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There’s little question that brands, even so-called unglamorous B2B brands that might seem to lack a compelling visual story, are finding Instagram a useful outlet for messaging. That was illustrated in our lead story last… Continued

Many PR pros tend to ignore LinkedIn as a messaging platform for their brands. Shame. LinkedIn said Apr. 24 it has 500 million members. That’s up from August, when it said it had 450 million members. This announcement prompted us to think about how brands can tap into the LinkedIn base with their messages. We asked a brand communicator as well as a LinkedIn executive about best practices for brands trying to build engagement and market services on the platform.

What if we could change the course of the next crisis before it got out of hand? Speaking with people in and out of government, I came to believe that we were missing our moment of maximum impact. If we pre-constructed some of what I began calling counter-crisis capabilities (CCC), they could be ready when problems started to percolate. We might reduce the frenzy factor, increase our focus, and enhance performance, argues Brett Bruen, a former White House official.

What? Another press release to write? Fine. Before you reach for the keyboard, however, think about journalists who must read scores of jargon-filled, dense releases that tired PR pros crank out on demand. With a little practice and a fresh red pen, though, any press release can be transformed from a total bore to a piece of messaging your brand (and the media) will appreciate.

Most of us wish we could apologize to people in our past for one thing or another. As time passes, though, an apology can become a form of stalking or a self-centered quest for redemption. That person whose feelings you hurt badly when you were 18? She doesn’t want to hear from you now. If only you could board a magical aircraft, zoom back in time and make things right. Speaking of aircraft, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz sent an email on April 27 to customers apologizing for breaking the bonds of trust “when a passenger was forcibly removed” from one of its planes.

Leave it to a media company to offer a mini-case study in media relations. ESPN cut around 100 jobs on Wednesday, about half of which affected on-air talent. While the cuts were expected, they went deeper than many industry-watchers anticipated. Thanks to ESPN’s transparency about the layoffs, many of its talking points in its prepared statements became the foundation of coverage from media outlets.

When the mighty Google changes its algorithm, all of PR is pushed in the same direction by the shockwave; here’s hoping that the most recent change will nudge us into a better place. The search engine’s latest move is to demote (but not remove) pages that propagate lies, hoaxes, conspiracy theories and other junk content that more and more is collectively being labeled “fake news.”

Daniella Peting follows one cardinal rule for live streaming: Don’t wing it. Peting, who manages Motorola Solutions’ social media presence in North America and co-leads the company’s Global Social Media Center of Excellence, makes a point of fully preparing every element of a live broadcast from conception to execution.

A salesperson, a PR manager and a marketer walk into a bar…or so your bottom line wishes. The birth of social media forced organizations to draw up new business strategies to stay competitive in the digital space. And so they did—one department at a time. Ask a salesperson what their social strategy is, or even what social media means to her profit goals and she will probably give you a completely different answer than the PR or marketing manager within the same organization. So how can you build a truly integrated communications team? By following these three steps.

It’s not a question for the ages, but it’s a head-scratcher. Why does a 27-year-old athlete without a college education know that the best way to head off a potential PR crisis is to be honest, while highly experienced CEOs and heads of multinational corporations, who’ve had the benefit of media training, fail to learn this lesson?