Stories by Sophie Maerowitz

Winner: Irwin Gail Consumer Communications – Badger & Winters #WomenNotObjects #WomenNotObjects is a women’s advocacy campaign that sought to shake up the way the advertising industry portrays women. The campaign was the brainchild of ad industry… Continued

If you’re a brand communicator, you’re not likely to wade into politically hot waters, but in this incendiary cultural moment any topic can inflame certain groups of people—or the government. The Amy Goodman case in particular demonstrates the increasing power and inherent dangers of live streaming and the seriousness with which government authorities are approaching the medium.

Samsung officially stopped production on its Galaxy Note7 smartphones on Oct. 11, following an earlier recall of the product and months of increasing scrutiny from the media, its customers and investors for a malfunction that caused the phones to dangerously overheat. Here are three ways the electronics giant has executed its crisis messaging amidst the allegations facing it.

Good news for the communicator who relies heavily on metrics, but is often short on time: Google has announced an update that’s designed to make the Google Analytics interface a lot simpler to navigate. Here are the key features that may make it easier for you to respond to requests for metrics in record time.

If your brand is on Twitter, it (literally) pays to respond quickly and consistently to followers’ tweets. A recent survey conducted by Twitter in partnership with Applied Marketing Science (AMS) found that brands that respond quickly to customer queries on Twitter see increased revenue and brand loyalty, while waiting too long to respond can cause major drops in potential sales.

At the beginning of September, the White House announced South By South Lawn (SXSL), an innovation-themed event slated for Oct. 3 produced in tandem with—and based on—the iconic South by Southwest (SXSW) music, technology and film festival. The timing of the announcement gave SXSL planners only a month of lead time to build buzz and encourage audiences nationwide to tune in for the live stream, which garnered hundreds of thousands of live viewers.

Twitter’s live streaming platform Periscope has unveiled a three-tiered VIP Program, in which users with a sizable Periscope following can apply to receive benefits including increased visibility and discoverability, a direct line to Periscope staff and a private channel for networking with other VIPs. The program is divided into three tiers (Bronze, Silver and Gold) based on number of followers, average number of stream viewers and streaming frequency.

There’s no surefire way to win media coverage for your brand, but strategic timing can help you avoid wasting hours of research and writing pitches that are routinely ignored by journalists. It pays to resist the pressure from senior leaders or clients to send that pitch right now and instead be a part of the news cycle’s ebb and flow.

Yahoo Inc. announced on its official Tumblr and Twitter accounts that it had confirmed a hack from late 2014 that copied information, including account passwords, security questions and answers, from 500 million user accounts. The announcement comes after a challenging several months for the tech giant, which Verizon agreed to acquire in July 2016 for $4.8 billion.

Communicators know Snapchat is a powerful tool for audience engagement, but that means nothing if they’re dealing with a skeptical C-suite. Limited metrics, doubts about the platform’s staying power and a reluctance to stretch lean social media budgets further are just a few of the arguments communicators might encounter when proposing a Snapchat channel launch.