Someone insists on using the Oxford comma no matter how many times you tell them not to. Brad overuses hyphens like they’re going out of style. And Janet, for some reason, insists on using British spellings..

AI can help.

If you’re using a set style, such as AP  or MLA, you can simply ask your AI of choice to edit according to that style guide. Or if you have an in-house document that guides your style use, you have two options.

For a quick and dirty method, you can simply upload or copy and paste the style document, then upload the document you want to edit and  check against that style. You can simply repeat this process every time.

Or you can create a custom GPT that only requires you to upload the style document(s) once. You can then share it throughout the organization. This requires marginally more setup on the front end but can pay off in time savings down the road. You will need a paid ChatGPT account to create a custom GPT.

When editing, ask the AI to highlight the changes it’s making so you can doublecheck its work. Never trust AI without verifying – in some instances, it may swear up and down it’s removed all the Oxford commas while it hasn’t removed a single one.

Trust but verify, always.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Bluesky or LinkedIn.

The post One Big AI Idea: Make AI your style editor appeared first on PR Daily.

From changing technology and volatile business conditions to rising internal and external scrutiny and elevated expectations despite a flat budget, the challenges are many for communications leaders. But every challenge comes with opportunity.

On that note, Mary C. Buhay, Ragan’s chief growth officer and head of councils, kicked off a Nov. 13 roundtable discussion at Ragan’s Future of Communications conference in Austin, Texas. The hourlong conversation, sponsored by Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council, focused on how communicators can assert their position as strategic value creators.

Communicators are at the forefront of change, Buhay told the group of more than two dozen communications leaders, and the opportunity to share practices and learn from one another is essential to success.

Highlights of that conversation are below. Insights are unattributed to allow the group to share freely and candidly.

How communicators demonstrate value

Buhay asked the group of internal and external communicators to share how they express the value of their work to the organization.

Responses ranged from specific performance indicators like followership on social media and growth in the number of employee brand champions to less concrete factors like a lack of negative publicity and a lessening of impacts from a crisis.

Quantitative measures are critical to proving value, said one roundtable participant.

“Define the outcome that stakeholders would like to see and then work forward to measure against that,” they said. “It’s a success if you can get business leaders to see that we are bringing forth those outcomes and changing behavior.”

The biggest challenge, another communicator said, is how to show value internally. They are working with HR and IT teams to show progress to shared business goals, such as how communications helps drive higher productivity or recruits qualified job candidates.

Communications as an intangible asset

The prevailing notion of how value is created in the organization doesn’t do communicators any favors in that effort. The classic value chain model ignores the role of communications entirely. Functions like logistics, operations, financing, product development, marketing and sales dominate.

“Communications should be integrated throughout but it’s often an afterthought,” said one communicator.

Communication is about moving a critical piece of information from one place to another, said another roundtable participant. The value is created in moving that information from point A to point B.

“It’s difficult to record long term value of things that aren’t traded in a marketplace or lack physical dimensions on income statements,” Buhay said. “Communications falls into this category. Relationships are hard to quantify.”

The language of the C-suite reflects the short-term results that investors care about, she added, but the work of communicators is long term and measured in how they increase the value of intellectual property, grow corporate reputation, and build strong relationships with customers or top talent.

Those assets can be assigned a value and help a business command a premium from customers or a potential buyer sizing a company up for an acquisition.

Establishing communications currency

Leaders care deeply about how they are perceived, said one roundtable participant. Their company conducts an annual leadership survey and sends a report to every leader’s organization with a comparison of how they perform against their leadership peers.

“Leaders really care whether their year-over-year metrics are increasing,” they said. “There’s direct value when a leader moves up because direct reports place more trust in them.”

Leaders wear their employee engagement score like a badge, they added, and other team leaders will often approach the communications team to find out how they can improve their results. That trust becomes a valuable commodity.

Sometimes leaders are too far into the weeds, said another communications executive. As strategic advisors, communicators ask good questions, clarify goals and analyze results to build trust. But that’s not enough. Communicators need to network and actively market their services inside the company.

Find executives you helped and demonstrate to others how communications became the problem fixer, said one roundtable participant. That includes translating qualitative data to quantitative results and showing a throughline to communications.

Communications may not appear on the classic value chain model that is commonly taught in business schools, Buhay said, but the way that value is created and exchanged is different than it once was.

“If we don’t assert the value of communications now, will we be squandering our golden opportunity?” she asked.

Mike Prokopeak is director of learning and council content for Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council.  Follow him on LinkedIn.

Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council offers an array of in-depth resources and networking opportunities for communications leaders. Learn more about joining here.

Future Comms Playlist

As an icebreaker, roundtable participants shared a song that described the challenges and opportunities of their work in 2025. Here are their recommendations:

The post Behind-the-scenes look at members only roundtable: Using your communications currency appeared first on PR Daily.

We may be heading into a long holiday weekend, but social media apps are still hard at work. Meta in particular seems to be working overtime to stay a step ahead of Bluesky as its momentum builds, threatening to upend Threads’ hold on the title of Twitter successor. But it’s far from the only update this week. 

Here’s what you need to know.  

Threads 

Threads’ behavior seems to be a direct reaction to the meteoric rise of Bluesky, an app that seeks to occupy the Twitter replacement niche in the social media spread. 

Among the features that seem to be drawing inspiration from the upstart are: 

• Changing the algorithm to show more content from users you actually follow rather than suggestions the app thinks you’ll like.  

• Testing new feeds that are arranged around topics. 

• Allowing users to set any feed, including Following or a custom feed, as default rather than the algorithmically driven For You.  

Threads has a head start and numbers on its side, but will it gain ground by simply replicating the features people love about Bluesky? The tactic has proven successful in the past, including holding Snapchat at bay. Right now at least, Bluesky has the buzz. We’ll see if it lasts. 

Among other changes to Threads this week are the announcement that users will no longer be encouraged to simply follow everyone they already follow on Instagram. “It looks like people actually prefer their experience if they build a different graph on Thread than the graph that they had on Instagram,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said.  

Threads has also introduced updates to search, including allowing search within a date range or from a specific user’s account. Trending Topics will also now offer up AI-generated summaries of why that topic is in the news. And in a small tweak, you can now turn your phone to watch video in landscape.  

Instagram 

Instagram is working on allowing users to completely wipe their algorithmic recommendations clean and start with a fresh slate. The move, they said, is aimed primarily at teens as they roll out new tools to protect these younger users, but will be available to all. As we saw with Bluesky and Threads, we’re seeing a move toward great algorithmic control over content and away from the strict black box content drip that became popular in the early 2020s.  

Also still in the testing phase are more tools to allow creators with crowded inboxes to better filter messages. Mosseri shared a screenshot of a number of potential filters, including by people you follow, businesses, verified accounts, creators and subscribers.  

Instagram is also testing moving the DM button to the center of the Instagram nav bar rather than create. “Messaging is used a lot more than the create button,” Mosseri said.  

X 

X has introduced the option to hide all interaction buttons on iOS and interact with the app purely through swipes. Elon Musk teased this UX change earlier this year, but it appears the app is being a bit more measured in its rollout, offering it as an opt-in rather than a large-scale change.  

YouTube 

YouTube is experimenting with a new popularity signal: Hype. Users can hype a video for free up to three times a week. Most-hyped videos will make their way onto a new leaderboard designed to improve discoverability for up-and-coming YouTube creators. The platform is also experimenting with methods for allowing users to pay to hype additional videos. Currently, this is being tested with a small pool of Brazilian creators.  

Messenger 

Messenger, Meta’s texting and calling app, has rolled out a number of improvements to calling and video and audio messaging. These include: 

• Use AI to create backgrounds for video calls. 

• Quality improvements for video calls including HD video, background noise suppression and voice isolation. 

• Leave audio and video messages when the caller doesn’t pick up. 

• Siri can now make Messenger calls. 

It’s definitely a robust refresh for Messenger.  

WhatsApp 

WhatsApp is now offering autotranscription of voice messages.  

LinkedIn 

LinkedIn Audio Events will sunset. The feature, which was created in the brief Clubhouse boom days, allowed users to livestream audio to audiences. Now, audio-only streams will have to be handled via a third-party platform. Video events can still be hosted through LinkedIn Live. 

Audio Events will no longer be able to be scheduled after Dec. 2 and the last day to hold Events is Dec. 31. 

LinkedIn has also announced Lead IQ, which will help provide salespeople with insights into the specific leads they’re pursuing. AI will help summarize “a lead’s experience, achievements, interests, commonalities, and activities,” LinkedIn said.  

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Bluesky or LinkedIn.

The post Social media updates and new features to know this week appeared first on PR Daily.

It’s common to think of disinformation campaigns as complex efforts heralded by world governments or shadowy organizations, seeking to advance nefarious agendas and subtly manipulate us all.

But in at least one case, it involved a group of Redditors fed up over long lines to purchase their favorite sandwich.

The Wall Street Journal shares the bizarre story of how Angus Steakhouse, a tourist trap restaurant comparable to Applebee’s, suddenly topped Google searches for the best restaurants in London. It all started with Reddit user Flonkerton_Scranton sharing his frustration over long lines at his favorite sandwich cart after influencers started touting it as London’s best.

So, London Redditors banded together to create a new “best” sandwich in London: those at Angus Steakhouse, which sports five locations in London and is “byword for tourist-trap mediocrity,” according to the Journal.

