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Twitter is inviting users in the U.S., the U.K. and Japan to participate in its new program, Promote Mode. The program automatically promotes all tweets for $99 a month. What the social platform isn’t saying is that with this new program, Twitter, like Facebook, sees itself primarily as an ad platform. Allowing users to automate the promotion process—making every paid tweet count more than one without dollars behind it—means Twitter is further distancing itself from its organic roots.

Over the weekend, four brands announced they would not advertise on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, but none felt the backlash quite like Keurig, as videos of people smashing its machines lit up Twitter. The violent response underscores the tricky situation brands are in when caught in the crossfire of a politically charged controversy. Keurig first faced backlash for its inaction. When it took a stand, it faced another angry wave of protests.

The role of a communications pro has drastically changed. Now, all communications strategies need to be integrated with a mix of paid, earned, social/shared and owned media. We recently talked to Anna Ruth Williams, founder and CEO of ARPR—who will be speaking about PESO at the upcoming PR News Media Relations Conference— about how smaller brands with a communications “team” of just one person can optimize every letter of PESO to effectively spread their message.

As any PR professional knows, reputation is everything. And if anyone still doubts that, the #MeToo movement has arrived to awaken us all. At this very moment the reputations of comedian Louis C.K. and Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore are in free fall as a result of news coverage of their alleged sexual misconduct.

At PR News’ Measurement Boot Camp in New York on Nov. 9, 2017, Shilpa Mehta, principal analytical lead, Google, discussed three common sins of “dashboarding”—these are missteps that would indicate the problems you’re having have less to do with built-in C-suite skepticism and more to do with your dashboards, despite your laser focus on meeting business challenges.

A true PR pioneer, co-founder of Ruder Finn (in 1948), member of PR News’ Hall of Fame, artist, writer and philanthropist, David Finn turned 96 years young recently. Ruder Finn’s head of storytelling, Rachel Spielman, offers lessons about PR and life that she’s learned from Finn, who, despite being a busy industry giant, was always willing to listen to a variety of voices.

Each year, PR News’ Digital PR Awards recognize the year’s top digital communicators and campaigns in a variety of media such as video, website design, mobile apps and more. We announced the winners and honored all of the finalists for the Digital PR Awards at our luncheon Nov. 8 at the Yale Club in New York City.

With President Trump inserting his new-media channel of choice, Twitter, into global media almost on a daily basis, these seem to be heady times for the social platform. Yes, it’s struggling to attract more eyeballs… Continued

No doubt your grandparents have heard of Twitter from President Trump’s constant use of the platform. And you doubtless know that today is the official date for Twitter to expand its 140-character limit to 280. But what pundits have dubbed a bad move for the social media bird’s brand may end up benefitting PR pros and marketers.

Facebook, Apple, Uber, Nike, Walmart, McDonald’s and more are all members of the unhappy fraternity of brands named in the “Paradise Papers,” a trove of millions of documents leaked to the International Consortium of Independent Journalists (ICIJ) that purport to reveal prominent people and companies using offshore havens to avoid tax.