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If you listen to podcasts in which Hollywood actors and directors are interviewed you’ll often hear the statement, “I love telling stories.” Storytelling is presented as a calling and given a spiritual sheen. Entertainment, by contrast, is crass. You’ll often hear the same phrase from PR practitioners—that they “love telling stories” and that storytelling is at the core of everything they do.

With a new marketing agency, PR practice or digital communications firm seemingly opening up shop by the minute, sometimes even the top performing communications organizations can get lost in the shuffle.

That’s why PR News celebrates the cream of the agency crop each year with its Agency Elite Awards. The Agency Elite Awards benchmark the communications and marketing firms that, over the last year, truly stood out for their creativity, strategic expertise and achievement of successful outcomes for clients.

Google Analytics is one of the most accessible measurement tools out there today, due in large part to the fact that it’s free to use for anyone with a website and a Google account. But chances are you’re not using it as efficiently as possible to glean important insights from your communications efforts. Paul Headley, director of digital strategy and analytics at ZOG Digital, explains that Google Analytics is more customizable than many people understand, and if used properly it can show you the insights you need without the noise of unimportant data to you and your team.

There is much talk about how jobs and the economy will fare as a result of the continuing advance of AI and automation. As communicators, though, we should also be looking at AI’s impact on reputation and the role PR will play in educating the public about critical issues related to AI, argues Sophie Scott, global managing director of FleishmanHillard’s technology sector practice.

At PR News’ annual Platinum & Agency Elite Awards luncheon—which this year will be held Sept. 21 at the Grand Hyatt in New York City—hundreds of communications professionals gather to celebrate the top communications and marketing campaigns of the last year, as well as the PR and marketing professionals behind the strategy and execution of those initiatives. This year’s Platinum & Agency Elite Awards luncheon will be hosted by ESPN’s Hannah Storm.

Facebook didn’t lose a cow today, it lost nearly all of McDonald’s. The question for communicators, though, is whether or not this is the right time to abandon the platform as a marketing and communications vehicle. It is if you believe Facebook is irreparably damaged and millions of users will depart abruptly. Of course, Facebook could shed several million users gradually and remain the dominant social network.

As the PR industry looks forward into the next few years, PR pros are being advised to move away from old-school metrics like ad-value equivalencies (AVEs) and impressions. But what should communicators focus on instead? According to Renee Spurlin, vice president of analytics and digital marketing at ARPR, personas and customer journey mapping are the metrics of the future, and all PR goals should be in alignment with them.

PayPal’s director of global corporate communications Amanda Miller cautions the next generation of PR professionals to realize that visuals, owned media and social are just a piece in an ecosystem that should include earned media, too.

PR News’ just-released 2018 Graduate Education Guide for Communicators looks at the career benefits of pursuing a master’s degree in communications and how it can be a differentiator in the talent marketplace.

It’s easy to see why some members of the public view PR with disdain. Plenty of stories featuring unethical PR practitioners have clouded the public’s mind. While the majority of PR pros are ethical, this, ironically, might be an issue. The ethical PR pros we deal with daily have inured us to the sometimes-unsavory image of PR. A trio of communicators argues it’s important to constantly emphasize the truth in PR.