Topics

In Q4 2016 (Oct. 1 – Dec. 31), consumer engagement, or total actions, defined as the sum of reactions, comments and shares on Facebook, rose 6% year over year for U.S. B2B brands, according to Shareablee data. Video engagement jumped 151%, though. Data were provided exclusively to PR News Pro. Enterprise data integration and management software firm Informatica maintained its top spot on the B2B list that it established in Q3 2016. Consumer engagement with the brand’s posts rose 38% compared with the same quarter last year, says Shareablee’s Nathalie Nuta. Video was just 8% of Informatica’s engagement. Its top post was an image wishing all a happy Diwali, which is the Hindu festival of lights.

PR pros know it’s important to adapt to change. Yet it’s also comforting when some of the basics of PR can be applied to new platforms. Take Twitter, whose newsworthiness President Trump has cemented. We asked Rebecca Matulka, deputy director of digital, U.S. Department of the Interior, about creating engagement and growing a community on Twitter. Before setting out the tactics her organization uses, she noted that goal setting, a key component of nearly every PR effort you can think of, should comprise the start of your Twitter endeavors.

The About page can be challenging for PR pros as it’s a mix of a professional bio and a compelling pitch. Whether it’s for a brand, an individual or even yourself, the About page is without doubt one of the most important components of a website. It’s the first place potential customers will go to get a good sense of you. Here are some tips to help you create or enhance the About Page for your brand’s site.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a blog but worried about the time investment, you’re not alone. In a world where you can fire off a tweet or a snap in second, the prospect of blogging seems daunting from a time management perspective. But there are smart ways to make it work, and Jackie Allder, director, public relations & communications for The Long & Foster Companies, is familiar with many of them.

Burger King has transformed a simple TV ad into a mouthwatering engagement goldmine…almost. The fast-food chain would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids at Google (and on the internet at large). On April 12, Burger King aired an ad in which an actor asks, “OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?” The line was intended to prompt Google Home devices to read a list of Whopper ingredients from Wikipedia, but anonymous pranksters edited the Whopper Wikipedia article to include some less-than-appetizing ingredients.

Most Fortune 500 brands are working hard to cultivate a network of loyal customers online. Mostly, this community-building happens on social media when brands build pages and platforms to attract and retain those loyal customers. However, many brands develop myopic views around their categorized and quantified loyalty group, which limits the ability to reach a larger group of customers. Here are three tips to keep in mind to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.

“Dying is easy, comedy is hard,” has been attributed to different people, from the actors Jack Lemmon and Gregory Peck to thespians Edmund Kean and Edmund Gwenn. Perhaps we can augment that aphorism: “Dying is easy, communicating is hard.” Examples abound why this is so. United, Pepsi and Wells Fargo are only the latest.

“Dying is easy, comedy is hard,” has been attributed to different people, from the actors Jack Lemmon and Gregory Peck to thespians Edmund Kean and Edmund Gwenn. Perhaps we can augment that aphorism: “Dying is… Continued

Videos of a man being dragged off of a United flight Sunday night have quickly spread through the web, drawing widespread condemnation and outrage. While United CEO Oscar Munoz publicly apologized the next day and said the company was investigating the incident, he took a decidedly tougher stance in an internal letter to employees. Instead of acknowledging that the company’s “established procedures” might need to be re-examined, Munoz doubled-down, citing policy and effectively passing the buck. Worse yet, the letter went on to shift the blame to the passenger.

In early March, Washington, D.C.’s NFL franchise found itself the subject of scorn. The team fired its general manager a bit more than two years into a four-year contract, despite the club’s improved record on the field after years of futility. In an article covering the firing, the Washington Post quoted a statement from the team’s president wishing the ousted general manager “well in his future endeavors. The team will have no further comment on his departure.” What happened next turned into a PR fiasco.