The conspirators began flooding online review sites from Google to Tripadvisor with fake praise, one claiming they loved the steak sandwich despite being vegetarian. The campaign bore fruit: The Journal said that Angus appeared in the top 10 Google search results for “best steakhouse in London,” though PR Daily could not replicate this search, save a Reddit thread that offered a thread of unanimous praise.

Angus Steakhouse confirmed that they’ve seen a bump in diners  since the campaign began. “We enjoy a good joke as much as the next person and appreciate the creativity and humor that sparked this love-bombing,” said CEO Paul Sarlas.

Why it matters: It all sounds very funny. Annoyed Redditors steer hapless tourists to anoverpriced restaurant. No one really gets hurt.

But the implications are far-reaching and frightening.

This incident shows just how easy it is to manipulate the algorithms that drive the modern internet. Reddit has become more important to Google search results in the last year: the two companies struck a deal that allows Google to train its AI on millions and millions of user-generated Reddit posts, which also appear to give it exclusive access to surface Reddit posts in search results. So Redditors – or bad actors posing as Redditors – can do quite a lot of damage to the web in the name of humor.

We’ve seen this in the past with the far-reaching impacts of meme stocks, or stocks that Reddit has decided to pump up. They can roil markets and turn companies on their head. And all of this can leave PR pros scrambling.

Even in the relatively benign case of Angus Steakhouse, people going to the restaurant expecting to eat the best steak sandwich of their life and instead getting one that’s “a hellish, tough, teeth-testing beast,” as a London restaurant critic dubbed it, can create problems. Beyond the disappointed reviews sure to follow, this creates a bad situation for restaurant servers and staff who now must deal with confused, angry customers.

Unfortunately, there is little way to counter this. Once a group of people put their mind to overwhelm the algorithm, there are few safeguards in place. And no restaurant is going to chime in with “actually, we serve mediocre steak at inflated prices, don’t come here expecting the best.”

But a strong social listening campaign can help serve as an early warning sign that can allow communicators to put together strategies to help formulate strategies for responses, flag front-line workers and help weather the storm until Redditors get tired and move on to their next big joke.

Ensure those Google alerts are up to date and that your social listening software includes Reddit. Consider creating a Reddit account for handling customer service issues as well – it’s often considered hostile to brands, but being a positive, responsive presence might head these issues off before they blow up into major meme campaigns.

Editor’s Top Reads

• Documentarian Christopher Rufo isn’t angling for a spot in Donald Trump’s administration. But he may still have a major impact in shaping federal policy around DEI for the next four years, the Wall Street Journal reports. Rufo, who has targeted both companies and universities for diversity hiring practices, is perhaps best known for uncovering plagiarism by former Harvard President Claudine Gay, which was one of several factors leading to her resignation. Now, he’ll present a plan to President-elect Donald Trump on how to withhold federal money from universities if they do not end certain DEI practices. “It’s time to really put the hammer to these institutions and to start withdrawing potentially billions of dollars in funding until they follow the law,” Rufo said. Universities and companies have seen for the last several years that DEI is changing and needs new branding and new tactics to survive. With the election of Trump as president, the urgency for those changes has ratcheted up significantly.
• The McRib is back, a periodic reintroduction to processed pork patties that garners massive headlines around the world. The latest return, which is accompanied by the sale of half gallons of sauce, shows the power of scarcity as a PR strategy. “If (the McRib) was something that was on the menu year-round, I think it would be one of those products that would probably be toward the lower end of McDonald’s menu items,” David Henkes, senior principal at food industry research and consulting firm Technomic, told CNN. But by trotting out the item periodically, the restaurant brings a thrill of excitement and nearly 13,000 headlines in the last week alone. McDonald’s obviously has a larger bully pulpit than most brands, but is there a way to incorporate a limited-time aspect into your PR?

New research from Google Workspace and the Harris Poll finds that nearly all Gen Z knowledge workers are using AI in the office – and most Millennials too. The survey found that 93% of Gen Z and 79% of Millennials use at least two generative AI tools at work each week. Eighty-eight percent said AI helps them when a task feels “overwhelming, while 88% also believe AI helps “strike the right tone in their writing.” With such strong adoption among the leaders of tomorrow, it’s certain that AI will be a lasting force in the workplace. It’s up to companies to strike the right balance between empowering workers to use these tools and setting responsible guardrails to protect the organization’s data and integrity. And it will be up to communications departments to ensure both internal and external audiences understand these rules.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Bluesky or LinkedIn.

The post The Scoop: Reddit disinformation campaign upends London dining appeared first on PR Daily.

Matt Purdue is senior strategist at Magnitude, Inc. 

On the morning of November 6, communications professionals woke up to a changed world. They learned that Donald Trump was returning to the White House, and the Republican party was on its way to taking control of the United States Congress.

Working effectively in this altered landscape has been a hot topic of conversation at Ragan’s Future of Communications Conference. Communicators who are not already preparing for the impact of this sea change in Washington risk being caught flatfooted when (not if) new policies and legislation affect their internal and external stakeholders.

A quick look at history shows that during the first 100 days of the Trump administration in 2017, the president signed 28 bills, 24 executive orders, 22 memoranda and 20 proclamations. This time around, expect more of the same beginning on Inauguration Day: Monday, Jan. 20, 2025.

Engaging with internal audiences

“Employees are now corporations’ loudest, largest, most active stakeholders,” Beth Archer, director of corporate communications for Constellation Energy, told the Future of Communications audience. Now is the time to connect with them to discern what political and societal issues they are most concerned about.

Joanna Piacenza, vice president of thought leadership with Gravity Research, offered a hint of what they may be thinking. She presented recent data from her company showing that executives feel most pressured to address LGBTQ rights, climate change, racial equity and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

At the same time, employees are increasingly discussing politics in the office. Gravity Research data saw a 9-point jump in these occurrences between the second and third quarters of 2024.

How to manage this rising tide while keeping employees happy and productive? Archer and Piacenza advise to establish consistent guidelines for when your organization will speak out to employees versus staying neutral. It’s also important to teach leaders and managers how to watch for and handle touchy political topics by flipping destructive internal discussions into constructive dialogue.

Lean on your ERGs

Employee resource groups (ERGs) can be invaluable for successfully navigating internal communications. Piacenza pointed out that 73% of companies use ERGs to communicate internally on societal issues.

However, only 41% hold regular meetings between ERGs and leadership to talk about these topics. And only 11% have ERG representatives on leadership groups that make decisions about these issues. It’s smart for organizations to buck these trends, strengthen ties with their ERGs and use them to help make tough choices.

“Use ERGs to gut-check your communications strategy and statements,” Archer said. “Hold internal focus groups with your ERG leaders to ensure effective partnerships.”

Readying for external pressures

Communicators also need to focus on reputational risks with external audiences in what’s sure to be a polarized environment. Organizations are much more liable to be criticized for seeming to support particular politicians, candidates or issues.

To mitigate these risks, the key is to boost a company’s goodwill now before a problem bubbles up. Scott Radcliffe, global director of cybersecurity with FleishmanHillard, explained that if an organization is wrongly criticized for something it didn’t do, “proving a negative” can be very difficult. “That’s why it’s important to build up brand reputation ahead of time,” he said.

Simultaneously, companies must take a hard look in the mirror to identify their potential political and societal vulnerabilities and prepare crisis communications plans in case external stakeholders call them out. “So many companies say, ‘We are good. We don’t have any issues.’ But it’s malpractice to not do anything,” said Eleanor McManus, co-founder of Trident DMG. “You need to prepare and put your policies in place.”

McManus added that conducting a “crisis audit” involves pinpointing at least the top five issues that could cause problems for the organization, then developing protocols to communicate about them. Identify which external audiences you should engage with (media, business partners, regulators, shareholders, community members, etc.) and craft messages appropriate for each group.

The experts also advised assembling a group including communications, legal and human resources teams to evaluate risks and agree on crisis communications strategy long before it’s needed – with the comms team taking the lead. “Legal tends to not want to say anything. HR tends to say things that no one understands,” said McManus. “It’s up to us as communicators to be truthful, clear and authentic.”

The post Communicating successfully amid political and social dissent appeared first on PR Daily.

Braden McMillan is director of communications at the Business Council of British Columbia. 

“We need a press release!”

It’s a request that those of us in PR and communications hear all too often. If it’s not a press release, it’s “this should be on our website,” or my favorite: “this will go viral on TikTok.”

Whether in a corporate boardroom or on a call with a client, the fast-paced world of PR is rife with big ideas and demands for fast action. Yet, amid these pressures, it’s crucial to remember one thing: It’s strategy that delivers results, not tactics.

Tactics are an essential part of any strategy, but they should never be the sole focus or lead decision-making. Pursuing tactics without a strategy is like throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping it sticks. It might or might not work, but either way, you’re left with a disconnected mess.

While this might seem obvious in theory, it’s surprisingly easy to forget in practice. Even seasoned communicators can fall into what I call the “tactic trap,” where shiny, novel ideas overshadow strategic thinking.

Let’s be honest: who doesn’t want to jump at the chance to try something new or fire off a quick press release to appease a client? But at the end of the day, is that really what we’re here to do? I’d argue not. Our greatest value lies in the strategic insight we bring to the table. After all, even a baby can throw spaghetti at a wall.

So, how do you avoid the tactic trap? 

