It's time for another "Why Work in PR?" interview and I'm delighted to introduce you today to Maria Gergova-Bengtsson who will share with us her exciting PR career story and offer key advice for students and young professionals who want to learn more about the industry and how to get into it. 

I'm glad to call Maria my friend even though we only met a few months ago in Sofia where she invited to speak at the IPRA conference. I truly admire Maria for the dedicated work that she is doing in the Bulgarian market, the team she has grown around her successful PR agency and the global network of professionals that she has built.

Before you move onto the interview, don't forget to follow Maria on Facebook and say Hi to her team on Twitter @United_Partners. 

(If you've missed any of the previous interviews, you can take a look as well: Richard Bailey, Pippa Hanson, Jessica Hodkinson, Chryssa Skodra, Farzana Baduel, Scott Guthrie, Sarah Hall, Angharad Welsh and Alex May.) 

Why Work in Public Relations: Interview with Maria Gergova-Bengtsson

This is a guest post by Tamara Vlootman.

Over the last few years, I've been focusing more and more on gaining insights - both about our clients and about the PR industry itself.

I chose this specialisation as a job role at my PR agency driven by the desire to help make brands be truly based on something real instead of just pushing some ‘added value’ to existing marketing fluff.

But this specialisation is also a source of frustration. More and more often, I get the feeling that we in the PR industry are not even close to reaching our full potential of being strategic advisors.

In my opinion, Inbound PR is not only about a different way of using technology. It’s about creating real and solid value in a world that increasingly screams for something authentic and honest - because the demand for creating real stories for more engaged, rather than just bigger audiences is rising. And the only way to add value is by spending focused time creating it, not by compromising with rushed pitches and press releases.

But Why the Itch to Stick with the Old?

Over the last month, after speaking to Stephen Waddington and Iliyana Stareva about PR and its future, something became even more clear to me.

It's been over a year since I've run a "Why Work in PR?" interview but today we have Alex May sharing with us her PR career story and offering some very thoughtful advice for students and young professionals who want to learn more about the industry and how to get into it. 

Alex is a good friend of mine (we met in Dublin) and I asked her to participate in my PR interview series because I felt it would be good for PR students thinking about the profession to hear from a younger pro who's closer to their generation and experiences. 

Before you move onto the interview, don't forget to follow her on Twitter @AMayHopscotch and say Hi. 

(If you've missed any of the previous interviews, you can take a look as well: Richard Bailey, Pippa Hanson, Jessica Hodkinson, Chryssa Skodra, Farzana Baduel, Scott Guthrie, Sarah Hall and Angharad Welsh.) 

Why Work in Public Relations: Interview with Alex May

Did you know that messages delivered through a story can be up to 22 times more memorable than just facts? 

I'd say no wonder given that stories provoke emotions, refer to our own experiences (when planned and told well) and so engage our subconscious minds. 

In our information, channels and apps overload era, that's a pretty significant number for businesses to consider when they are trying to engage with consumers or any other stakeholder group. Good stories can clearly sell. 

A lot of companies jumped on the bandwagon of storytelling or should I say on content creation as we saw the benefits in terms of SEO and user engagement.

But as the mass of content grew bigger and our attention spans got shorter, that focus on quantity versus quality is not doing you a favour anymore. 

What businesses, PR and marketing professionals alike need are fewer, but better stories that can capture hearts and minds at scale. 

We call this break through storytelling that can cut through the noise. 

Planning for this is easier than executing on it so let me help you with that. 

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending and speaking about Inbound PR at the IPRA PR Conference for Central and Eastern Europe in Sofia.

I met a number of very successful PR people from all over the world who have built careers in some of the largest companies and PR networks and got to listen to where they thought PR needs to go next.

I'd like to share with you some of my key learnings from the day as well as to agree and disagree with some of the general notion of what PR's biggest challenges are that stood out across all presentations.

Almost every talk during the conference focused on technology.

Technology - PR's Next Frontier

I agree that today's reality not only in the business world but also in our personal lives is underpinned by technology. PR people and other professionals alike have not yet figured out how to handle technology.

Digital still remains a major challenge for communications professionals but the understanding and adoption of tools, software and tech in general is rather low.