A study of advertising and public relations professionals performed by two professors from Baylor and University of Colorado-Boulder identified gaps in current advertising/public relations education and current demands of the industries (as well as the projected future demands). The study concluded that training in search engine optimization puts a new executive a step above their current competition, and will be necessary in the future in order to remain competitive.
“We concluded that as public relations executives begin pursuing more paid online media strategies, they may need additional training in media planning and buying, particularly in the areas of programmatic buying, search engine optimization and search engine marketing,” Schauster said.
This conclusion reinforces our own stance: as search engine presence becomes more important, and search engines become more mature, knowledge of the strategies and tactics for fostering maximum exposure on the web becomes an integral part of the public relations skill set.
For more on the study, see the phys.org article.