The answer lies in one word: Pause.

• Does your client want to showcase a new art collection exclusively on Bluesky? Pause — is that the right platform?
• Does your boss want a 30-second video on the history of brick architecture? Pause — is that the right format?
• Does your aunt want to invite media to her second wedding? Pause — is that something the media wants to attend? Is that something you want to attend? (I guess it depends on who they’re marrying, but probably not.)

Regardless of the ask, taking a pause and referring to your strategy will do wonders in keeping you on track. Ask yourself:

• Does this tactic align with my goals and objectives?
• Does it deliver the right message to my audience at the right time?
• Does this compliment the other tactics in my plan?

If something feels off, then — as Ross Geller famously said — pivot!

Remember your value

You weren’t hired because you know all the tricks in the comms playbook; you were hired because you know which ones to use and when.

When a client, boss, or even an estranged aunt suggests a less-than-ideal tactic, don’t shy away from giving your professional opinion. Explain why a different approach might work better and show how it aligns with your strategy. You might be surprised how often they’ll appreciate the guidance and adapt their plans.

And if you don’t have a strategy?

If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of saying, “But I don’t have a strategy to refer back to,” then it’s time to take another pause — and create one. Good results start with a strong framework. Without it, even the best tactics are no better than spaghetti on a wall.

The post Avoiding the tactic trap appeared first on PR Daily.

Matt Purdue is senior strategist at Magnitude, Inc. 

For years now, the communications profession has been trying to tackle the thorny problem of greenwashing: the act of misleading stakeholders about the environmental benefits of a company’s operations or products.

But today there’s the potential for another serious problem emerging: “greenhushing.” That’s the take of Dan Thomas, chief communications officer of the United Nations Global Compact, speaking at this week’s Ragan Future of Communications Conference. The UN Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, involving more than 24,000 companies in over 160 countries.

Thomas noted that in recent years, companies have been pulling back from communicating about environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. The UN coined the term ESG in 2004. “Sustainability is now being challenged as part of ‘woke’ culture,” he said. “In some ways, it’s taking a backseat to the traditional responsibility of companies to drive value for shareholders.”

Indeed, a recent study from UCEM noted that instances of ESG appearing in U.S. company financial reports slumped 60% between 2024 and 2023. Mentions of human rights fell 45%.

With Donald Trump returning to the White House and the Republican party gaining control of the United States Congress, many observers feel ESG will continue to be de-emphasized. It could even become a third rail for companies that feel taking a strong stand on ESG could invite criticism from politicians.

But Thomas urged communications professionals to keep ESG at the forefront of the conversation, even in the face of pushback. “This country will go through a course correction over the next four years,” he admitted. “But these problems are not going away: climate change, human rights, corruption and the need to pay a living wage. Everyone wants to work for a company that enables that.”

Over and above possible political ramifications, Thomas suggested that some organizations may be “nervous or embarrassed” about communicating less-than-stellar progress on ESG initiatives. But they should not be reluctant to share their efforts. “Everyone is looking at everyone else, but no one is perfect,” he explained. “The reality is everyone is on the journey. The UN, the financial sectors and regulators all understand that. The key is to show progress in a clear and authentic way.”

He advised communicators to become better aware of the pitfalls of ESG communications by researching how and where their competitors run into trouble.

He also cautioned that perhaps one reason ESG is becoming less of a priority is a “disconnect” in how companies communicate on these topics. “The current language does not relate to individual employees or customers,” he said.

He suggested comms professionals need to move the conversation to the human level. “Help employees and customers understand the purpose (of ESG work) and the role of the company to be responsible to the world.”

Finally, all communications about ESG initiatives should be supported with solid evidence of their impact. “Be knowledgeable about your company targets, and find clever ways to communicate that,” he added. “At the end of the day, it’s asking what kind of world do you want to leave behind.”

The post Why the United Nations Global Compact CCO says you shouldn’t give up on ESG communications appeared first on PR Daily.

Since Elon Musk purchased the app formerly known as Twitter two years ago and implemented radical changes, various social media upstarts have sought to take its place as the premiere microblogging website.

Niche apps like Mastodon and Spill made names for themselves while Threads grew fast thanks to its integration into the Meta family of apps, including frictionless sign-on using Instagram credentials. Threads quickly amassed more than 275 million monthly active users.

But all of these apps struggled to gain the kind of cultural cache Twitter, now X,enjoyed. Mastodon is complicated and clunky to use; Spill remains small and relatively unknown. Threads had size on its side, but actively discouraged the news and political discussions that made Twitter such a juggernaut.

Before the U.S. elections, Bluesky was another also-ran. On Oct. 24, less than two weeks before the election, it announced it had reached 13 million followers. Respectable, but tiny in the grand sweep of social media.

On Tuesday, less than two weeks after the election, Bluesky hit 20 million, an explosive growth in such a brief period of time. It’s the No. 1 free app on the Apple App Store. Threads comes in at No. 3. X is nowhere to be found in the top 15 listings.

X’s absence from that list belies a small but not insignificant trend of deactivations on the platform after the election, with about 115,000 accounts going dark the day after the election. Given Musk’s tight ties to the Trump administration, with the tech billionaire spending considerable time at Mar-a-Lago and heading up the planned Department of Government Efficiency, some liberal users saw remaining on the platform to be a tacit endorsement of the new administration.

The deactivations are a drop in the bucket compared to X’s 586 million total users. And Bluesky’s 20 million total users is still less than one-tenth of Threads’. But the activity on Bluesky is quickly taking on even the Meta Goliath. Similarweb reports that Bluesky’s daily active use has nearly reached that of Threads, indicating that while Bluesky might be smaller, at least for now, its users are much more engaged. That’s the double-edged sword of Threads’ tactic of getting Instagram users to sign up: it’s very easy to do … and very easy to forget.

Bluesky’s rapid growth has many PR professionals taking notice. Here’s what you should know right now.

Brands on Bluesky

So far, few major consumer brands have set up shop on Bluesky, though you will find a number of parodies knocking about, or people squatting on desirable account names.  To that end, even if you aren’t ready to post on Bluesky now – or ever – this is the time to claim any and all relevant usernames to protect your brand and prevent imitators. Likewise, setting up a few general searches for brand listening purposes is always a good idea, even if you aren’t active on the platform.

The lack of brands on Bluesky contributes to its current, cocktail party-like feel that many have likened to the early days of Twitter, before brands put themselves into the middle of every conversation. People are talking to one another in a way that feels both retro and refreshing.

Amy Brown, a social media strategist and writer made famous by her work on Wendy’s early Twitter account, said that before brands get involved on Bluesky, they should consider what they can add to the conversation beyond just pushing their product.

“The biggest question brands should be asking is: Would we bring some sort of value to the communities currently occupying the platform?” Brown told PR Daily. “Brands I’ve seen find success so far offer some sort of utility, like news publications or the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. But I do not think it’s gonna go well for a sassy brand to jump in with a, ‘rt if you love the breakfast crunchwrap’ or whatever.”

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission is, indeed, on Bluesky, offering up a surrealist, memey take on government communications, replete with bad graphic design (though they challenge users to “please submit a better version of the graphic for review” if they think they can do better). But even amid the absurdity, they’re sharing good information: an image of a roasted turkey on a horse accompanies information about not burning down your house deep frying a bird. News you can use!

The media on Bluesky

Media sources have also migrated to Bluesky. Some, most notably NPR and The Guardian, had abandoned X altogether and Bluesky provides an alternative without Musk’s hostility to the mainstream media. Here, the activity largely mirrors the precedent set on X, with journalists sharing links to content as well as threads with additional information. Images and videos up to 60 seconds long can also be shared.

But perhaps more valuable for PR professionals are not the branded media accounts but the individual journalists who are using the site. X used to allow an incredible opportunity for PR practitioners to forge relationships with journalists, but some began to drift away from the more hostile environment. Many seem re-energized to be on Bluesky, actively posting and accessible once again. Prominent journalists now active on Bluesky include Kara Swisher, Oliver Darcy and Joy-Ann Reid, to name only a few.

PR pros on Bluesky

“I don’t think brands should jump in and establish a presence on Bluesky right away, especially if the intent is to replicate a Twitter or Threads strategy on the platform,” Brown advised. “I do think your social media manager should probably be there in a personal capacity, learning about the platform and evaluating if it’s a fit.” That advice also serves many PR pros well, who need to keep their pulse on the finger of what’s new and what’s next.

If you’re feeling exhausted by the proposition of starting a new social account and building from the ground up, you’re not alone. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Starter Packs are a solid way to find new people to follow so you don’t find yourself staring into an empty feed. Bluesky allows you to have multiple homefeeds, including people you follow, suggested content or content focused around specific topics. Starter Packs can offer you both custom feeds or recommended people to follow, allowing you to customize your timelines exactly how you please. These are user curated lists that can make adjusting to life in Bluesky much easier. Here’s a Starter Pack of journalists and another of comms professionals.
• There’s no foolproof way to port follows from X to Bluesky. If you want to replicate some of the experience, however, the Sky Follower Bridge can help. It scans your X followers and does its best to identify which users also have Bluesky accounts. From my experience, it’s a bit hit or miss. It works best if people have the same usernames on both platforms, but can get confused if someone has a common name, for instance confusing my follow of a journalist named “Robert King” with a TV producer of the same name. Still, it helped me feel like I at least knew some kids in my new school. You will have to give it your Bluesky password, so take that safety into account.
• It’s OK to lurk. It remains to be seen if Bluesky will become a major social media force or a niche, liberal-leaning silo while X occupies the same space to the right. Regardless, it’s important to understand this movement and what it may mean for the future of social media.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Bluesky or LinkedIn.

