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Any time you search on Google, more than half of the returned results are links to social profiles. That’s why when you’re trying to increase your brand’s search relevancy online, you should focus your efforts on your social channels as well as your owned sites. Jon Chang, digital marketing director at Kickstarter and a speaker at this week’s Social Shake-Up Show, shares some tips and tricks for improving SEO via social media, primarily to increase your engagement.

Twitter got out in front of its own crisis, emailing its business customers about a bug that stored account passwords, unmasked, in an internal log. The bug left Twitter passwords exposed, and visible, to everyone within the company. Still, its statements raised a few important questions.

As measurement has become increasingly ingrained in the lives of communicators, the question becomes not just how to determine appropriate metrics for your company and collect data around them, but how to present that data in a way that is engaging and actionable. And contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t just mean making a pretty dashboard, but figuring out how to make the data on that dashboard leap off the page.

At its annual F8 Facebook Developers Conference, Facebook announced a number of new features and products, including Instagram group video, more privacy and anti-bullying precautions, language translation for Messenger and—perhaps most buzzed-about—a new online dating service. We asked seven social media experts to give us their impressions of what’s coming next from Facebook.

“We sometimes talk about the fact that a lot is changing in our world,” says Jennifer Dulski, who will be the keynote speaker at PR News’ Social Media Awards luncheon on May 23 in New York. “But there are also some things that really don’t change—human nature, the desire for connection, the desire to make change and make the world better. Technology just makes them easier.”

A cardinal rule of PR is for companies to be as transparent as possible. But how much is that? It depends, of course, but providing almost no transparency when something is afoot can spell trouble. More specifically it can lead to someone telling your story for you. For a few months Nike has refused to be transparent about significant departures from its senior ranks. The NY Times also initially had closed lips about the departure of one of its top editors. Transparency isn’t easy.

With so much noise on social media these days, how can communicators determine which KPIs are the most vital for their organization? The key is to be proactive, and to leverage analytics to identify the most important signals for your brand. There are three basic questions that any communicator can use to create a simple, effective and valuable digital signals tool from scratch so you can react to any trend appropriately.

Our weekly roundup of news, trends and personnel moves in PR and marketing. This week’s stories include tough lessons in transparency for Nike and the NY Times, Southwest gets hit with a lawsuit from a passenger on flight 1380 and nine new partners at rbb Communications.

Most organizations are short on time, money and headcount when it comes to social media. So, when juggling multiple handles, channels and campaigns, it’s paramount that communicators manage their resources effectively and efficiently. Here are three time-saving tips for those working on social media solo.

It’s no surprise that the number of Michelle Wolf’s Twitter followers tripled over the past several days. As far as timely publicity stunts go, putting provocative words to things many are thinking but few are saying is succeeding in both politics and entertainment. For now, that tactic is not an option for brand communicators, who can only watch as their content drowns in a sea of outrage and affirmation.