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It’s no secret finding and retaining top public relations talent is one of the biggest challenges for agencies and corporate PR departments. It’s okay to breathe a sigh of relief after landing a plum prospect, but don’t fool yourself: hiring is a big and painstaking step, but it is only the first in many steps for the company and the employee to realize mutual satisfaction and value, and build a long-term relationship.

National days are a great way for brands to engage with not only influencers and fans on a topic, but also to reign in some new faces. Today, for National Doughnut Day (June 7), some brands like Dunkin’ and Krispy Kreme create actionable items to bring consumers through their doors. Others, like the Salvation Army regale us with nostalgia, teaching us about the importance of the origin of the holiday. And there are always those brands with icky content, trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Keeping research a secret is a bad look for Pfizer, especially during a time when a spotlight shines on the Alzheimer’s disease. And upon further reading, it can seem somewhat baffling to have kept the information, which may have proved useful to researchers, from the public. Pfizer now faces a brand crisis in which a large population of those affected by the disease may garner distrust to a company that looks like it kept profits the first priority.

Under the banner of “Bringing Peace, Love & Music Back to the Planet,” Woodstock 50 “will give generations of fans the opportunity to join together in the festival’s foundational intent of harmony and compassion.” After delayed ticket sales, deflection, a bailing investor and a court order, we ask: is this the right way to brand utopia?

Operating with purpose must be the lens through which every business decision is made, argues WE’s global CEO and founder Melissa Waggener Zorkin. While sticking to your values isn’t easy, the consequences of ignoring today’s societal issues are much greater. She offers highlights from recent research about purpose that aim to help communicators and leaders.

If you are following the crisis communications playbook, you know that taking swift, deliberate and public action to right a wrong is enough to not only mitigate a brand’s crisis—it can even flip the narrative and earn that brand new followers. So after singer/songwriter SZA was racially profiled in a store and blasted the brand on social media, Sephora’s declaration that it would shut down operations for an inclusiveness and diversity training today seemed a smart crisis response. So why is the brand declaring its training has nothing to do with the incident?

Digital teams and SEO experts are no longer comprised strictly of data nerds and left-brainers, but include writers and journalists, sociologists, and anyone with a vested interest in better understanding how people search the web. With this trend, it’s also high time to remember that your content is best optimized for search when everyone in your organization embraces SEO from the start—including PR pros.

Your company has had a data breach. No, it’s potentially had a breach. What’s your counsel to the C-suite? Should the brand reveal this information to the public or wait until you have perfect knowledge? These questions are at the crux of the communicator’s dilemma in the age of cybercrime.

Communicators can perform what looks like magic when they win approval from the C-suite. But what looks like magic starts with reading and understanding data, and presenting it in a comprehensive way. Check out the strategic takeaways from our webinar: How to Prove Social Media ROI to the C-Suite

Crisis is going to strike your clients. This is just reality. So not preparing in advance for a crisis means exposing your clients to potential disaster. In an age when bad news and missteps become public and go viral at the speed of social media, it is absolutely essential to have a concrete crisis prevention and response plan in place. Here are four tried-and-true steps to keep your clients’ reputations safe.