The post By the Numbers: What you need to know about Bluesky appeared first on PR Daily.

Working through the maze of FDA, FTC and other regulations that govern communications around pharmaceuticals and other healthcare items can be challenging for even the most experienced human to handle.

But an AI will never get tired, rarely get confused and can be updated with just a few clicks of a mouse.

Matthew Snodgrass, AI innovation lead at Syneos Health Communications, is currently testing a custom GPT that will help create cleaner drafts of regulatory-compliant content – but that can never fully replace the discernment and judgment of a person.

Here’s how AI helped him.

Responses have been edited for style and brevity.

One of the thorniest problems for communicators in regulated industries is figuring out what the heck you can and can’t say legally. Tell me how this idea came about and how you’ve been working on this GPT.

At Syneos, the other, larger, half of our family is in clinical trials. So dealing with patient information has very strict rules and regulations that we deal with internally, very strict privacy policies, data retention and collection policies that we have. On the communication side, which is typically a little bit more free to experiment and communicate, we’re still beholden to those strict rules, which, in a way, is very good, because it puts us in the mindset of, we have to be very responsible, both from a data privacy and an ethics standpoint on how this is used.

I’ve been working with my colleagues to find out what problems do you have, what issues can be solved? Were there things that could be sped up or done better, faster? I decided to turn inward, because one of the other hats I wear is counsel on rules and regulations as it comes to pharma marketing, for rules and regs from the FDA, FTC, U.S. Code of Federal Regulations. I thought, if I can combine all of the actual regulations and rules from federal entities, along with my expertise and knowledge and interpretation of those rules, could we create a GPT that kind of mimics the interpretation of them so that we could use it to look at and analyze proposed content before it gets to the client.

What happens a lot of times is the MLR — medical legal, regulatory —  teams at pharma clients will look at a piece of content and send it back and say, ‘you can’t say this, and if you say this, then you have to say that, you can’t use this picture with this’ and so on and so forth. So if we can create a tool that helps to get ahead of that and produce a better product, just speed up the process and have us be able to scale beyond just having content flow through just one person or a couple people.

So this is not replacing human oversight. This is helping just get a cleaner draft to the client, essentially,

Exactly. You effectively hit the nail on the head of summarizing how I recommend using AI is use it as draft only trust but verify. It’s always going to need the human element to verify.

What I’m hearing is that (people) fear that AI takes over everything. And that’s not going to be the case. What I hear some clients may want is that humans are involved a little bit, but AI speeds up everything else and everything’s cheaper and quicker. And that’s not necessarily the case either. It’s going to be a mixture where we will work together with an AI on things like research, drafting things that, together with the context of a person and the speed and volume of information with an AI, you can produce a better output. We’ll hand off to AI those elements that they can just simply do better, like analysis, summaries, looking at large volumes of information and distilling it down. But we’ll keep the elements that currently only humans do well, which is strategy, creativity, content development, the truly, very human-centric elements.

Have you gotten to the point where you’re talking with clients about this GPT, and if so, what’s the reaction?

The conversations that we’re having with clients are very similar to the ones we had 15 years ago with social media. Some of them are really pushing because of internal champions to be at the forefront of experimentation and trying it out. Some are behind because they may be a small biotech that’s really focused on their research and development and just don’t have the resources to push the AI envelope yet. It’s very similar.

Have you had anyone at the other end saying, I don’t want AI on any of the materials you’re working on for us? Have you gotten that reaction?

Yes, and it’s been for different reasons. One, they’re not so sure about it. Or what I see often is they may hop into Copilot, they ask a very simple prompt that may not be a comprehensive prompt, and they get a non-comprehensive answer. They go, ‘oh, that’s not good I don’t want anybody using it.’ Or it’s the comms team that really want to push the envelope, but it might be their legal team that is not ready to let them get to that point yet, because they don’t have their ducks in a row yet.

Tell me a little bit more about how you’re going about building your regulatory GPT. What phase are you in with that process?

I would say we’re in the alpha phase right now, as we have a proof of concept built, and I’m continuing to train it. I created a 16-page missive on how I interpret FDA and FTC and U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, rules. I keep testing it with queries, and it may come back with something that’s not quite right. So then I go back to the document. Update the document, re-upload. I feel like I’m opening its brain, tinkering with it, closing it again. And then go back. I feel it’s confident enough that it can help our colleagues and help clients. Then we would unveil it as an internal usage tool. It’s getting there.

For more on the fast-changing world of AI, join us at Ragan’s AI Horizons Conference in February! 

The post How AI helped Syneos Health’s Matthew Snodgrass improve client first drafts appeared first on PR Daily.

Last week it was a bit quiet on the social media update front, but the apps are making up for it now.

Not only are there plenty of updates to the platforms, there is also a realignment happening. X challenger Bluesky is seeing explosive growth in the wake of the U.S. election, adding 1 million users a day and breaking the 19 million user mark. While that’s still dwarfed by the more mainstream social platforms, it’s growth worth watching (and parking your handle).

Here’s what’s happening elsewhere across the social media landscape.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is introducing a feel-good feature where users can indicate if they are Open to Volunteer. Users can select causes they’re passionate about, the skills they bring to the table and other information about their volunteering preferences. From there, organizations can reach out and find new people to help make a difference. LinkedIn will also surface more relevant volunteer opportunities for those who have opted in.

TikTok

Another week and more AI tools are being added to social media platforms. This week, our first is TikTok. Their new Symphony Creative Suite will allow advertisers to create videos using product information or a URL. The videos are clearly labeled and use only copyright cleared assets, TikTok said. Custom avatars can also be created by uploading videos of spokespeople (with their consent). For an additional layer of protection against images being used without permission, spokespeople must approve every video before it goes live.

Symphony Creative Suite can also be used to translate and dub content into other languages.

TikTok is also making it easier to add affiliate links by automatically placing a link in the comments of a video. This is a setting that must be toggled on before the post is made public.

Finally, TikTok hopes to drum up more interest in its photo app Lemon8 by creating a single logon system. The two will remain separate apps, TikTok said, but users won’t need to create a separate account for Lemon8. This is surely an attempt to reduce friction and encourage more users to give the photo app a try.

Instagram

Instagram has a few app tweaks this week, including:

• You will no longer be able to follow hashtags in your feed after Dec. 13. Existing tags you follow will no longer be visible. It’s unclear whether or not you’ll still be able to search with hashtags or if this change only impacts following from directly in-feed.
• Story highlights will be moved to a dedicated tab on the profile grid.
• Instagram is making it easier to see which accounts follow you that have been deactivated. This is handy for purging follower lists of dead accounts to get accurate numbers for reporting or influencer deals.
• Finally, you may soon be able to turn an image into an AI-generated profile photo from within Instagram, if that’s a thing you want to do for some reason.

Facebook

Facebook is following in Instagram’s footsteps by making views its primary metric for distribution. According to the app itself, views measure “the number of times a reel or video was played or the number of times photo or text posts were on screen.” Views will replace plays on reels and videos and impressions for stories, text and video posts. On the one hand, this might make reporting easier when you have apples-to-apples comparisons across platforms and you aren’t juggling terminology across post types. On the other, it could reduce nuance in measurement and attempt a one-size-fits-all approach that may not always work.

YouTube

YouTube is continuing to build its Shorts brand. Notable for communicators, YouTube says that 40% of Shorts users don’t use similar services like Reels or TikTok, making them a valuable and unique audience. New ad formats and ad controls will give more options for advertisers, while Stickers will enable retailers to show off product automatically based on their catalog.

YouTube’s new Jewels are a way of paying creators during live vertical streams. Users can gift their favorite creators with these Jewels and give them real cash. One “Ruby” is the equivalent of 1 U.S. cent.

Users will also be able to set reminders about Live streams or Premieres 24 hours in advance.

Threads

More than a year after launch, Threads continues to roll out new features in a bid to become the best X knockoff there is. This week, they’ve announced testing of interests feeds. Alongside For You and Following, these new feeds will allow users to track topics, like Soccer or Men’s Fashion.

In a boon for social media managers, you can now save up to 100 drafts on mobile.

Snapchat

Snapchat has introduced a number of new family friendly features for their younger users. Among these are the ability for parents to track their child’s location using Snap Map – or parents to share it as well. Parents will also be able to set three chosen locations – think school, home or work – and see when their child departs those locations. Finally, parents will be able to see who else teens have shared their locations with.

Pinterest

Pinterest is going heavy on holiday gift guides this year. Featuring more than 1,000 celebrity-curated guides, users can easily tap to add items to a wish list, save with a tap and more.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post New social media features and updates to know this week appeared first on PR Daily.

Quick, think of Tropicana orange juice.

You’re probably picturing a clear plastic carafe with a long, slender neck bearing an image of a straw-punctured orange.

But a new change has upended that clear branding position — and is costing the company big bucks.

CNN reports that Tropicana replaced its iconic carafe over the summer with a new container sporting a much shorter neck. That design is meant to reduce the plastic used in manufacturing and to make it easier for customers to pour. Notably, the bottle also holds just 46 ounces of orangey goodness, down from 52 ounces in the old bottle.

