Social Media & SEO

Scarlett Johansson’s in hot water for accepting the role of a transgender character in the upcoming film “Rub & Tug.” Critics on social media and elsewhere contend the role should have gone to a transgender actor. The water temperature rose considerably after Johansson issued a curt reply to critics. Traditional PR recommends a more apologetic approach. Will Johansson’s rejoinder work?

Now that Instagram has surpassed its billion-user mark, competition for attention on the platform is heating up. Instagram content must be positioned even more strategically in order to cut through the din.

Casie Shimansky, social media manager at the technology company’s talent recruitment brand @WeAreCisco, notes that Instagram’s growth has her team of two constantly testing their approach to content.

Each month we ask communicators to unload their toolkits and tell us what falls out. In other words, What do you use to do your job? There are few better to talk about Facebook marketing than Ryder Meehan, principal & strategist, Meehan Digital, and a former social marketer at Fossil and Samsung, among others, and James Nickerson, lead instructor, digital marketing at General Assembly.

In our regular feature that looks at presentations, we present slides that offer suggestions on how to pitch media using social media. The thing is, don’t use social media to pitch. On the other hand, it can be very useful to research your targeted reporters and build relationships with them.

It’s the early days for Instagram’s IGTV, a mobile-first, YouTube-esq social experience that will facilitate longer, vertical videos. It also will let brands get closer to audiences and allow people to discover them. Bell’s social media manager David Wolpert offers three ways communicators can work with IGTV to tell their brand’s stories.

This month, talk of Instagram’s bold new features has been everywhere. On June 20, the platform announced it has surpassed 1 billion active monthly users. One week later, Instagram now launches three features that were teased at Facebook’s F8 event.

Now that Instagram considers everyone to be a creator on IGTV, we all can learn from the numerous ways that brands are crushing it with their photos and videos on the platform this summer. While brands aren’t exactly pumping out the summer fun on IGTV just yet, here are three examples of brands that have perfectly captured summer elsewhere on the platform.

Brands need to understand that a Facebook Live audience will be joining cold and that they are most likely going to be distracted. “Many brands have interpreted Facebook Live as being like TV and have taken a chat show approach to it,” says FleishmanHillard’s Chris Jackson. “Facebook Live and TV could not be more different.”

Just three days in, the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity’s increased emphasis on influencers and creators can be felt everywhere. Cannes has made no secret of restructuring its nine staple awards, removing more than 100 subcategories. It also added categories, the net effect of which is an increased focus on the power of influencer-led storytelling. Following suit with the restructuring, two massive social platforms unveiled timely tools for advertisers and influencers.

Influencer marketing has become a key part of many communication strategies. But there’s a lot to consider to achieve the desired result. At PR News’ upcoming Social Media Summit in San Francisco, Logitech’s Krista Todd will provide some insights from the front lines in “Influencer Marketing: Activating Macro and Micro Influencers for Maximum Effect.” Here’s a sneak peek of some key session talking points.