A modern Russian public relations specialist needs to be a blogger (44 percent), web designer (13 percent) and IT specialist (6 percent), according to the HeadHunter research center and PR consultancy Buman Media, which conducted an online opinion poll among 144 local professionals on the nation’s PR Specialist Day.

The key finding is that in Russia—as in so many markets—a PR manager’s job is becoming more about social media. More than two-thirds (68 percent) of respondents said that over the past few years they have been turning to social media much more frequently than before. While 44 percent now have to manage corporate pages in the social media, 47 percent admitted that they had to acquire skills that would enable them to promote their clients through social media advertising.

Today, 66 percent of respondents referred to social media as being one of their key job responsibilities—but only 8 percent of respondents work closely with bloggers.

In addition, 65 percent of respondents regularly work with web and digital designers, whereas 13 percent of those questioned say that over the past two years they had to acquire skills in web design;  28 percent learned to work with SEO; 15 percent discovered media buying; 14 percent are actively involved in mobile application development, and 10 percent of PR specialists advertise on mobile devices.

The key communications channels are online outlets (3.95 points out of 5) and print media (3.82 points out of 5). Social media, if only with a minor lead, and radio/TV land in third and fourth places (3.49 and 3.44 points on a 5-point scale respectively).

About half (47 percent) of respondents admitted that the efficiency of their work is still assessed by the number of media publications secured by their activity. Of major importance are also incoming calls triggered by PR campaigns (39 percent), the number of references on the Internet (38 percent), and the size of website traffic (24 percent).