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For Carrie Strehlau, turning a complex subject into an engaging story is part of her everyday challenge. Strehlau, a senior social media specialist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, has found Instagram Stories to be a great vehicle for highlighting and humanizing the hospital’s work. In this Q&A, she shares her approach to the platform, how she measures success and why spontaneity can be just as important as prep work when it comes to Instagram Stories.

As PR practitioners, it’s easy to forget the multitude of ways that other fields—such as social media and influencer marketing—can improve and enhance other core aspects of the job, such as media relations. Social media can offer a treasure trove of stories because it brings you closer to those who are using and loving your product. And influencers can also make for great brand ambassadors on platforms other than social media. Here are three ways you can mine these areas to take your storytelling to the next level.

Maryland Transportation Authority Police dragged an uncooperative passenger off a Southwest Airlines plane. Public sentiment indicates sympathy for Southwest in this case, which could easily be due in part to the reputation the airline has built for itself through its efforts at transparency, customer service and good deeds.

Not too long ago project management was considered the business world’s hottest trend. It’s probably ceded its position, yet the principles of project management continue to be crucial aspects of business. In fact, no PR or marketing leader should attempt to begin a campaign without considering them. Fortunately there is a slew of online tools that can help.

When it comes to abusive or inappropriate comments on a piece of branded content, many communicators will tell you: Don’t feed the trolls. Now Instagram has made it even easier to block the haters by unrolling a new feature that gives public Instagram accounts more power over who can comment on posts.

I don’t drink chocolate milk too often anymore, but those rare times that I do I reach for the Fox’s U-bet. Although the maker of U-bet, Brooklyn-based H. Fox & Co., was acquired in 2016… Continued

Unlike Amazon, which began as an online bookstore and moved beyond that singular identity to become an online store for anything you could possibly want to buy—as well as a search engine and entertainment content producer—Twitter has stuck to its initial identity. Being just one thing is dangerous in a marketplace that keeps getting reshaped by advances in technology and changes in consumer habits.

Working on a PR crisis-management team, especially a successful one, can provide communicators with an indescribable high. Yet crisis work can be all-consuming, pressure-filled and harmful to one’s family and social life. Do you have what it takes to work in crisis management? Veteran PR pro Arthur Solomon offers a framework for PR pros thinking about entering the world of crisis.

Communications pros recently logging into Google Analytics (GA) may have noticed a new feature in the upper right-hand corner of the interface, simply called Intelligence. The feature allows users to ask a question in plain English to get analytics answers to a variety of queries. That’s no small feat given the amount of metrics and dimensions available in GA, a prolific sea of data which can sometimes intimidate communications pros as they set out to build reports.

With Measurement Month drawing to a close, we asked AMEC CEO Barry Leggetter to assess the state of measurement and provide tips on what brands can do quickly to foster a measurement mindset.