Social Media & SEO

You’ve undoubtedly seen this at concerts or other live events—an excited fan takes out a smartphone to start recording what’s happening onstage and, despite the fact that the stage is wider than it is tall, the fan records a vertical video. Working with vertical video has become a pain point for professional videographers who lament the lack of flexibility and picture quality that 9×16 dimensions provide. We spoke with Patrick Pho, lead brand marketing producer at Volkswagen, about this issue ahead of his session at PR News’ Video Workshop on March 15 at D.C.’s National Press Club. 

One professional well versed on the topic is Andrew Sherry, vice president of communications for the Miami-based Knight Foundation, a nonprofit that funds journalism, community engagement and the arts, with a special focus on 26 cities where John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Sherry will share his insights on a panel at the upcoming Crisis Management Summit on Feb. 27-28 in Miami Beach, hosted by PR News. In a recent Q&A, Sherry gave a preview of his session, “How to Respond to Attacks to Your Brand on Social Media…..And How To Measure Outcomes.”

On the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 12, Recode editor-at-large Kara Swisher began a long conversation with Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey on his own platform. Swisher, the self-described “grumpy lady of tech,” set a precedent early on that she wouldn’t go easy on Dorsey, and she stayed true to her word.

The conversation that followed was not just full of news around where Twitter sees its priorities in 2019, but included several best practices for communicators about everything from automation to media relations and beyond. Here are some of our key learnings.

Facebook feeds already feature a “Why am I seeing this?” button that reveals which brand paid for the ad, the parameters being used to target and if a user’s contact information has been uploaded to the platform. Come Feb. 28, however, users will also be able to see when their contact info was uploaded, who uploaded it and how the information was shared between all marketing parties involved.

Twitter’s marketing department got in on the fun this year, too, launching a hashtag—#BrandBowl53—and announcing the commercials that garnered the most engagement on its platform early Monday. The results of this case study demonstrate many different paths to success on the platform. Here are the grand prize winners of #BrandBowl53, and what those campaigns can teach communicators.

Knowing how other brands approach the social media management role can be helpful in deciding what should or should not be part of your social media manager’s responsibilities, whether you’re hiring for a new social guru or evolving the role as it currently exists in your company. PR News checked in with three social media leaders at three very different organizations about their daily goals, tasks and schedule.

Ahead of its Q4 earnings call (after markets close on Wednesday, January 30), Facebook seems to be making more news than ever. Communicators will do well to keep abreast of these announcements, as they signal a greater push toward repairing user trust on the platform.

Influencers can be a boon to brands and organizations. They help attract a youthful demographic and provide third-party credibility and authenticity to a company’s narrative. With all these positives, companies can overlook proper vetting of influencers. 5WPR chief Ronn Torossian provides tips on what to look for in an influencer relationship.

Injecting Reddit into a communications plan may seem like a death wish. Why would any company jump onto a platform notorious for embodying the worst of social media? And yet, it may well be time to wake up and take notice. According to Alexa, users spend more minutes per day on Reddit than any of the other top fifty sites.

It’s a constant question facing communicators and the brands and organizations that employ them: When do you react to a situation and when is it best to say nothing or almost nothing? Apple is remaining relatively silent about its FaceTime bug, though it quickly acknowledged the situation and disabled Group FaceTime. Was this the right way to go?