Digital & Technology

To some, it might seem quaint to divide PR into digital and traditional PR. Still, plenty of job titles and org charts include the words “digital PR.” As such, we offer three tips about elements that need to be included in successful digital PR campaigns.

While keeping up-to-date with digital communications jargon might be at the bottom of your to-do list, it never hurts to be aware of the shorthand metrics your colleagues working in sales and marketing use in emails and meetings. Test yourself on your acronym knowledge in our handy quiz.

On first glance, someone who proposes we reduce our use of digital devices might seem out of place as a guest speaker at last week’s PRNEWS Digital Awards breakfast. In the end, though, digital sociologist Dr. Julie Albright offered useful insights for PR pros as they approach the challenge of communicating in a digitally altered society.

And while the digital plane constantly evolves, the high standards to which creative messaging resonates on a technological level, does not. The 2019 Digital Awards brought out the best in the business, honoring winners that speak on a global level. PRNEWS hosted the breakfast event on Oct. 18 at New York City’s storied Yale Club, set in the heart of Manhattan.

You think it’s too early to begin preparing for Halloween? What a ghostly thought. In fact, Halloween is a wonderful time to dig up some fun for your brand and its followers. Accordingly, here are three scary tips for injecting some excitement into your brand on October 31 that even the devil will find thrilling.

As digital devices lead us to unhook from traditional aspects of the American Dream, we now live in what Dr. Julie Albright calls the untethered society. Dr. Albright, the keynote speaker at our upcoming Digital PR Awards breakfast, notes, however, there are consequences. More and more data is generated. The data can help develop computerized behavioral models to persuade or even manipulate audiences based upon their likes, fears, and psychological profiles.

The public needs to know about the downsides of technology, of course. But it seems the media covers few technology stories that lack a bad actor or two. In this environment, it’s up to technology companies to communicate to the public that they can do the right thing, argues Alison McNally, FleishmanHillard’s tech sector lead for N. America.

Data integrity and privacy issues are ubiquitous, yet so few firms are addressing them. We asked Dan Linton, the newly minted lead of the global data privacy unit at W20 Group, what PR pros should be doing on data protection and data privacy.

The global vice chair of Hill+Knowlton Strategies, Peter Zandan, PhD, argues that communicators must self-police themselves or risk the weaponizing of communications.

During Advertising Week New York, a panel that included Anna Bassi of The Week Junior, Dylan Collins, chief executive officer of SuperAwesome—the company leading the charge to make the internet safer for kids—and Dr. Alda Uhls, founder and executive director of the UCLA Center for Scholars & Storytellers, spoke to the differences in emerging generations and the importance of social impact-driven messaging.