Research, research, and research again... That's what today's blog post is about again. For some reason so many relevant and interesting studies have published their findings all at once and I just can't withhold that information from you. And so today I am going to share with you my impressions from the latest 2013/2014 State of the PR Profession Annual Benchmarking Survey by the Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR).

The survey was conducted among 2,500 public relations professionals from the UK, focusing on issues and trends around current practice, standards, budgets, skills and career development.

For the first time, non-members of the CIPR also took part in the survey, broadening the scope and the representativeness of the research.

Overall, the study this year revealed that Public Relations is at a crossroads. Nevertheless, Stephen Waddington, President of the CIPR, believes that "what we see is a terrific opportunity for anybody that is willing to embrace change."

I welcome change. And I believe that there are some fundamental things in the PR business (well, frankly in any business) that should change - one is the issue of gender inequality, another is diversity, and third is qualifications.

Exciting news! The fourth annual Social Media Sustainability Index 2013 is now out! Having written my second BA dissertation and my first book on the topic of social media for sustainability communications, you can assume how eager I was to go through the report and see if anything has changed after I had done my own research in the area less than a year ago. So, this is what I am going to talk about today - the research findings.

The team at Sustainly, led by Matthew Yeomans, analysed how 475 major companies from various industries use social media to communicate sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and actions all over the world. They looked at more than 4000 corporate social media channels to identify companies with real commitment to social media sustainability communications. They then selected the top 100 for the Social Media Sustainability Index and further investigated best practice communication and storytelling.

The main finding was "an explosion in the number of companies committed to talking about sustainability", however very few of those "seem to have a good idea who they are talking to and what stories they should be telling." But, storytelling plays an essential role for sustainability because "good social media communications is based on having a compelling story to tell and being able to back it up."

At the beginning of the year, McKinsey&Company released the findings of their latest survey on gender and workplace diversity.

You already know how seriously interested I am in this topic. My contribution towards tackling the gender inequality issue in the workforce is speaking up by blogging and sharing such research with as many people as possible. Advancing the conversation about this global problem is the only way to solve it.

McKinsey found that even though companies have implemented some measures to improve gender diversity, significant progress hasn't yet been made. Corporate culture remains a critical factor that either supports or hinders that progress.

According to the research results, even if females are ambitious and strive to become top managers knowing they have the abilities and skills to do so, they are not convinced that their company's culture will actually support their rise. I believe this is a serious barrier against tackling one of the major challenges for businesses and economies, as identified this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Companies and their leaders should instead be encouraging female ambition and growth, not stopping or undermining it.

18 February was my one-year anniversary at my current agency Brandzeichen. This was an important milestone for me to look back and think about what I've done, learned, experienced and achieved during that year at one of the fastest growing brand communications agencies in Germany. It's also a great cornerstone to relate those experiences to my passion for PR and social media and to why exactly I am pursuing a career in the industry.

As I've said before, it seems that quite a few of my readers find my blog by googling "why work in PR".

What is it really to work in PR?

I tell you, it is difficult to explain... It's challenging, it's exciting, it's fast moving, it's dynamic, it's always changing - yes, yes, I've already explained that in my previous "why do I want to work in PR" editions here and here.

The reasons I've listed in those two posts are still relevant today, but because I do not want to repeat myself and because I want to reflect this post more to what I've learned over the past year, here are the '2014' reasons why I want to work in PR and in social media in particular (my current job role is a Social Media Account Manager after all):

7 Reasons Why I Want to Work in PR: 

With the massive embracement of social and web applications, the arsenal of tools and techniques PR professionals are required to use in their work is constantly growing. However, the overall purpose of these activities remains the same: In my latest article for Behind the Spin I note that PR is about influencing audiences and adding value. Influencing audiences has a lot to do with persuasion.

Important to note here is that persuasion is very different from manipulation. Persuasion, unlike manipulation, is not spin. Many think of PR as spin, but that's just not what PR aims to achieve. Communicators' purpose it to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between clients and their publics by building and defending reputations. That includes among other things engaging with audiences, talking to and most importantly with various publics, making use of a wide range of tools to communicate a message in the most suitable way - text, audio, images, video.

PR people aim to convey a message, a message that gets heard and understood, that moves people to undertake a specific action after receiving that message. This makes everything we do about persuasion - writing is about persuasion, storytelling is about persuasion, social media sharing is about persuasion.

Persuasion is indeed an art, but it can also become a skill, an ability that is very important for PR professionals. To develop that know-how