Our weekly roundup of trends and personnel moves. Featured this week is a story about regulating influencers and involving the Kardashians. In addition the heads of PRSA and The Arthur W. Page Center blast alternative facts and fake news.
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Hootsuite Led U.S. B2B Brands in Twitter Engagement in Q3 2016
January 23rd, 2017 by Seth ArensteinThere will be no fake news here.
We’d like to say we and our data partner Shareablee timed the chart (below), which shows the top 30 most-engaged B2B brands on Twitter, to coincide with the start of the presidency of Donald Trump, a tremendous fan of Twitter. In fact, one of the first stories to emerge from the White House after President Trump’s inauguration was that the new president assumed Barack Obama’s @POTUS Twitter handle at 12:01pm ET on Inauguration Day.
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The Rush to New Platforms Is Over, Write and Pitch Better in 2017
January 16th, 2017 by Michael SmartMy take on the new year is different in its emphasis: 2017 will be when we realize that the land rush associated with new channels and platforms is over, and we no longer have excuses for not focusing on the key elements that drove PR for the century before digital media: quality and credibility. Yes, we’re at the tail end of a few years’ window when you could get ahead simply by posting more frequently to your brand journalism site than the laggards. Google rewarded sheer quantity. And you could get a bunch of free followers by jumping onto Facebook before your competitors, and then Twitter, and to some extent Instagram. This channel-hopping seemed like the new normal. But in the grand scheme of the history of marketing, it will be viewed as an outlier on the front end of the digital revolution, where fundamental rules got bent for a while.
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What Communicators Should Know About ESG
January 16th, 2017 by Mary BuhayAs public companies prepare annual reports, corporate communicators and investor relations also need to consider how their business narratives will change in response to the growing demand from institutional investors for disclosure about environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.
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Sneak Peek at Plank-IPR Study: 83% of Millennials, 48% of Managers Passionate About Work in PR
January 16th, 2017 by Seth ArensteinSometimes it seems hopeless: Millennials on your team have different attitudes about work and rewards than you, the slightly older professional who manages them. What are these differences? Do gender and years on the job influence these attitudes? And likely you’re thinking about the bottom line: Can answering these questions help your communications team and the company you work for modify culture and processes to better nurture and retain millennial talent? Can you adopt best practices to appeal to millennials who’ll be entering the workforce in the future? The issues are far from academic: Millennials comprise 35% of today’s workforce, and are its largest generation. In addition, they’ll be leaders in PR and communications for the next three to four decades.
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How Steinway & Sons Tuned Into Its Audience With Facebook Live
January 16th, 2017 by Anthony GilroyThe Trend: In the first half of 2016, Facebook introduced live streaming, aka Facebook Live, allowing brands and individuals to reach out to their followers in an instant and very visual way. While this wasn’t the first time live streaming was available on social media, the huge audience and demographic reach of Facebook made its foray into this space instantly relevant. Facebook took steps to ensure the adoption of this new feature by letting every follower of every page/individual know when one of the people/brands they follow was live streaming. This makes your potential reach enormous.
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How Big Brands Are Using Facebook Live to Build Their Audiences on a Modest Budget
January 16th, 2017 by Seth ArensteinTake a glance at various data firms and news outlets that track communications and marketing trends. If there’s one that failed to mention Facebook Live (FBL) as among the top communications trends of 2016 we’d be surprised. We include ourselves in this, with IBM Global Technology Services’ digital experience manager Brandi Boatner saying in these pages last week that FBL had just gotten started last year and predicting it will be far bigger in 2017.
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The Week in PR
January 16th, 2017 by Seth ArensteinOur weekly roundup of trends, news and personnel moves in PR. This week we feature stories about LEVICK acquiring Chase as well as news about the Volkswagen diesel issue.
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PETA Uses Black-and-White Photo to Edge Oceana &Top Nonprofits on Instagram in Q3 ’16
January 9th, 2017 by Seth ArensteinWhile overconfidence has ruined the best of brands, teams and people, sometimes you just have to admit: When you’ve got it, you’ve got it. That’s the case with PETA’s prowess on social media, according to data Shareablee provided exclusively to PRNews Pro.
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PR News Pro/Nasdaq Survey: Influencers Abound, But Brands Still Need Help Managing Them
January 9th, 2017 by Seth ArensteinThe tactic of using influencers to deliver messages that will drive consumer action has matured to the point that it’s become an accepted practice in most of the marketplace. Yet finding and working with influencers is far more complex than it appears at first glance. A Nasdaq Corporate Solutions/PR News Pro survey underlines these points.