Stories by Jerry Ascierto

Given their broad franchise networks and large customer base—and of course their huge social media audiences—fast-food chains can be seen as guinea pigs for how the public discourse is digitally evolving. Consider the latest high-profile example of how a single Facebook post led to the rapid closure of a Dairy Queen—within 48 hours of being posted.

The rules of search engine optimization (SEO) can change so quickly, by the time you implement yesterday’s best practices, a new set of considerations seemingly take their place. And that moving target is set to move again: Since more searches now come from mobile platforms than desktops, Google will soon roll out a fully updated mobile-first index, which considers the mobile version of a website its primary version.

As the first person to live stream from all 50 U.S. states, Chris Strub has a great feel for what works and what falls flat when it comes to real-time video. PR News recently sat down with Strub to get his thoughts on live streaming best practices, where companies go wrong in their approach and how the industry will evolve in 2017.

Social media provides a great opportunity to connect directly with journalists, who often turn to platforms like Twitter to find sources, track breaking stories and promote their work. But how can you best use social media to get their attention? Michelle LeBlanc, social media strategist with Industrium, offers up this quick checklist of do’s and don’ts.

Outdoor grill brand Char-Broil struck social media gold in 2016 with a 60-second sped-up video that showcased its Big Easy Oil-Less Turkey Fryer. The video, posted about two weeks before Thanksgiving, spread like wildfire, garnering more than 1.9 million views, 6,291 shares and 1,281 comments on Facebook alone. So, what made it so successful?

Video is now king on social media, and Facebook Live has emerged as a crown jewel, a powerful way for brands to reach and engage a larger audience in real-time. One of the earliest and most successful adopters of Facebook Live is NASA. And here, John Yembrick, NASA’s social media manager, offers best practices to optimize your live-streaming efforts.

Customer communities can be a powerful ally to any brand, offering a multiplier effect for your message that resounds throughout the web. But how can a brand harness the power of unpaid spokespeople to amplify its message and reach as much of its target audience as possible? The key is to convey a sense of shared purpose, be authentic and speak their language.

As organic reach increasingly becomes a thing of the past, winning a budget for paid social—and proving out its value—is a must for any brand’s social strategy. But that doesn’t have to be a scary thing for those making their foray into the paid social world. As Facebook continues to roll out product updates—and other platforms grow more sophisticated in analytics, tracking and even marketing automation—the opportunity to leverage paid social content into real-world results has never been better. Here are some tips on how to approach promoted posts.

Google Analytics can be a powerful tool for measuring the effectiveness of PR work—but only if you know where to look. New users can easily be overwhelmed by Google Analytics, falling prey to “analysis paralysis” in trying to navigate its many moving parts. Here’s a quick checklist of where to look, and what to look for, as a primer on navigating all of that data.