Stories by Samantha Wood

The infrastructure renewal plan for New York’s Penn Station could’ve been a PR nightmare for Amtrak, which owns the station. But after the work was completed and service resumed as usual in early September, commuters seemed to come through the other side unscathed. Amtrak’s communications team can claim some of the credit for that success.

The role of a communications pro has drastically changed. Now, all communications strategies need to be integrated with a mix of paid, earned, social/shared and owned media. We recently talked to Anna Ruth Williams, founder and CEO of ARPR—who will be speaking about PESO at the upcoming PR News Media Relations Conference— about how smaller brands with a communications “team” of just one person can optimize every letter of PESO to effectively spread their message.

Each year, PR News’ Digital PR Awards recognize the year’s top digital communicators and campaigns in a variety of media such as video, website design, mobile apps and more. We announced the winners and honored all of the finalists for the Digital PR Awards at our luncheon Nov. 8 at the Yale Club in New York City.

Juli Briskman, who worked in marketing and communications, was fired from Akima LLC for using the photo of her flipping-off President Trump’s motorcade as her profile photo. While we don’t know Akima’s exact social media policy, many companies have taken similar actions—in the eyes of employers, an employee’s personal social media pages reflect on a company.

When Papa John’s blamed its declining sales on the issue of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, many found the correlation hard to believe. DiGiorno Pizza saw the opportunity to call them out for it on Twitter and did not hold back, while Pizza Hut subtly thrust itself into the spotlight.

Therese Van Ryne, head of global PR and the global customer reference program at Zebra Technologies, shares five key questions that a PR or marketing pro needs to ask before setting up a dashboard that effectively evaluates your campaign performance or share of voice.

PR measurement may seem like a huge undertaking and many PR pros might not consider themselves data scientists. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find meaningful correlations in your PR data. Take it from Katie Delahaye Paine, also known as The Measurement Queen, who has been a pioneer in the field for more than two decades.

In the eight days since actress Alyssa Milano’s original tweet, the #MeToo movement has brought to light the presence of sexual harassment and assault in many industries and there seems to be no end in sight. With the issue affecting so many women, it’s hard to know which industries or companies will be highlighted next or if any will remain untouched.

Now is the time to have a serious discussion about PR measurement and how we can advance the profession by throwing away old models and embracing the new. So says Andrew Bowins, an executive director at KPMG and a PR News Measurement Hall of Famer. By moving away from vanity metrics and into reliable insights—by “living at the intersection of big data and digital storytelling”—PR pros can elevate the conversation with the C-suite.

Social media has opened a new frontier in customer service, allowing communicators to find and respond directly to customers in real time. But it has also made customer service something of a spectator sport. Speaking at PR News’ Digital PR & Marketing Summit in Miami, Brandi Boatner, social & influencer communications lead at IBM, shared a few critical questions to ask to determine whether social customer care is right for your brand.