Stories by Justin Joffe

“Crisis” can mean different things to different groups says Dan Kneeshaw, Walmart’s senior director of global associate communications, digital and enterprise initiatives. Kneeshaw spoke on “When All Hell Breaks Loose,” a panel focusing on how brands mitigate crisis on social media, at the 2018 Social Shake-Up Show in Atlanta. Here are three steps to effective crisis management that Walmart holds close.

Twitter got out in front of its own crisis, emailing its business customers about a bug that stored account passwords, unmasked, in an internal log. The bug left Twitter passwords exposed, and visible, to everyone within the company. Still, its statements raised a few important questions.

“We sometimes talk about the fact that a lot is changing in our world,” says Jennifer Dulski, who will be the keynote speaker at PR News’ Social Media Awards luncheon on May 23 in New York. “But there are also some things that really don’t change—human nature, the desire for connection, the desire to make change and make the world better. Technology just makes them easier.”

It’s no surprise that the number of Michelle Wolf’s Twitter followers tripled over the past several days. As far as timely publicity stunts go, putting provocative words to things many are thinking but few are saying is succeeding in both politics and entertainment. For now, that tactic is not an option for brand communicators, who can only watch as their content drowns in a sea of outrage and affirmation.

Starbucks found itself in hot water that had nothing to do with brewing coffee when the manager at a downtown Philadelphia location called the police on two black men who were sitting in the shop, waiting for a colleague to show. For communicators, this crisis offers substantial takeaways about the power of social listening and the need for timely accountability.

The USPS responded to President Trump’s executive order by aligning with his frustrations and acknowledging that it has several opportunities to improve. As a case study, this statement provides communicators with a practical, tactical example of how to handle criticism and calls for reform when those calls come from the very top.

Not every communicator has time to study the best technical practices behind creating an effective image, of course, but understanding why certain images engage the eyes more than others requires no advanced study. Having shot news events and concerts for the better part of a decade, PR News’ Justin Joffe shares some common characteristics among his featured images that have garnered the most love, shares and engagement.

PR News’ community on Twitter has been voting for the most overused clichés over the past several weeks—using the hashtag #WordsBracket—through five rounds of brackets. Apparently PR practitioners need a nice long break from hearing the word “engage” but, admittedly, it’ll be hard to find a workable replacement for it.

The organization formerly known as the Arthur W. Page Society—now it’s simply “Page”— hosted its annual Spring Seminar this week at New York City’s Conrad Hotel, bringing together communicators from across the globe for two days of panels, keynotes and breakout sessions that addressed the theme “Are You Future-Proofed? Disruption, Innovation and the CCO.”

We’re down to just two contenders in PR News’ 2018 Most Overused PR Words & Phrases Tournament: “thought leader” and “engage.” PR News’ community on Twitter has been voting for the past several weeks through four rounds of brackets. This time around “thought leader” bested “industry-leading,” and “engage” edged out “elevate.” The shockers of this year’s tournament so far are the relatively early exits of “at the end of the day” and “quite frankly.”