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No matter your industry or subject, creating a plan to reach goals that will help you arrive at your destination also can assist you to better understand the scope of your communications and marketing. A plan will help you stay organized and make adjustments in case you run into unforeseen challenges and obstacles. It also can help you reduce processes into small, achievable chunks for accomplishing tasks that you’ll need to do to overcome challenges. Here are five steps to help you write a strategic communications plan.

A weekly roundup of the week that was in PR and a brief look at personnel moves. This week’s edition includes stories about Dunkin’ Brands, Spong’s new name, Ketchum’s WonderLust 50+ study and the founding of American Women in PR.

Those outside the corporate world can be blissfully unaware of how unwieldy a corporation can be, especially when it comes to getting new initiatives implemented and everyone on board, paddling in the same direction. But effecting change across large organizations is more often like slaloming the Titanic through a gantlet of icebergs. The lurking danger, just under the surface, is lack of communication.

More often than not, when building a new business from scratch, there are zero dollars available for marketing or PR outside of creating a sleek, legitimate website. However, many professionals do not realize how much marketing can be done on the part of the business owner at the beginning, and at no cost other than time and some effort.

When you see the high-quality, professionally recorded, intensely edited videos that some brands put out there, you may be pessimistic about what you can do on a small or nonexistent budget with nothing but your smartphone. But don’t mentally connect pedestrian equipment with pedestrian results. The content is the thing.

Brands, in an effort to get out a shareable tweet or a super-likeable post, are often caught in a daily trap of shallow engagement with its communities. Your stakeholders — humans just like you and… Continued

Your stakeholders – humans just like you and me – want to be part of a movement, not part of a marketing moment. That statement rang true to the hundreds of attendees at PR News’ Platinum PR Awards gala held Oct. 19 in NYC. That morsel of wisdom, shared by one of the award winners, was in great company with other bits of sound advice offered by communication leaders from corporations, nonprofits and agencies who took home their coveted prize.

“Organic is dead.” Whether or not you agree with this statement, social media platforms unquestionably favor sponsored posts over organic posts in followers’ feeds, and it’s now more important than ever to secure a paid social media budget if you want your brand’s posts to rise above the throng. But how can PR professionals make the case for those budget dollars with the C-suite given the ever-present challenge of proving ROI on social media?

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to managing crises in the digital era. On the upside, brands are able to reach their stakeholders directly via social, yet digital tech spreads word of crises, accurate or not. The five minutes that Warren Buffett once said it takes to ruin a reputation is no longer the case. It’s now been reduced to the time it takes someone to create a Facebook post.

Winner: RF|Binder – Changing Public Perception of Algae: A Groundswell Marketing Campaign from the Thrive Brand RF|Binder was tasked with bringing to market the first-ever culinary algae oil: Thrive. During the launch, the agency sought… Continued