Landing a star client, eating lunch at the trendiest restaurant and attending a red-carpet event. Sounds like a typical “day in PR”, right? NOT!Despite popular belief, Public Relations isn’t as glitzy as Samantha Jones on Sex and the City makes it look. Ahh, Samantha Jones had it good didn’t she? Strutting through the streets of NY in her $500 Manolo Blahniks, throwing a-list parties, showing up to star-studded events, all while raking in the cash effortlessly. Unfortunately, as those of us in “real life” PR knows, that isn’t the reality of the business.
It would have been great for HBO to show Samantha sitting behind her desk some days racking her brain to come up with a catchy headline for her press release or spending countless hours updating her media lists to make sure they’re up to date or trying to figure out if a film title is parenthesized or italicized. (PR people, you know what I mean!)
As glamorized as PR has become in the media, there’s a lot of hard work, innovation, long hours, writing, editing, non-stop grammar checks and relationship building that goes into a successful PR campaign, and into being a successful publicist.
Between creating campaigns that will return the highest degree of buzz, there’s also maintaining relationships with media professionals, networking (via Facebook, Twitter or at an event), and working from a long list of do’s and don’ts.
To be truly great in this industry you have to consider yourself a “Life-style Publicist.” Not to say that you have to make your career your life but you have to work like your life depends on it. You have to continuously push yourself to deliver for your clients. So, in short, leave the Samantha Jones-syndrome to HBO and leave “real PR” to those who are willing to work and WRITE hard.
