Stories by Seth Arenstein

Internal communications is hard. So is change. There may be few things more difficult for communicators than to explain changes to employees. We asked 13 PR pros for their best practices in handling this delicate form of communications.

It’s so tempting. There’s a large media list at the ready. All one needs to do is craft a compelling narrative, attach it to the media list, hit send and wait for journalists to call. It’s the digital age, after all. Why not deploy the eponymous technology and send out hundreds of pitches with the click of a mouse? If it only was that easy.

Is there an industry that’s changed more lately or received more attacks than media? With this background PR News surveyed more than 400 communicators about their views of media relations in this uncertain environment and beyond. In short, communicators believe media relations will continue to be an important part of PR, but to be successful they’ll need to adapt to how it has changed. It is unclear they’re prepared to do so.

A trend in PR and marketing is the growing overlap between the two. In some companies the same person heads PR and marketing, although such an arrangement does not guarantee staff in those departments work closely together. With this background we asked 11 brand communicators and senior agency executives how they differentiate their marketing and PR efforts.

ABC’s cancellation of “Roseanne” seems to be a case where a brand takes a moral stand on an issue, in this case racism. Bad behavior is bad business, right? A deeper look at the situation reveals a calculation about corporate reputation and how that influences a brand’s future earning potential. It now falls to the company’s communicators to explain away the issues.

Elon Musk and Bill Gates have roughly the same number of social followers and posted nearly the same amount of content in Q1 2018. Yet each of Musk’s posts generated an incredible 266,000 consumer engagements, propelling him to the top of the quarter’s Business influencers’ list. Gates’ posts did well, at about 18,000 consumer engagements each.

What data do consumers value most? Another way of asking that question: What pieces of information about themselves are consumers least concerned about sharing with brands? A survey provides some surprising answers.

Hardly anyone is suggesting abandoning the internet, though it’s probably not a bad thing for communicators and marketers, whose professional lives often revolve around digital communications, to appreciate a declining number of people see the internet as a good thing for society. The findings of a Pew poll might be more marked had it been conducted after Facebook-Cambridge Analytica come to light.

Communicators know even a few words can move markets. A great example is what’s happening surrounding President Trump’s promise to have the Commerce Department investigate whether or not imported cars and parts are doing structural harm to the U.S. auto industry. Should Commerce rule that they are, the president could slap significant tariffs on imported autos. Until that decision is made, uncertainty will reign and auto industry communicators will be in the hot seat.

What is the best way for communicators to report up to the C-suite? For Nisha Morris, executive director for communication at Providence St. Joseph Health, the foundation for such work is based on communicators gaining the trust of the C-suite. She offers insights that have helped her and her team do so.