To compensate, the new bottle is intended to retail for 70 cents less than its predecessor — a good deal, given that you’re getting 11% less juice but paying about 15% less. However, some stores reportedly have not taken the manufacturer’s suggested retail price and are selling the new, shrunken bottles for the old price, leading to accusations of shrinkflation.

Customers also claim the new bottles are harder to pour and that they just don’t look as nice.

The fallout has been tangible. As of October, sales of Tropicana were down 19% year over year. It has yielded up to 4% of its market share to competitor Simply Orange.

Why it matters: Multiple hot-button topics are converging into one single snafu.

The topic of shrinkflation, or getting less product for the same cost, has dominated the conversation for years now, and customers are fed up. Major players like PepsiCo, which owns Lay’s and Doritos, have added volume back to their snacks to lure customers back. But in this case, Tropicana’s guidance on pricing has been ignored, leaving customers with less juice.

There’s also the emotional attachment people feel to the ubiquitous items they use every day. Tropicana differentiated itself with a bottle that conveyed freshness and familiarity, then took it away.

The CNN article notes that Tropicana has faced backlash before over packaging changes. In 2009, it changed its logo from that orange with a straw to a basic glass of orange juice.

Consumers were having none of it. Sales plummeted 20%. The logo was rolled back just six weeks later.

This time, it’s unlikely to back down so quickly — it’s far more expensive to change a bottle design than a label.

“Changes can take time, and after just a few months, we’re continuing to do what we can to help shoppers get accustomed to our new look,” a spokesperson told CNN, saying in-store elements and advertising were helping to tell their new story.

People are change averse, and sometimes they’ll quickly adjust. But a 19% sales decline is worrisome on every level. More storytelling and explanation on the front-end could have helped ease the transition, as well as research beforehand to understand the attachment to the old bottle.

We’ll see if customers give it a fair squeeze.

Editor’s Top Reads

• President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Karoline Leavitt to serve as his press secretary. At just 27, she’ll be the youngest person ever to command the briefing room podium. She previously served as Trump campaign press secretary. Before that, she made history as the youngest-ever candidate for Congress, though she lost the New Hampshire race. She endeared herself to Trump and MAGA world when she was kicked off CNN for impugning the impartiality of the network’s journalists. This likely sets the tone for Leavitt’s relationship with the press: fiery and antagonistic. During Trump’s first term, he had four press secretaries, many of whom went on to become household names, like Sean Spicer and Sarah Sanders, who now serves as governor of Arkansas. How will Leavitt’s star rise — or fall?
• Social network Bluesky is exploding in popularity as users, especially liberal ones, move away from X in the wake of the presidential election. In just a week, the platform’s user base doubled to 15 million, the New York Times reported. Bluesky Chief Jay Graber said the platform is setting itself up as David versus Goliath, making pledges not to use content to train AI (a notable departure from most other major social networks today) and to keep its open-source ethos. “The state of most social platforms right now is that users are locked in and developers are locked out,” Graber told the Times. “We want to build something that makes sure users have the freedom to move and developers have the freedom to build.” Those are noble aspirations for a platform in its infancy, but those pledges can come back to bite as companies grow and scale. People will remember what Bluesky says now — so best to tread lightly and not make promises they can’t keep. On the other hand, make sure you at least reserve your Bluesky company username, even if you aren’t ready to use it just yet.
• CoverGirl, which became famous as supermodels put the face in their walk, is now pivoting to make influencers the bread and butter of its marketing over glossy magazines and runway looks. One way they’re encouraging more influencers to feature their products in videos is by offering them access to their social media filming studio, glamorously located in the Empire State Building. One influencer given access to the space and profiled by the Wall Street Journal has just 17,000 followers. But wooing these micro influencers can make a big impact for a small price tag and earn a loyal following without needing to pay the likes of Tyra Banks or Christie Brinkley for similar promotions.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post The Scoop: Tropicana’s OJ carton PR disaster appeared first on PR Daily.

Believe it or not, it’s been just over a week since the United States headed to the polls to select a new slate of leaders.  Perhaps more so than in years past, the election of past-and-future President Donald Trump has elicited strong feelings, from elation to despair.

Caught in the middle are companies who have been trying to decide what — if anything — to say publicly about the election and its results.

Behind the scenes, titans of industry are courting Trump, just as they do with every incoming president. Some, especially in the tech space, have issued public statements congratulating Trump on his win. In another election year, these would be considered standard, dull statements, a necessary part of the political game for those who do business with the federal government. But this year, even the most anodyne have drawn attention.

Take the statement made by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on LinkedIn: “Congratulations to President-elect Trump on a hard-fought victory. We look forward to working with you and your administration on issues important to our customers, employees, communities, and country.”

“As a diverse female Amazon employee, this is demoralizing,” one comment read. “This post was not necessary and (a) way to create division within our company.”

“As a woman working for Amazon, I feel proud my CEO is willing to cooperate with our country regardless of the administration!” came a counterpoint.

A survey from Morning Consult conducted the morning after the election revealed complex emotions from employees about what their companies should do in the wake of this new administration. Similarly, the public is also far from united in their beliefs about how businesses should speak out (or remain silent) just now.

Here’s what the survey found.

A lack of consensus

Of the six questions Morning Consult asked employees about how their employers should respond politicly, no single item achieved a majority response, either for or against. The closest there was to agreement was 49% of employees who said that despite Trump’s clear stance against DEI initiatives, companies should nonetheless boost their diversity efforts. The least popular idea was that employers should “welcome political talk in the workplace,” which drew disagreement from 39% of respondents. Only 25% thought that encouraging political discussions was a good idea just now. When phrased differently, asking whether companies should discourage workplace discussion of politics, 41% agreed that was the best course of action.

Perhaps the most interesting item, however, was whether or not the company should support the new president’s policies if they benefit the company. This question was divided into two parts: one asking if the company should support the new administration’s economic policies, and the other asking if they should support its social policies.

Forty-one percent of respondents said it would be good to support economic policies, while 28% said it was fine either way. But there was less support for speaking out in praise of the president’s social policies, even if they benefit the company: 36% said companies should support the policies, while 30% were fine either way.

This lack of a consensus will make it difficult for organizations to navigate the waters. But let’s check in and see what consumers had to say.

Consumers want companies to stick to the basics

Overall, the general public was a bit more clear about what they expected of companies in this circumstance — and what they didn’t want.

Let’s start with the latter. The most unpopular thing a company could do right now is to comment negatively on the election results. Only 26% of respondents said that was a good idea, compared to 49% who said it was a bad idea (and 32% who would strongly disapprove of such a statement. By comparison, a full 50% supported companies commenting positively on the election results.

But in general, what the general public seemed to want most were fairly typical, bland statements about democracy — or nothing at all.

Seventy percent wanted to hear statements encouraging a safe, orderly transition of power. Sixty-four percent wanted companies to take a stand against political violence. And a full 63% just wanted companies to stay quiet altogether. That nudged just ahead of the 60% who wanted a simple, neutral statement on the election results.

The bottom line

The most difficult aspect of the weeks and months ahead may not be managing public perception — it may be handling internal expectations from employees. And remember that any internal statements should be expected to be made public, either through an intentional strategy or via leaks, so balancing these needs is critical.

Employees seem poised to push their employers harder for stances, while the general public is signaling they’re fine with a return to the kinds of political neutrality companies have exhibited in decades past.

Which impulse will win?

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post By the Numbers: Post-election, this is what the public wants from companies appeared first on PR Daily.

Brainstorming is one of the most popular uses of AI for communicators. And generative AI can certainly be helpful in getting the white off the page and stretching your thinking new directions. But doing the first brainstorm yourself and then asking AI to step in can also be helpful.

Here’s how this “post brainstorming” works.

1. Spend 10 minutes coming up with ideas for what you’re working on. These could be angles for a pitch, survey questions or new campaign concepts.
2. Prompt your AI tool: “I’ve come up with some ideas for (whatever you’re working on). Using these as a guide, what would you add? Please give me 10 more ideas.”
3. See what you get. Some of the ideas might be duplicates, some might not be what you’re looking for, but a few might just help you see past your own blind spots.

Give it a try next time you need to brainstorm: you might find that giving the AI tool ideas to start with yields higher quality results.

The post One Big AI Tip: Try ‘post brainstorming’ appeared first on PR Daily.

Fabiana Meléndez Ruiz is a Venezuelan-American communications expert and strategic storyteller. She is the founder & CEO of Refuerzo Collaborative, a Latina-owned communications agency creating holistic, multicultural, and dynamic strategies so clients can find their truth, increase their impact, and sustain brand growth.

Texas boasts a population of 30 million people, making up 8% of the total population of the United States. As of 2023, the Latine population now makes up the biggest share of that number with 40.2% of Texas residents identifying as Latine. The power of the Latine community in the state is measurable – the Texas Latino economy is the second largest economy in the United States which “grew by $147 billion between 2017 and 2022.” according to a report by Houston Landing.

Despite this impact, the Latine community is severely underrepresented in marketing, and even less so in the communications industry. Approximately only 11.9% of those in public relations are Latine, and only about 7.6% are in leadership positions. 

It’s now more important than ever to understand the state of Latine communicators in spaces where this historically minoritized community is the majority. How are these professionals connecting with one another? And, most importantly, where?

