Stories by Seth Arenstein

With PR News’ CSR and Nonprofit Awards luncheon coming March 15, we look at two brands taking stands, though they do so with different philosophies and strategies.

A new study from PR News and Crisp, a social media issue detection and crisis monitoring firm, of more than 400 PR executives finds more than half of respondents saying their brands and organizations have current crisis plans. The downside is brands seem slow to react to a situation during off hours and communicators say they lack the resources to respond to a crisis.

A trio of new studies tell you the best time and day to pitch your stories to media, why scalability is a concern with influencers and a common concern among PR’s women and men.

While anecdotal evidence shows many or even most recent PR crises were self-induced and therefore predictable and preventable, more than a few “come out of the blue,” says Emma Monks, head of trust and safety at Crisp, a social media issue detection and crisis monitoring firm. Fortunately, many of the same tactics used in predictable crises are of use in managing unexpected #PR crises, Monks says.

Fake news, aka disinformation, can turn a brand’s good reputation on its head in moments. Fortunately, Google and others are taking steps to combat this scourge. The behemoth search engine outlined its policies and practices to combat disinformation in a 29-page report. Here are takeaways for communicators.

We’re living in an unusual time when a company the world’s richest man owns scraps plans to build a second headquarters in NY and it isn’t the lead news story. Yet there are myriad communications questions surrounding Amazon’s departure from NY, which had become largely a war of communications. Here are a few takeaways.

Since it’s Valentine’s Day, our blogger looks for things to love about PR and marketing. Certainly PR pros like their jobs (we’re unsure if they love them). And the profession can do more better and quicker than ever. Unfortunately, the public sometimes has a tarnished view of PR. It’s time for this to change.

We know newsrooms are shrinking, but what about the media ecosystem? A study from AirPR shows it’s growing. There were more publications in 2018 than in 2017. And the number of articles published also grew last year vs 2017. Journalists on average published 78 percent more articles in 2018, though word counts declined. Most of the growth in publications and articles came from so-called tier 3 publications. These publications might work well for brands.

The game in Atlanta was supposed to be about football. That product, though, was a bit dull. Instead the real action occurred before the game started, between plays and after final gun sounded. The image game was all about PR, words (even when they were censored) and commercials.

The enmity between legal and PR is supposed to be a given, particularly during PR crises. In the first of a series about organization, we find that the digital era has made it important for communicators and lawyers to work in concert.