Social Media

While social media influencers and celebrities have had some cringeworthy moments in recent weeks, brand entities as a whole seem to be starting to find their footing, putting out more nuanced messaging and recalibrating their responses when they don’t land as intended. Here’s a look at a health care organization and two name-brands that made waves on social around COVID in recent days.

Social media communicators require tools to ensure audiences are connected, supported, entertained and—perhaps most crucial amid the pandemic—receiving truthful, accurate health information. To meet these challenges, the major platforms have unrolled a number of features and hubs for COVID-related content. Here is a collection of what they’ve done pertinent to professional communicators and use cases for each platform’s offerings.

In just days, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to shifts in the way communications is practiced across all industries and sectors, including not just traditional brand messaging, but how employers are disbursing important information to staff and governments to constituencies. Senior comms professionals gathered virtually on March 25 to discuss PR in these unprecedented times during a PRNEWS webinar, Communicating about COVID-19 — Navigating a New and Uncertain Crisis. 

With so many communicators seeking to take physical events online, we asked PR pro and video specialist Doug Simon how to get started. We also asked how communicators can make their video and social video productions more engaging.

You’ve distributed messaging to staff regarding COVID-19. Sent emails to customers apologizing for canceling events and thanked those who RSVP-ed yes for their support. In addition, you’ve assured them the show will go on, just at a different date and possibly in the form of a virtual event. But how will you make your virtual event stand out, especially when there’s likely to be an unprecedented amount of them?

Logging into Nextdoor during the crisis, one senses a return to a more innocent time in social media history, when users took to Facebook, LiveJournal or Angie’s List to post their thoughts and feelings openly, exchange information about local contractors and services or ask for help from a small group of peers. This is in stark contrast to an online environment where brands and individual users are often concerned more with building their audiences, winning engagement or creating an idealized, but ultimately false online persona.

As many others are doing, members of the book industry have stepped up during the coronavirus crisis. Here are examples of how authors are working with PR pros to offer solace to a variety of groups during these difficult times.

Joe Biden’s campaign was all but dead just weeks ago. Today he’s the frontrunner for a chance to unseat the president. Working with few resources and little infrastructure in Super Tuesday states, Biden communicators honed their messages and turned to garden-variety earned media and social media. It worked.

In the ever-evolving world of digital, there’s little doubt that social media professionals should stay on top of algorithm changes, new social apps and shifts in user behavior and appetite. As Social Shake-Up 2020 host Brian Fanzo, CEO of iSocialFanz puts it, “I wish there was a pause button for every new social media app. But there isn’t one, so we have to focus our goals on how to address that.”

If anything, the remaining candidates are throwing everything they’ve got into this Super Tuesday, igniting digital strategies from all corners of the democratic universe. You’d be hard pressed not to open Instagram or Facebook and yes, even Twitter, without seeing some sort of political trend, video or paid advertisement. We took a look at the diverse social media strategies each candidate harnesses. Some feel forced, while others emerged organically, completely separate from the official campaign team. Will they make a difference on Super Tuesday?