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We’re down to just two contenders in PR News’ 2018 Most Overused PR Words & Phrases Tournament: “thought leader” and “engage.” PR News’ community on Twitter has been voting for the past several weeks through four rounds of brackets. This time around “thought leader” bested “industry-leading,” and “engage” edged out “elevate.” The shockers of this year’s tournament so far are the relatively early exits of “at the end of the day” and “quite frankly.”

PR News’ recently published Influencer Marketing Guidebook details the power of nano-influencers who are not traditional internet personalities but still wield influence online. And though these are average people who may be against using conventional marketing tactics in their internet communities, businesses can still find ways to work with nano-influencers without overstepping bounds. Here are five ways brands can leverage their nano-influencers.

Several early media reports about yesterday’s awful shooting at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, CA, linked the alleged shooter’s actions to YouTube policies on monetization of videos and prohibiting gun-related content. In reality the shooter likely was mentally disturbed as there can be no justification for shooting at innocent people. What can brand communicators learn from this incident?

More organizations are increasing their social media marketing dollars—though it remains a small part of the overall budget—while LinkedIn has become a more important part of the marketing mix, according to a recent survey conducted by the Social Shake-Up Show.

Snapchat has released two new features, one that allows users to video chat with up to 16 friends and another that provides the option to tag users in Stories. While Instagram already offers the latter feature, Snapchat has beat its chief rival to the video chat space…at least for now. One thing’s for sure: This arms race is far from over.

Our weekly roundup of news, trends and personnel moves in the world of communications and marketing. This week’s stories feature Weber Shandwick’s price for its work in the Michigan State U.-Larry Nassar situation, two PR pros tell us how to approach the data-savvy newsroom and Showtime Networks get a new SVP for entertainment publicity.

April Fools’ Day saw brands execute countless pranks on their (mostly) unsuspecting audiences. Embedded in these pranks are numerous lessons in good humor and bad taste, reminding communicators that it’s OK to be funny…just so long as the jokes land. Here are some notable examples.

The U.S. public is feeling empowered to use social media to document or talk about a company’s wrong doing. The latest target seems to be Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham, whose taunting of a Parkland student on Twitter sent one dozen brands fleeing from her show. A question for brand communicators: How do you protect your company’s reputation in this fast-moving name and shame environment? APCO’s Katie Sprehe has several suggestions.

Following a data breach by an unknown party in February, Under Armour—MyFitnessPal’s parent company—released an email on March 29 notifying users of the incident. In the email, Under Armour explained that the hack was initially discovered on March 25, and “the affected information included usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords—the majority with the hashing function called bcrypt used to secure passwords.”

PR News’ just-launched Data Dynamos program will shine a spotlight on under-the-radar communicators who are excelling at using data to craft new or refine existing initiatives. We present here the initial class of Data Dynamos, who will be celebrated during a luncheon ceremony at PR News’ 2018 Measurement Conference (April 17-18 in Philadelphia).