Stories by Margaret Hoerster and Ameet Sachdev, Finn Partners

As we know, brands must stand for something beyond the products and services they offer. This means they can no longer remain silent in the face of an attack. They also need to admit when they make mistakes. Margaret Hoerster, a senior partner at Finn Partners, and Ameet Sachdev, a VP at the firm, argue timing, messaging and relevance play important roles when brands decide they should address an issue publicly.

Each month we’ll be asking communicators to unload their toolkits and tell us what falls out. In other words, What do you use to do your job? There’s no better duo to begin this feature than Manu Muraro, founder of Your Social Team, and Danielle Brigida, national social media manager, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We asked them what tools they use to bolster their Instagram feeds.

David Leonhardt of The New York Times called out himself and fellow journalists for failing to include enough women as sources in articles. How can communicators, who often are the journalist’s conduit to expert sources, turn around this situation? Dina Burns and Patrick George, directors at KP Public Affairs, offer suggestions.

We asked PRSA chief Anthony D’Angelo to provide his vision about what PR should be doing to boost its image as an ethical profession. This column is his response.

Last week we examined the top 10 U.S. B2C brands’ social activity in Q1 2018. Generating 2.1 billion consumer engagements across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, B2C’s grew their consumer engagement 4%

What’s in a Name? Is it fair to call the fatal accident that occurred aboard Southwest Airlines flight 1380 last week a PR crisis? Was what happened at a Philadelphia Starbucks April 12 a PR crisis

GDPR has nothing to do with GDP, although some portion of gross domestic product may be needed to reach GDPR compliance. Seriously, a new study shows most firms are not ready for Europe’s GDPR regime, which comes into effect next month.

Trust, thy name is not Facebook. Go, ahead, Google it. But is Google a trusted source? Joking aside, Facebook is not the sole tech brand with a trust deficit. Put Google in that category, based on a new Gallup

As we say in This Week in PR , you could look at the Starbucks situation in several ways: for a brand with such a progressive stance on diversity and inclusion, it didn’t deserve to get blasted the way it

How many ways can data show it? Facebook is the social platform of choice for those older than 18. PiperJaffray found another way to express this thought. It asked U.S. teens to name their favorite social platform. Just 9% of them responded that it was Facebook. Nearly 50% said Snapchat was at the top of their lists.