Premium Content

We surveyed more than 200 senior PR professionals to find out how they are coping with coronavirus, what changes they are making (or not) in their communications internally and externally. Some of their answers surprised us.

Next in our series of interviews with senior communicators we speak with Julie O’Donnell, who last month was named EVP/global head of digital at health communications and PR firm Evoke. We asked her what she sees communicators doing well or badly in this moment with their digital communications.

Flat organizations can be great. They are cost efficient, and enable fast communication and quick decision-making. On the other hand, a flat organization can become an issue during a crisis, argues Kevin Elliott, SVP, Hill + Knowlton Strategies. His advice is to become hierarchical when a crisis occurs.

Data breach. In this ever-connected world, those words conjure fear, and rightly so. Click on an innocent-looking email, webpage URL or attachment, and the next thing you know, someone has access to your email

The advent of attribution analysis for earned media means that PR practitioners can answer one of the profession’s most elusive PR-ROI questions: How and to what degree does PR generate sales? The question now is what comes next?

Our regular look at data features exclusive figures from Shareablee about the most-active nonprofits for the first months of 2020. Overall, nonprofits enjoyed a slight jump in consumer engagement with their social posts, though engagement was off on Instagram and Twitter.

PR pros continue to consider earned media a valuable tool, according to a snap survey of 150 communicators. On the other hand, a majority say gaining media coverage is harder than ever. Perhaps as a result, 90 percent of those surveyed told us they spend very little time pitching and developing relationships with media.

Measurement guru Katie Paine compares China’s cover-up of the coronavirus and the Houston Astros’ long delay before admitting guilt in the sign-stealing scandal. Neither entity helped its reputation when it chose to ignore a crisis. Prompt response and owning your mistakes still makes the most sense.

As measurement of communications becomes more mature, vendors are scrambling to add capabilities to their platforms. We talk to two vendors about this and all things measurement, including the future of measurement and AI’s role in it.

A decade ago there were fewer than one billion social network users. Last month, that number was 5.2 billion. And their expectations and the number of platforms they use are rising. One expectation is that they can shop instantly from any piece of content. Hence, the rise of shoppable posts, blending e-commerce and content. PR has a large role to play in this trend.