Digital & Technology

While the contributed article has been a part of PR outreach for decades, another related practice has stolen its thunder—self publishing.

By now it’s a mantra for PR executives and social media gurus everywhere. Listen…learn…engage. Certainly no quibbling here with that advice. But while you’re quietly, unobtrusively monitoring Facebook, Twitter, blogs and forums, there’s another strategy you should be thinking about and deploying: creating and sharing compelling content via digital platforms.

Data gathered by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that adults with chronic illnesses spend significantly less time on the Internet, which may influence the decision-making of PR professionals in healthcare.

As social media continues to explode, organizations and PR professionals have been quick to jump on the bandwagon. But one PR function hasn’t been so fast on the draw: financial communications.

Picking the perfect words may not have been as important in the past, but today, keywords are critical to your firm’s digital reputation and whether or not you get found.

It’s safe to say that if an organization hasn’t at least experimented with Twitter by now, it has missed the proverbial boat. Now, three years since the microblogging platform’s launch, PR News speaks with a quartet of social media strategists across nonprofit, B2C, B2B and agency functions to find out how their own Twitter efforts have evolved, and how they are moving their business needle with the tool.

The Hawthorne Effect may be more relevant than ever in the time of social media. But here are a few more lessons that emerge from recent research about communications to engage today’s employees.

A study by Epsilon reveals that influencers can be hard to pinpoint specifically, but they cross gender, age, income levels and channels. The one constant is their tendency to talk about products and events.

A new study from PR executive search and consulting firm Spring Associates reveals that base salaries for both corporate and agency PR professionals decreased by double digits in 2009.

Nielsen Research showed that Bing has made gains among search engines, suggesting it may warrant more attention.