The impact of representation 

Because storytelling is an integral part of Latine culture, it’s no surprise that so many would gravitate to a career in an industry focused on the science and art of telling stories. 

And for many of us, it goes beyond that – it’s all about our representation in industries that are seen as inaccessible and glamorous. 

This was the case for Angel Leverett, the Director of Marketing & Communications for Austin Habitat for Humanity. An El Paso native, she was fascinated by the local anchors on the news who would showcase the highs and lows of El Paso. 

“She was so poised, graceful, and was focused on the community – a Latina on TV doing big things,” says Leverett, “when I started a career in PR, I saw that the opportunity to serve as a voice for my community, bridge cultural gaps, and make sure that stories that are being told about people like me are being told authentically and with compassion.”

Angela Navarro, is the events and public relations manager for the Downtown Austin Alliance, a nonprofit organization that aims to create, preserve and enhance the value and vitality of downtown Austin. In addition to her work with the Downtown Austin Alliance, she is also the current president of PRSA’s Austin chapter. 

Navarro believes that, but feels there is still a lot of work to be done. 

“Representation is essential, particularly in seeing Latinx professionals as business owners, PR specialists, and media figures across the city as we help elevate and bring stories that would otherwise not matter to others to the forefront,” she said 

But even with the obstacles, the impact is apparent. As the president of PRSA, Navarro has a direct hand in leading a diverse group of voices in shaping the communications field. “Being a Latinx communicator is about advocating for cultural inclusion, providing guidance to future generations, and ensuring that our stories are authentically told in every space we occupy,” she explained.

Engaging with the wider Austin comms community

Austin has cultivated several communities dedicated to the growth and honest conversations of communications professionals. Women Communicators of Austin (WCA), an organization established in 1921, has championed women in journalism, media, marketing, and every other communication role for over 90 years.

Notable members have included Liz Carpenter, who wrote the 58 words LBJ used to comfort the nation after the assassination of President Kennedy. 

Leverett, who is the president-elect for WCA, states that organizations like these are where a lot of the conversations for Latine communicators are happening. “There have been moments where some of these organizations have set up intimate spaces for [us] to get honest about the work,” she said. “About the highs, the low, and the opportunities available to us in the Austin community.” .

Navarro echoes these sentiments. Originally a New Jersey native, she lived in Florida prior to making Austin her home six years ago. Despite being drawn in by its “weirdness,” she found it difficult to find a sense of cultural belonging. 

“Finding your space in a new city can be hard, but I’ve carved out a place for myself here in Austin,” she said, explaining that the city has tons of professional organizations that cater to young and diverse professionals. Navarro found community in organizations like the Young Hispanic Professional Association of Austin (YHPAA), the Young Urban League, and the Austin Young Professionals. 

Where conversations are happening

Austin is an incredibly diverse town, and the impact Latines have had on the city is evident in the physical spaces communicators are going to have some of these conversations. 

Leverett says many conversations are happening at Joe’s Bakery, which feels like home. She remarks that “the smells, the people I start conversations with, what I love about being Latinx is that we gravitate towards each other and can just talk to each other.”  Anytime she goes to Joe’s, she feels her “latinaness” cup filled so she can be herself. 

She also frequents Gabrielas, a restaurant owned by Latina restaurateur Gabriela Bucio. As soon as she walks in, Leverett sees women who look like her celebrating and being unapologetic. a space where “we don’t have to hide our wins,” she said.”

For Navarro, the conversations are happening closer to home. The Downtown Austin Alliance is leasing a space as part of its Downtown Austin Space Activation program. The program rents underutilized buildings and turns them into platforms for social impact. This program is significant for Latine communicators because it empowers them to have a forum in Downtown Austin, an area that can sometimes feel less inclusive. 

“This initiative helps ensure that public spaces reflect the diversity and values of the city’s Latino population, reinforcing the importance of inclusivity in urban development and fostering a more connected and equitable environment for all.” said Navarro.

Ensuring equity and purpose through mentorship and affinity groups  

Both Leverett and Navarro believe in the power of mentorship. Latine professionals don’t always have access to the same opportunities, so ensuring that they have mentors who can guide them and open those doors is a major way to ensure equity. 

In addition, both Navarro and Leverett are focused on creating programming that will ensure the space for Latine communicators to thrive. Leverett created Communicators of Color as an affinity group for WCA. Its goals are to create a space where communicators of color can foster community and have honest conversations about working in the industry.

Navarro has grown the PRSA board from five people to 13, and is a supporter of events that promote authentic conversations for diverse communities in Austin such as the annual Drinks & Drag event and the “Being Series”, which organizes panels of Latinx, Black and LGBT communicators to engage with others in the industry.

“One of the most valuable pieces of advice I received from my first boss was, “Angela, when you walk into a room and no one else looks like you, that’s exactly why it’s important to speak up and share your perspective.”” said Navarro. 

“Being in spaces where you feel like the ‘other’ can be challenging, but it’s crucial to find your voice. Your thoughts may differ from those around you, and sharing them can not only validate your own experiences, but also create an opportunity for others to engage in meaningful discussions. This exchange can lead to greater understanding and inclusivity.”

Join us in Austin for Ragan’s Future of Communications Conference, the flagship event of Comms Week, this week!

The post How and where Latine communicators connect in Austin appeared first on PR Daily.

Knowing the rules of engagement with reporters is one of the most important things a PR pro can do – and counsel their clients on. But within the realm of on the record, on background and off the record, there can be a great deal of nuance and considerations.

We asked communicators on LinkedIn to share their best practices for navigating these treacherous waters. Here’s what they said.

Answers have been edited for style and brevity.

On background

Mike Nachshen is president and owner of Fortis Strategic Communications.

First, it comes down to trust. Do I trust the reporter and do they trust me?

Second, rules have to be established and mutually agreed to BEFORE the background or off the record portion of the conversation begins

Third, make sure everyone understands what they are agreeing to. Off the record is different than background. And background can be for or not for attribution.

E.g.:

Me: “Great question… I’d like to give you some context before I answer. OK if we go on background, not for attribution, first?

Reporter: “Can I list you as an ‘a contact close to customer X’?”

Me: “Sorry… no. No attribution at all, I’m afraid. But I’m giving you enough to go out and find this in the Congressional record if you need attribution.”

Alex Dudley is principal at Principal, Cloudbreak Communications.

I have found the “on background” tool very useful throughout my career. Often it is a way to help a journalist work a nuance into their story that would otherwise not make it because it is too difficult to source. This is particularly true in an era where the bland corporate statement rules the day.

Janice Mandel is a podcast host and founder of Janice Mandel.

A rationale of mine for going on background would be:I’m asked a question by a reporter and the answer requires context not directly relevant to question at hand. If I want to ensure the reporter understands that context I may ask if we can go on background. I find this helps communicate nuances the reporter may not know.

Off the record

Parry Headrick is the founder of Crackle PR.

Never say anything to a reporter that you wouldn’t want splashed on a neon sign in Times Square.

 Kevin Nolan is VP of marketing at Sagility.

This may be a basic step, but make sure you clearly state you’re going off the record before you do. Ensure the reporter agrees. Something like “this next sentence is for background and should be off the record.” There should never be a “why did the reporter write that? I thought we were off the record?” moment. Ever.

Mary Beth Popp is vice president, Corporate and Brand Communications at FIFCO USA.

I always say, remember that if you share information off the record – the reporter always knows it. So for example, if you go off the record about making a product for another company (contract manufacturing), and something happens with that product — they know you made it. You never know how it may impact your organization in the future. I only go off the record to provide context and background.

Linda Zebian is head of communications at Muck Rack.

Even if you say, “I don’t know,” that can be used in the story and attributed to you, which has implications, so be very careful to establish where you are on the record at the start of a conversation.

I really appreciate all of the comments here suggesting “nothing is off the record,” but I respectfully disagree. Investigative journalism would not exist if journalists did not commit to keeping conversations with sources private and sacred. Off the record interviews are a cornerstone of a free and independent press.

Katie Heinz Pfingsten is manager of media relations and training at Public Communications Inc.

In media trainings, we’ve been asked by spokespersons if there are any legal ramifications if they agree to speak off the record and a journalist publishes the material. Some have been surprised to learn that a verbal agreement to speak off the record or on background isn’t legally binding. We also remind them that anything that’s said before the camera is rolling or in an email exchange with a reporter — no matter how informal — could be quoted/published.

Erik Sherman is a freelance journalist and writer.

If you are considering off the record or on background, remember that it has to be negotiated in advance and both sides must agree on the exact definition to avoid unintentional misunderstandings.

Ben Craft is vice president of community engagement at the Center for Human Development.

Asking to go off the record too much or on trivial or irrelevant details punches big holes in credibility.

Sarah Kissko Hersh is founder of Type A Consultancy.

Don’t say it if you don’t want it published.

Erika Leigh is public relations account manager at LeadCoverage.

Ask yourself, “would it be OK if this actually got out and my name or my organization’s name was attached to it?” If yes, then proceed. If not, don’t disclose it no matter the circumstances.

Rebecca Burn-Callander is a freelance journalist, podcast host and director of communications at Build Concierge.

Over the 20 years I have been a business journalist, I have never printed anything that was told to me “off the record.” This means that find people tend to be extremely candid. They explain why something happened, how much it cost, how they felt about it — things they would never want published but can massively impact the tone of the final article. It’s a way of giving the journalist a glimpse of the struggle, the stress, and your personal feelings, knowing that your comms team would never allow it

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If you’ve stepped into a Target or a Starbucks lately, the wave of bubblegum pink and emerald green is impossible to miss.

