Stories by Lisa Roberts

You can’t stop what you don’t see coming. The internet is comprised of thousands of small, hyper-connected sub-cultures. Many will use brands to further their agenda. To protect her brand, the communicator needs to understand what motivates these online groups so she can spot a disruptive narrative in its earliest stages.

Even before the pandemic, plenty of major media outlets were struggling to stay in business. With fewer targets to pitch, is it time to ditch your media relations strategy? Veteran communicator Michael Monahan argues there still are myriad ways to attract coverage, even if one of the solutions means PR pros are crafting content.

It’s an age-old question (well, not quite): ‘Beyond keywords, how can I get better search results on Google?’ That question bleeds into another one, which really is a classic: ‘How do I generate business leads?’ Veteran communicator David Landis has five easy tips that may lead to you having an inbox overflowing with leads.

A PR pro muses about the importance of authenticity at a time when we ‘see’ cardboard and digitized fans at sporting events during the pandemic. Authenticity communicates respect. The sooner real, living fans replace digitized and cardboard representations of fans, the better for authenticity and sports.

Similar to nearly all businesses, hospitals have had to adapt during the pandemic to succeed. This has put a premium on hospital communicators, who are applying a bevy of PR basics to the situation. Two senior directors at APCO Worldwide discuss the sector and how its insights can apply to communicators and business across industry.

A team of international researchers used AI to detect patterns in how real news and fake stories propagate. The team discovered several signs about how stories spread that may help to determine authenticity. Fortunately, these signs can be detected early, before a fake news story spreads too far. Learning to spot some of these signs can benefit PR pros, argues Michael Burke of MSR Communications.

As PR pros celebrate Ethics in Communication month, PRSA’s chair Garland Stansell urges communicators to redouble their effort to always do the right thing. Advocating for truth and responsibility is a key, if not the key, element of a communicator’s daily role, he writes.

Nobody enjoys having difficult conversations. Sometimes, as PR pros, we have difficult exchanges with those who pay our salary and can influence our career. Being direct, empathetic and solutions-oriented can help make such exchanges less difficult and, most important, help build trust and understanding.

In the latest article in this series with the Institute for PR, veteran communicator Geoff Curtis discusses how a three-day off-site helped change his life. 10 years later, he’s still applying the lessons he learned during the off-site as he continues on a journey toward self-awareness.

With so many companies deciding to stay with virtual work arrangements, what you used to budget for office costs/overhead now is available for other uses. How should communicators spend this new-found money? Our author, a veteran of remote work, has several ideas.