What exactly do you do in PR?

Companies dont do  press releases everyday? do they, so why do small to medium size companies have a PR dept (team), what specifically do they do on daily basis.. Just curious

• I am asking because, as a small business i have tried it, hired someone to write PR around out product and services and later found that it wasnt really cost effective considering the fact that i have to pay the PR guy like a full time staff for a 2-3 hrs of service. What and what do you think should constitute task for my PR guy as a tech startup company.

• Answer:

  I do PR for a small tech company of 25 full-time employees. But I also do all the marketing, advertising, graphic design, video production, photography, and new business lead generation. As far as to what I do on a daily basis, here's a sampling of the PR responsibilities - Check emails - I get about 100-200 emails a day to sort through. This includes requests from reporters for story sources. Not all of these apply to my company, but I still read them. If I didn't, I might have missed the chance to get my company featured on several major news outlets. Other emails are from people trying to sell me services or get me to place ads in publications. Others are questions from customers/leads. Others are from Quora and LinkedIn notifying me that there is a topic of interest to my company that I can take part in and help build my company's credibility. I get my inbox to 0 every day. Monitor keywords - I want to know what is being talked about with my company and industry. I monitor our Google AdWords Account for what search terms are bringing people to the site (and which ones should be tagged as negative keywords), our website analytics to see how people are using our website and how it can be improved, and I've set up keyword alerts via Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) for our company name, products, competitors, and key industry terms. If someone posts a question about one of our products on an industry forum, I want to know. Attend events - Local meetings, conferences, trade shows, expos. And all the planning that goes into them such as registering, designing the display, making logistical arrangements, and following up with leads, etc. Applying for Awards - What better way to get press for your business than winning an award?! But there are applications to fill out and essays to write. This week, I'm working on 3 of them. Handle donations - Our company votes on which local charities get our annual donation pool. I then contact the charity, explain how they were chosen, and present them with the check. We also get requests for product donations. I research those, decide which ones we will support and arrange for them to get the donation. Develop Contacts - Better than any press release is someone talking about your product or service, telling their friends about it, and being excited about it. I follow-up with customers, making sure they had a good experience with us and writing thank-you notes if I see/hear that someone suggested us to their friends (another reason to monitor keywords). I want customers to be able to call me personally if they have a question and feel like they have a friend on the inside. Write articles for our website news section - Things that we're doing, resources for customers. Not all of these things are "press release worthy" but interesting enough nonetheless that we want to share. Writing press releases - Well, you know.