Stories by Chris Seymour

With continuous pressure on journalists to produce clickbait, PR pros may feel that providing sensational content is the only way to get a reporter’s attention. That’s not entirely true, says Nisha Morris, executive director, communication, for Providence St. Joseph Health, but there are some essentials to keep in mind.

Lou Williams was one of the leading advocates for having public relations research, measurement and evaluation focus on the outcomes of PR campaigns rather than message outputs. Through speeches, workshops and seminars, he did his best to help make PR measurement and evaluation more meaningful. He once scolded judges of several of the industry’s major awards competitions for not being critical enough while assessing research and measurement.

As all communications professionals know, technology, consumer behavior and content consumption are constantly evolving. So, as the year winds down, we reached out to eight friends of PR News to hear their thoughts on the skills and trends that will define communications success in 2018, from media relations to digital marketing to social engagement.

In our regular feature How I Got Here, we ask PR and marketing leaders to tell us about their influences, the best advice they’ve received and trends they’ve observed and how they’re reacting to them. This week we speak with Dan Mazei, senior director of the global newsroom at Reebok.

In this week’s Data Dive we see that Instagram again has topped Facebook in consumer engagement. This time it’s for B2C brands in the third quarter. The Shareablee data is supplied to PR News exclusively.

Your nightmare has come true, except this time you didn’t show up to school naked. Instead, your company tweeted out something that was wrong, worse than wrong, bad, and worse than that—the whole world decided to notice. So, what do you do when your brand totally screws up in public? Here are six ways to help you wake up from the nightmare.

Say what you will about the latest social platforms, email continues to be the old reliable when it comes to marketing. Email yielded a median ROI of 122%—more than four times higher than other marketing formats, including social media, direct mail and paid search—per a 2016 US marketers survey. On the other hand, most peoples’ inboxes are more crowded than a subway train during rush hour. The challenge is breaking through the noise. We provide three tips to help your marketing email rise above the din.

Signs of change and tradition made for an eclectic pastiche as PRSA celebrated its 70th anniversary during the group’s International Conference in Boston, which began Sunday.

Our weekly roundup of trends, news and personnel moves in PR, marketing and communications. This week’s stories include Cam Newton’s apology, Jemele Hill’s suspension and kudos to Brandi Boatner on her promotion at IBM.

It was much ado about nothing when PRSA’s board debated amending its bylaws to include the word “communicator” as opposed to just “PR practitioner.” The incoming PRSA chairman scotched the argument and said not one CEO is interested in it.