As a director of communications for a real estate brokerage, a lot of my "clients" (our real estate brokers) ask me for social media advice.  

The hot topic right now is Instagram.

​Everyone knows that Kylie Jenner is making a killing endorsing beauty products there, and brands are quickly ditching their Snapchat accounts for the newest Instagram Stories updates.

​Still, there remains a lot of mystery around how to use Instagram for business.

If you are just getting started on Instagram or thinking about how to retool your Instagram strategy, here are the first three things you need to do. 

I belong to several closed Facebook groups for marketing and public relations professionals to discuss business, trends and the state of the industry overall. 

One of the most common topics I have seen lately is concern over whether or not public relations jobs are going to be sustainable as local news struggles and we have fewer outlets to pitch. 

In my opinion, lack of outlets to pitch our clients and companies is the least of our problems if the news industry can't sustain itself, but that is a tangent for another day.

Beyond that though, public relations is about so much more than our relationships with media. It's not about pitching our clients to the same five reporters every month so that we can prove we earned that monthly retainer.

Being a public relations professional means you should possess, superb writing skills, clear and articulate communications skills and the ability to constantly find new and creative ways to promote your clients, brands or businesses. 

In fact, it's a huge red flag if all a client cares about is how many media contacts you have. 

Our jobs are about so much more than pitching media -- so why are we so afraid for them when media changes?