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Each month we ask communicators to turn over their toolkits and tell us what falls out. In other words, What tools and technologies are you using to do your job? We know few better to talk to about digital tools than than Michael Lamp, SVP, social & digital media at Hunter Public Relations and Brooks Wallace, the West Coast lead at Hollywood Agency.

It’s difficult to create a corporate culture. It might be harder to re-shape an established culture. This is what Whitney Drake, communications story bureau & analytics lead, General Motors, and Phil Musser, Boeing’s CCO and SVP of communications, are doing as they move their brands to embrace measurement and analytics. Recently they shared some experiences with PR News.

In each edition of PR News we highlight takeaways from select articles as well as additions to the PR News Resources Center, available to subscribers only. This edition highlights a new report from Yum! Brands and a short but terrific template for editorial submissions.

With July 4 upon us it means summer vacation season also has arrived. The question, though, is whether or not communicators, who are responsible for safeguarding the reputation of brands, can ever truly be off the clock. We look at surveys about vacations and being able to log out from your PR job. Another topic surveyed is attitudes on branded content.

Often organizations try too hard to either capitalize on hot news topics or avoid them altogether. Neither strategy is particularly effective. Our resident crisis and measurement guru Katie Paine takes a look at Burger King’s whopping disasters overseas and how the EPA’s attempts at staying out of the headlines have backfired royally.

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.

In each edition of PR News we highlight takeaways from an article or articles as well as additions to the PR News Resource Center, which is available only to subscribers at https://www.prnewsonline.com/subscriber-resources/

Right or wrong, many executives think the only media that matters is the Wall St. Journal and the NY Times. OK, so how do PR pros get their brands a mention in one of those papers? We turn to someone who’s climbed that mountain. Frederik Bjørndal, who heads media for N. America and Europe for Novozymes, a bio-solutions firm, provides a checklist for getting your pitches read and covered.

A trend in PR and marketing is the growing overlap between the two. In some companies the same person heads PR and marketing, although such an arrangement does not guarantee staff in those departments work closely together. With this background we asked 11 brand communicators and senior agency executives how they differentiate their marketing and PR efforts.

Each month we’ll be asking communicators to unload their toolkits and tell us what falls out. In other words, What do you use to do your job? There’s no better duo to begin this feature than Manu Muraro, founder of Your Social Team, and Danielle Brigida, national social media manager, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We asked them what tools they use to bolster their Instagram feeds.