Taking a page out of the “Barbie” movie’s successful playbook, the upcoming adaptation of the Broadway smash “Wicked” is filling stores – and capturing headlines – with quirky merchandising that plays up the main character’s iconic color palettes: the bright pink of Galinda, who will become the Good Witch of “Wizard of Oz” fame, and the vivid emerald of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West.

CNBC reports that collaborations include makeup collabs with r.e.m. beauty, Lego sets, color-changing Betty Crocker cake mixes and even two custom wrapped Lexus luxury cars. The color blocking even extends to the press tour for the film, with stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo swathing themselves in vivid shades that instantly evoke the film. Again, this seems to be an extension of the strategy pioneered by Margot Robbie during the press junket for “Barbie,” when she wore a cavalcade of looks inspired by the doll’s wardrobe – many of them also in a trademark shade of pink.

Why it matters: Licensing and merch are, of course, great ways to earn some extra cash for a major film. But the press being generated by these collabs – and the social media buzz – is just as powerful.

The Daily Dot posted a story about a hack to get that Betty Crocker mix to change colors just right. Lifestyle sites like Town & Country and Women’s World posted roundups of the best “Wicked” merch. Even Vogue is diving into the clothes from the premiere. And of course, social media is paying attention as well, amplifying and reamplifying the messages.

The entire campaign is showing the power of marketing tactics building atop one another. Merchandising becomes part of the messaging. The messaging gets picked up by fans who amplify it. The media picks up on the fan excitement. The cycle repeats.

But it hasn’t all been bubbly and easy. Erivo lashed out at fans for an edit that made a movie poster look more like the playbill of the Broadway musical, dubbing it “offensive,” which can tamp down on the free viral marketing fans are likely to do. While Erivo didn’t quite apologize, she did later acknowledge she “probably should have called (her) friends, but it’s fine.”

And over the weekend, the public discovered that the wrong URL was featured on the packaging of Mattel “Wicked” dolls. Whatever you do, do not search “Wicked.com” on a work computer – it is an adult site, not the site for the film.

Still, even that unfortunate misprint is more likely to generate additional press than to scar children in the long-run. It’s a funny, relatively harmless misprint.

We’ll see if all this PR is enough to make the movie popular.

Editor’s Top Reads:

• During the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, FEMA had to fight back hard against misinformation on a variety of fronts. One of the rumors, which the agency strongly denied, was that assistance was being withheld from supporters of Donald Trump. But it appears that in at least one case, that was true. A FEMA worker was fired for instructing response teams (reportedly but not confirmed to have been stationed in Florida) not to render aid to homes with Trump signs in the yard. The worker has been fired and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell called the actions “reprehensible,” but the damage has been done. The agency was already widely mistrusted and now critics have concrete proof of discrimination. FEMA must continue a full-on crisis communications blitz here, explaining in detail, every step of the way, how the lapse occurred and how they will ensure everyone is treated equally. Their challenge of combatting misinformation during uncertain times just got much, much harder.
• OpenAI has provided some insight into how its groundbreaking ChatGPT was used during the first truly AI election. The company revealed in a blog post that in the days leading up to the election, 1 million answers directed users to CanIVote.org, a nonpartisan website that helps people figure out how, when and where to vote. An additional 2 million answers pushed queriers away from ChatGPT and to reputable news sites like the AP and Reuters. ChatGPT refused 250,000 times to create images of the presidential or vice presidential candidates in a bid to stop deepfakes – a move the company itself says was largely successful, with no “evidence of U.S. election-related influence operations attracting viral engagement or building sustained audiences through the use of our models.” Naturally, we can’t see the full impact of AI on the election, but on the surface, fears of a deepfake-driven disaster did not come to pass in 2024.
• British chef Jamie Oliver has pulled copies of his fantasy children’s book, “Billy and the Epic Escape,” after accusations that the book perpetuates stereotypes and contains misleading information about Aboriginal Australians. Critics of the book say it contains language errors, boils down complex beliefs to “magic” and that a kidnapping plot is insensitive, given the pain of Aboriginal children being removed from their homes. Oliver apologized, saying he was “devastated” by the pain he’d caused. While Oliver had apparently requested a consultation with Aboriginal leaders, his publisher, Penguin Random House UK, said it had not occurred due to an “oversight.” This seems like a large oversight. Always check in with your audiences, especially when they’re different from your own identity. Get feedback, make changes and avoid embarrassment down the road.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post The Scoop: Why Wicked’s merch blitz is good PR appeared first on PR Daily.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to usher in a period of radical change for the United States. Bolstered by Republican control of the Senate, likely Republican control of the House and a conservative-leaning Supreme Court, he is positioned to alter aspects of both American government and culture.

The precise form of these changes remains to be seen, but it’s certain that at least some of these reforms would impact the work of communicators.

PR Daily caught up with Luke Hartig, CEO of Gravity Research, a firm which specializes in societal and reputational risk intelligence for major firms.

Here’s what Hartig sees on the horizon – and how communicators can prepare now.

1. DEI shifts, but does not disappear.

“I think DEI is one of the biggest risks that companies are going to face about this election,” Hartig said. Even under a Democratic presidential administration, DEI has seen a number of blows, most notably the affirmative action Supreme Court case, the success of activists like Robby Starbuck pushing companies with more conservative customer bases to cut some programs, and backlash from state governments.

With the power of the executive branch, Trump could institute Department of Labor rules that impact DEI programs. The SEC could halt various DEI programs in shareholder proposals. The administration could support anti-DEI lawsuits – or withdraw its support from ongoing pro-DEI defenses.

But even outside what the president can do directly, the change in political control could embolden anti-DEI activists, like Starbuck, Hartig said.

“Are the anti-DEI legal activist groups just better funded and better able to take (on companies) after this? Is the public perception of DEI changed such that for any activist or media source who’s anti-DEI, they feel like they’re working in fertile ground?” Hartig asked rhetorically.

But on the other hand, he does not see DEI disappearing altogether, in large part because of demands from employees.

“It’s a delicate dance that companies will do to try to de-risk themselves from the things that are most likely to result in consumer backlash or lawsuits or regulatory action, while still maintaining some core commitment to having a diverse workplace,” Hartig said.

Companies will also have to balance competing needs and wants from the workers themselves, however. Hartig noted that the political divide between employees with a college education and those without grew exponentially during this election. According to exit polls, 56% of voters without a college degree broke for Trump, compared to just 42% of college educated voters.

“I think the takeaway for companies is to really know your employees, not just the ones that you see most frequently in the C-suite or interactions with top executives, but really know what your employees are like, writ large,” Hartig said. “What do they care about? How do they think about these issues? How might they have voted?”

2. LGBTQ+ issues move to the fore.

LGBTQ+ issues, particularly issues around transgender rights, were a massive part of the Republican closing arguments in this election. This is a continuation of several years of backlash against the expansion of trans rights, particularly against companies who have supported trans influencers or offered trans friendly products in stores.

Hartig notes that Trump has a number of levers he can pull to impact trans rights, especially in schools, such as Title IX. It’s possible these moves could trigger employee backlash and calls for additional activism from employers, but Hartig is already seeing a hesitance for employers to take the strong stances on social issues they once did during the pandemic era. Namely, they’re less likely to sign onto open letters or activist group pledges, Hartig said.

“The transgender rights issue is something I think that that is going to continue to be fraught. It’s certainly an issue that President-elect Trump played to his electoral advantage, but it’s also an issue that I think a lot of companies are wary about wading into too much just because of the really split opinions on it,” Hartig said.

3. Tension between employers and workers.

But as we’ve noted, Hartig expects that many workers will continue to press their employers to show up on these issues in the ways they have in the past. “We know that employees still want to work for employers where their values align with their own, where they can bring their whole selves to work, where the company has some things that they believe beyond just the actual profit and loss of that company,” Hartig said.

At the same time, employers are finding themselves needing to identify their core values rather than trying to speak out on every issue.

“If you are a bank that cares about racial equity, you are maybe not out there speaking out vocally about every racial equity issue,” Hartig said. “But you might say, ‘hey, what can we do to improve our support to Black entrepreneurs?’ Things that are very clearly aligned with what a bank does, and it feels like it fits the purpose of their company, makes their employees feel like they work for an employer whose values align with their own, but maybe doesn’t pull them into some of the hot-button political issues.”

4. ESG evolves.

Environmental regulatory rollbacks are also all but certain to be part of the second Trump administration. From EPA changes to withdrawal from global climate treaties, the role of ESG in corporate life could fundamentally shift. But Hartig predicts that the Trump administration may be slightly softer on environmental issues than they were during his first term. He noted that many of the same energy companies who supported Trump’s election are not purely oil and gas companies, but increasingly have holdings in renewable energy as well.

But for other companies, especially B2C, they’re still likely to find themselves torn between the government, the people and their own promises.

“They’re gonna be stuck between this rock and a hard place of a Trump administration that’s maybe antagonistic and skeptical of a lot of the climate-focused policies that companies have placed and on the other hand, a real push from other (countries) that they operate in, from their consumers to maintain those commitments to environmentalism,” Hartig said.

