PR Insiders

All politics is local. Our author argues all digital storytelling is, too, with local translating to familiarity. He also urges communicators to spend more time shaping story ideas instead of expending a lot of effort on deciding what digital medium will best convey their stories.

What should brands do when an employee says something controversial and headlines result? Is the consequence immediate suspension? Should there be a warning first? What about issuing a public warning that not only puts the employee on notice but serves to inform all other staff? The examples of Shepard Smith and Bob Costas bring these questions to light.

Launching a thought leadership program at your company is relatively easy. Getting an organization’s thought leaders to participate in the program and give you what you want? That can be painful on many levels. Here are some tips that have worked well and will for you, too.

A true PR pioneer, co-founder of Ruder Finn (in 1948), member of PR News’ Hall of Fame, artist, writer and philanthropist, David Finn turned 96 years young recently. Ruder Finn’s head of storytelling, Rachel Spielman, offers lessons about PR and life that she’s learned from Finn, who, despite being a busy industry giant, was always willing to listen to a variety of voices.

With President Trump inserting his new-media channel of choice, Twitter, into global media almost on a daily basis, these seem to be heady times for the social platform. Yes, it’s struggling to attract more eyeballs… Continued

No doubt your grandparents have heard of Twitter from President Trump’s constant use of the platform. And you doubtless know that today is the official date for Twitter to expand its 140-character limit to 280. But what pundits have dubbed a bad move for the social media bird’s brand may end up benefitting PR pros and marketers.

You hear it often: PR pros and journalists are linked; they’re part of the same ecosystem. If so, PR pros and journalists have to be hanging their heads a bit lower today. This page pointed… Continued

It’s been a bad stretch for journalism as several top-flight writers and editors have been brought down due to sexual harassment charges. As journalists and PR professionals are part of the same milieu, it’s an unhappy moment for communicators, too. Still, PR pros have jobs to do. There are several lessons they should take from the incidents of the past few weeks.

With 2017 virtually in the rearview mirror I thought it would be good time to sit down over a couple of Cobb salads with Katie Creaser, SVP at agency Affect and a longtime friend of PR News, and talk about the trends that’ll have the greatest impact on PR practitioners next year. Here’s just one: Expect an acceleration of brand crises in news cycles, and for all brands to continue to lose control over the narrative in a crisis.

I haven’t heard Christmas tunes in the shops of New York yet, but any minute they’ll be cranking them out. Once I hear that first awful new version of Mel Tormé’s “The Christmas Song” everything’s… Continued