PIO Duties

In your departments, is the PIO responsible purely for media relations, or is the PIO responsible for the entire public relations/marketing campaign? How do volunteer departments work it?

My reason for asking is that my department recently went through a strategic planning process. One of the goals our internal stakeholders identified is to establish a quality marketing program making use of all media outlets. I am the department's quasi PIO, and my current duties revolve around keeping a Web site updated, writing press releases as necessary, and producing a quarterly (at best) newsletter. To truly establish this marketing program, I feel I need to better structure my duties as PIO, OR the department should invest in hiring one full time or lumping the PIO duties into the duties of the Fire Marshal or Assistant Fire Marshal. So I'm curious as to how other departments view their PIOs. I'm a volunteer and have a full time job outside of my first due, so obviously if a big fire occurs, I'm not availabl to deal with the media. Basically, the newsletter, Web site, etc. are done in my free time. I'm compensated, but I feel to truly be a good PIO, you need to be able to dedicate more time, and the program needs to be structure.

Lots of questions in there. Sorry if I confused anyone. Any feedback would be great.

Chris Mc Loone