What a PR Team Actually Does Day to Day
A PR team’s core job is managing the relationship between an organization and everyone whose opinion of it matters — journalists, customers, investors, and employees. Day to day, that means pitching stories, monitoring coverage and sentiment, drafting statements and releases, and coordinating messaging so the company says one consistent thing across every channel at once.
Common Roles on a PR Team
Media Relations / Publicist
Builds and maintains journalist relationships, and pitches specific stories to specific outlets.
Communications Strategist
Shapes the overall narrative and messaging framework a company uses across press, social, and internal communication.
Crisis Communications Lead
Owns the rapid-response plan and is the point person the moment something goes wrong publicly.
Content & Copywriter
Writes press releases, bylines, and pitch materials in a voice journalists will actually engage with.
Account/Client Lead (agency-side)
At an agency, coordinates all of the above for a specific client, translating business goals into a communications plan.
Digital PR & Content Specialist
Focuses specifically on search-visible coverage — pitching online publications, securing backlinks, and packaging data or research into stories that double as SEO assets. On a lean team, this role is often combined with the copywriter function.
Social Media Manager
Extends the reach of earned coverage by sharing, contextualizing, and amplifying press mentions across social channels, and manages day-to-day brand voice between announcements.
In-House vs. Agency
An in-house team offers deep product and culture knowledge but usually has a narrower media network. An agency brings existing journalist relationships and cross-industry pattern recognition but needs onboarding time to learn your business. Many growing companies use both — a small in-house lead paired with an agency for media relationships and surge capacity around major announcements.
How a PR Team Works With the Rest of the Business
PR rarely operates in isolation. Marketing needs consistent messaging across paid and earned channels; sales and business development benefit from press mentions that shorten trust-building conversations with prospects; leadership needs to be briefed before any statement goes out publicly, especially during a crisis; and legal typically reviews anything with financial, regulatory, or litigation exposure before it’s released. A PR team that isn’t looped into these relationships tends to produce messaging that’s technically correct but disconnected from what the rest of the company is actually doing.
Skills That Make a PR Team Effective
Beyond the individual roles, a few skills show up across every effective PR function: clear, concise writing under deadline pressure; genuine relationship-building rather than transactional outreach to journalists; sound news judgment — knowing what’s actually a story and what isn’t; and composure under pressure, since crisis moments are exactly when a team’s judgment matters most.
When a Company Needs a Dedicated PR Team
There’s no fixed headcount trigger, but the signal is usually consistency: once press outreach, reputation monitoring, and messaging need to happen continuously rather than around occasional announcements, it’s time for a dedicated function — whether that’s a hire, an agency retainer, or both.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people does a PR team need to start?
There’s no fixed number — many early-stage companies start with a single generalist handling media relations, writing, and monitoring, then add specialists (crisis, digital PR, social) as the workload grows.
Is it cheaper to hire in-house or work with an agency?
It depends on volume and consistency of need. A single in-house hire has a fixed salary cost regardless of output; an agency retainer scales with the work but comes with existing journalist relationships an in-house hire would need time to build.
Who should lead crisis communication on a small team?
Ideally a single pre-designated spokesperson with the authority to approve messaging quickly, backed by whoever handles media relations day to day — having two or three people improvising a response in real time is how inconsistent messaging happens.
Does a PR team also handle press releases?
Yes, typically. Writing and formatting releases usually sits with the same team handling media relations, since a release is one input into the broader outreach and pitching process.