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When it comes to social listening, it can be difficult to cut through the noise. While many analytics tools attempt to measure sentiment—to quantify how positive or negative a social media post or engagement is received—it has proven to be an elusive metric, even for a brand as big as Nissan. “One big misconception is trying to model the information in social media into something you want it to be, instead of listening to what the customer is saying and fixing the problem presented to you,” says Bryan Long of Nissan.

Snap Inc.’s upcoming IPO is the talk of the tech world, and now the Wall Street Journal has reported that the company set its valuation between $19.5 billion and $22.2 billion, according to inside sources. Speculation about the success of the IPO hinges on a few important questions. New independent research might quell some people’s fears, however.

With several months left before the chill lifts for much of the country, it can be easy to slip into the winter blues during the work week (that is, unless you’re joining us in sunny SoCal next week at PR News’ Digital Summit & Crisis Management Boot Camp, Feb. 23-24 in Huntington Beach, CA). To ease your winter blues, we asked PR News’ Twitter followers to share the mantras and inspirational quotes that help them stay motivated.

No doubt you learned the essential aspects of PR as a student in communications school. But let’s face it. You could have purchased PR textbooks and learned some of the same fundamentals, less the tuition costs. You probably learned how to craft a program, the importance of strategies, tactics and objectives. Also, what your professors said was the correct method of pitching a story. There is, however, one critical facet of PR that you probably never learned in the classroom.

Social media has become more than another brand marketing platform. For consumers, it has created a front door to directly communicate with organizations and seek support in a timely manner. Nonetheless, it’s clear that many brands have yet to grasp the importance of customer support on social media and what a critical part it plays in overall brand marketing. So let’s debunk the top three myths about social customer care and see how brands can best benefit from having a robust plan.

It certainly takes a village to run a company, small, medium or large. Yet the landscape is filled with brands where one part of a company doesn’t seem to know what the other parts are doing. Ditto the lack of communication between business units. In an era of social media, this lack of coordination between business units can be devastating. Communicators should be leading the charge for integration.

“No man is an island entire of itself…” John Donne wrote in 1624. Ah, but get that man, or woman, to work and he or she can be positively insular. Large, public companies, midsize firms and… Continued

In times of stress, one’s judgment is impaired, no matter how cool the head might seem. This holds true for both individuals and organizations in crisis mode, and the temptation to act out on social media can be too great for some. The best defense is a smart, succinct crisis plan that can be shared throughout an organization.

It can’t hurt to learn from the best, right? We imagine that’s what the team behind Quintly, a professional social media analytics platform, was thinking when they analyzed the habits of the 30 biggest companies on Facebook. The study revealed interesting trends about content, fans and engagement on the Facebook pages of major brands like WhatsApp, Starbucks and Nike.
Here are some major takeaways to help other brands make the most of their Facebook presence.

Treating your professional relationships similar to your personal ones can be beneficial. Here are five tips that will help communicators begin and maintain relationships with reporters.