Stories by Seth Arenstein

The holiday season is here and many are making merry away from their desks. Yet social engagement doesn’t end, not even on Christmas, says Emma Monks, Crisp’s head of trust and safety. In fact, more social messages are sent to retailers during the holidays than at any other time. Here are a few ways brands can mind their social channels and reduce risk during the holidays.

It’s hard to attract the attention of a mass-media journalist at a time when most of the media is absorbed with covering gossipy daily distraction stories, two top-flight D.C. reporters told PR News’ Media Relations conference December 6. Still, there are ways to pitch substantive stories to journalists, including finding a person to profile who’s been touched by a policy decision.

You want to create a YouTube channel for your brand, or just get started on populating your site with videos that explain your narrative. But where do you start? One method is known as Hub, Hero and Help, which allows you to do more than create one-off videos, instead it offers a relatively quick way to think about building a video strategy.

Ada Hegerberg, a 23-year-old Norwegian striker who plays for France’s Lyon side, had just received the annual award for best player in the world. She made sure to thank her teammates, coach, team president and France Football. But the historic evening became awkward when the man who presented the award, theFrench DJ and producer Martin Solveig, asked Hegerberg, in French, if she could twerk to celebrate.

A look at Google searches for several marketing-related PR terms shows social media marketing leading the way. Another trend is the disappointing showing for employee communications. Media relations, as could be expected, is very low in terms in the number of searches being conducted on Google. U.S. vs global searches yield some interesting differences.

In each edition of PR News we highlight takeaways from select articles as well as important additions to the PR News Resources Center, which is available only to paid subscribers. This edition also includes a note about our upcoming subscriber call (Dec. 12 with crisis guru Kevin Elliott of Hill + Knowlton Strategies) and the PR News Crisis Summit in Miami Beach.

A sobering thought as we enter 2019–most Fortune 1000 executives don’t have confidence in their company’s ability to respond well to disruption or change. APCO Worldwide’s research of 527 of these executives lead it to join forces with three other PR consultancies to help companies become more agile. They believe agile and curious firms are better able to respond to change.

Communicators are well aware of the benefits an influencer and influencer marketing can have for brands and organizations. Unfortunately sometimes the positives an influencer brings blind us to the need to carefully assess the potential risks involved with employing influencers. In this first of a multi-part, sponsored series, executives from Crisp, a content risk firm, discuss the importance of risk assessment when dealing with influencers.

One of the maxims of employee communications is to avoid announcing job cuts or restructuring during the holiday season. General Motors ignored that norm with its announcement yesterday. Here are six other takeaways for communicators from GM’s announcement.

It’s unclear how accurate the NY Times’ account of how Facebook responded to two PR crises is; Facebook says it contains many inaccuracies. The Times says it stands behind its 5,600-word story that took more than one month to craft. As a case study for students and practitioners of PR, however, it’s loaded with important lessons.