepaper

A whitepaper is a long-form analysis of material produced by an organisation on a research topic. As a content-heavy profession, PR experts are the first choice for brands when it comes to drafting a whitepaper based on their research. PR students must practise drafting whitepapers because this is a one-time opportunity for them to make a good impression on their clients as it requires excellent technical writing skills.

Apart from these five types of writing, students must practice writing for various existing sectors like technology, lifestyle, BFSI, hospitality, education and so on. Every sector has its own writing type which requires a lot of practice to excel. The only way to excel in writing is to read and write as much as possible. 

– Tamanna Singh

Tamanna is an Alumna of SCoRe (Class of 2020) and has worked as a PR consultant before (re)joining SCoRe as the Head of Student Affairs. She has also been a teacher previously, which helps her ensure that our curriculum & pedagogy are the best in the country, and our students get the value they join us for.  Tamanna has worked as a PR Consultant at Value 360 Communications, New Delhi. She has a knack for being brutally honest, for which is she is as respected as she is feared! She goes by @TamannaS03 on Twitter.