So you are PR Manager, so what?

Have you ever experienced that people have a hard time understanding what you actually do for a living? Well, as a PR Manager in the lifestyle industry, I experience that all the time. People often ask me, ‘’what are you actually doing besides sipping champagne and eating healthy mini wraps together with journalists, semi celebs and bloggers.’’ They don’t even wait for my answer. Like THAT – I’m labeled. But why?

Why this lack of respect?

It’s my true feeling that lifestyle PR is not looked upon as a real profession by many people. Not as respected as corporate communication and definitely not as respected as the more analytic parts of marketing. But why is that?

Could it be down to the fact that PR does not deliver hard-core facts, figures or tracking results? Because how do you measure PR? The topic has been discussed for years providing different models and analytic tools for measurement. Still though it is quite common that PR is only measured by value – that is advertising value times three. Quantity. Full stop. The higher the value, the better the PR. But can you really measure PR