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Ryan Lochte, the embattled U.S. Olympic swimmer who falsely claimed to be robbed at gunpoint with three other swimmers in Rio de Janeiro, began an apology tour on Aug. 20. Speaking with NBC’s Matt Lauer and Felipe Santana of Globo, one of Brazil’s largest television networks, Lochte accepted responsibility for his actions, at times appearing on the verge of tears with Lauer. But some in the PR world said his apology and overall crisis communications leave much to be desired.

Though performance varies from group to group, the overall verdict is that “organizations need to help their employees better align with their organization’s strategy.” Conflicting priorities at work, caused by too many initiatives happening simultaneously, cause employees to feel more connected to their profession in general than to the organization that employs them.

For those of you considering selling your firm or acquiring one, it’s important to know that valuing PR agencies is an inexact science and a complex process. It takes financial expertise, knowledge of the M&A marketplace and an understanding of how buyers create offers/term sheets. Below are several things you need to consider as you begin the valuation process.

Shareablee provides data exclusively to PR News Pro about the brands (B2B and B2C) who were most engaged during August 5-17, the first 12 days of the Olympics.

A roundup of the week’s top news and trends in PR. This week we look at more implications of FTC actions against paid influencers, the passing of Ed Block.

The most important thing to realize about working with agencies is that it’s about much more than merely delegating work. One of the keys to working with an agency is to think about it as building a team outside your organization to help achieve your communication and business goals.

There’s a science to waiting, to delaying a behavior. Think about dating and travel sites where the customer stares at a screen anticipating the “perfect match” or “best price” on a flight. You want the site to take its time, not rush into something important that could change your social life or save you money. If the match popped up on the screen too soon, you’d think it were a generic algorithm and you’d dismiss the recommendation.

Athletes are always on stage and they carry a tremendous amount of responsibility by representing not only themselves but also their sponsors (and their sponsor’s customers), their sport, their teams and their countries, which means they have much to lose when things go awry.

The classic school of crisis management is rooted in the concept of goodwill banks, with the idea being that a company builds up goodwill over time, which is a currency that helps withstand a crisis. While much has changed in the best practices of crisis management, the concept of building a goodwill bank still holds up. Fundamentally, building a goodwill bank begins with building relationships. Just like any relationship, if it’s one sided—where one party is always asking for something—it rarely becomes a trusted relationship.

Is advertising on Pinterest for you? According to Pew Research Center, Pinterest users are mostly white or Hispanic women under 50, often college-educated and earning $30k or more, but spread fairly equally across urban, suburban and rural populations. If this sounds like your demographic, take a good look at getting in on the ground floor of the newest addition to the Great Video Explosion of 2016.