5. Mass deportations could put pressure on companies to speak.

One of Trump’s most incendiary promises has been mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. This certainly will have massive impacts on the labor pool in many industries, including agriculture and construction, but an operation at the predicted scale – perhaps a million people deported – would also play out in dramatic ways that could ripple to every industry.

Hartig said that the operation would require the mobilization of not only law enforcement, but the National Guard and potentially other military as well. These arrests would happen, in many cases, in large urban areas, with cameras rolling both from civilians and from journalists. These dramatic images could put pressure on companies – potentially via employees – to speak.

“This idea of companies being the more trusted institutions in American society, and that call for them to be kind of the voice of civility, would be strong,” Hartig said.

6. The #resistance returns.

During Trump’s first administration, those who disagreed with his politics became loud, putting pressure on companies to either stand up to Trump’s policies – or to avoid praising him or working with him in any way. They often organized around #resistance on social media. That could return in this second term, Hartig said. He specifically referenced a boycott around Goya products after its CEO praised Trump – but data shows that despite the social chatter, sales actually rose.

“That general reigniting of culture wars and activism pressures on companies in what ways and on which issues, I think it still remains to be seen,” Hartig said.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post 6 hot-button topics communicators should prepare for in the Trump administration appeared first on PR Daily.

Matt Purdue is senior strategist at Magnitude, Inc. 

The rise of independent journalism is a booming trend that bears watching by all PR professionals. Impacted by shrinking newsrooms, budget cuts and other negative pressures, more journalists are leaving traditional media platforms to start their own brands.

Some of these personalities have robust reputations and massive followings, making them a potentially vital component to a successful communications strategy. However, engaging with them effectively requires careful consideration and coordination.

What’s driving this trend?

In 2023, more than 21,000 corporate media jobs were cut, a 467% increase over 2022. Companies from NPR to the Washington Post and News Corp. announced massive layoffs. Simultaneously, journalists at traditional brands are exhausted from doing more with less. More than half of them have considered quitting in 2024, citing fatigue and/or burnout (recent Muck Rack survey), so there’s no reason to think the trend of journalists jumping ship will end anytime soon.

In fact, media consumers don’t want it to end. They are demanding changes in the industry. Today, Americans’ trust in media is at an all-time low, with only 32% of people feeling “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of confidence that the media is reporting the news fairly and accurately.

Consumers are more than willing to seek out alternative news sources. Per a recent Free Press survey, 51% agree that “having more independent news outlets is important to stopping disinformation.” Meanwhile, 72% of Americans are consuming at least some of their news via social media.

All these forces are driving a growing market for indie journalists and the PR pros who work with them. “The media space has never been more fragmented,” said Ashley Forrester, Director, Strategic Communications, Samsung Electronics Americas, who is speaking next week on a panel at Ragan’s Future of Communications Conference called The New Newsroom: Earning Attention in a Seismic Media Landscape. “Newsrooms are shrinking while consumers have so many options. What they want is relevant, authentic news they can consume in the way they want to consume it.”

What’s different about today’s indie journalists?

The concept of independent journalism isn’t new. PR pros have been working with freelance reporters for decades. But these aren’t your grandmother’s freelancers. Many of today’s indie journalists are award-winning industry veterans who come with tens of thousands of followers to their new platforms..

A list of names that have gone independent recently reads like a roster of journalism all-stars:

• Taylor Lorenz left the Washington Post to start User Mag, focused on tech and online culture.
• Jason Koebler, Joseph Cox and Samantha Cole left Vice to launch 404 Media, which also covers tech-centric topics.
• Tech reporter Casey Newton, formerly of the San Francisco Chronicle and The Verge, now runs his media brand The Platformer.
• Oliver Darcy moved on from CNN to start Status, covering media and the information space.

For PR pros, it’s important to note that these creators are not following one consistent business model. Some have started their own websites, others newsletters and still others podcasts and/or Substacks. (PR Daily’s Allison Carter recently wrote about the rise of Substack journalists.)

This diversity can make it  confusing for PR practitioners looking to engage with these journalists – but it’s a challenge that must be overcome given the huge reach some of them boast. “Traditional media are not going anywhere,” Forrester said. “But PR pros need to fire on all cylinders. If you are not building relationships with these independent journalists, that’s only playing half the game.”

Tips for engaging with indie journalists

When it comes to building fruitful relationships, experts offer several best practices.

Remember, they’re still respected journalists: Even though they no longer have a WaPo email address, be sure to work with them like the seasoned pros they are. “Treat them the same way you would treat the traditional press,” said Meredith Klein, a former communications executive at Pinterest and Walmart who pitches indie journalists on a regular basis. “Offer them exclusives. Take them out for coffee. Don’t just add them to your media list – get to know them.”

Do your homework. Then do it again: Without corporate owners or editors looking over their shoulders, indie journalists are free to develop their unique styles. Woe to the PR pro who ignores this reality. “There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to working with them,” Klein added. “Each one is different, so acclimate yourself with each one.”

Klein suggests analyzing the tone of their content and gauging how much personal opinion they inject into it. “Some of them can get snarky, so use caution,” she says.

Put on your creativity hat: Given the various types of platforms launched by indie journalists, PR pros need to be inventive when pitching them. While one might be open to a written Q&A, another might need a podcast guest. “They may not want to do a long interview,” said Klein. “They want Skim-esqe stories. They want to hear news quickly from a credible source so their audiences can easily understand what they need to know.”

Samsung’s Forrester suggests getting creative when pitching subject-matter experts. “The doors are open to a wider array of voices,” she explained. “They are not just looking for traditional spokespeople. Instead, offer the researcher in the lab or the employee on the frontline. There are few limits as to what the content needs to look like.”

Open your wallet: These journalists are also businesspeople who need to drive revenue. Make sure you are supporting them financially by subscribing to their paid content. Also, view their revenue-producing programs as options for serious return on investment. “Ask yourself: Does it make sense for me to connect with a content creator to fill any gaps in my strategy with an audience that has opted in and is really engaged?,” Forrester said. “You can work with them to create a story that can really hit home with your target audience in ways that are authentic, personalized and land in near-real time.”

Klein summed up the relationship-building opportunities this wave of indie journalists presents to PR pros. “You have to be an early adopter,” she said. “Create and nurture those relationships.  If you are there for them, they will be there for you.”

PARKING LOT & STATISTICS

Journalists are finding new business opportunities flourishing

• Substack now has 20 million+ subscribers and more than 2 million paying subscriptions. Over 17,000 writers make money on Substack.
• Number of global podcast listeners reached 7 million in 2024, a 7.85% increase over 2023.
• In the US, an estimated 135 million consumers have listened to at least one podcast per month this year, an increase from 120 million monthly podcast listeners in 2023.

What’s driving this trend?

Pressure on traditional newsrooms.

• Layoffs: In 2023 as a whole, more than 21,400 media jobs were lost, the highest (excluding 2020) since 2009, when more than 22,300 jobs were cut, and 2008, when 28,800 or so jobs were cut – both in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession. (Challenger, Gray & Christmas via Fast Company)

The trend is not likely to abate any time soon, as more journalists want to leave their jobs.

• More than half of journalists in the U.S. have considered quitting in 2024 citing fatigue and/or burnout, according to a recent Muck Rack survey.
• Poll of 402 journalists in August:
  • 56% of journalists have thought about quitting this year
  • 40% have previously left a job because of burnout.

Meanwhile, the demand is hot for new media platforms.

• Americans’ trust in media is at an all-time low. (Gallup poll)
• ​​Only 32% of the population reports having “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of confidence that the media reports the news in a full, fair and accurate way.
• 72% of Americans get at least some of their news from social media (Pew)
• Recent Free Press survey: 51% agree that “having more independent news outlets is important to stopping disinformation.”

The post The rise of independent journalists and tips for engaging with them appeared first on PR Daily.

Dustin Siggins is founder of Proven Media Solutions. 

AI is getting all the headlines. But something more fundamental is happening for in-house communications departments that may mean even more – and bigger – changes.

What do you mean?

For years, communications officers have advocated for more meaningful roles in corporate leadership structures. They’ve had a front row seat to a dynamic consumer becoming more engaged in 2-way communication with brands and a penchant for basing trust and loyalty on overall brand perception – beyond just product and service quality. For years, communications professionals have advocated for a spot in the C-Suite, especially as consumers’ decisions to pay more attention to corporate practices has resulted in challenges to brand trust and loyalty. 

A viral June 2024 study shows that corporate boards are beginning to understand this, and are responding by finally giving communications teams seats at the C-Suite table. But this new class of Chief Communications Officers aren’t just being tasked with messaging strategies and media relations. They’re now also responsible for helping guide interdepartmental synergy and are accountable for overall organizational success. 

“I think you’re seeing a greater recognition that communications has a bottom-line impact,” said Jeff Berkowitz, founder of  political and reputational risk advisory firm Delve. “C-Suite executives are realizing that every part of a company impacts stakeholder reputation. Unless you have a lead communicator at the decision-making table, there won’t be someone in the room who understands how sales and operations tie into brand management. And that’s a mistake in an era when a single wrong step can cost a company sales and brand equity in one fell swoop.”

The growing emphasis on communications as an indispensable part of business planning and growth will certainly impact senior and mid-level in-house teams. And while many are slammed with short-term Q4 tasks, they need to be looking ahead to Q1 2025 to catch up with the trend that will undoubtedly mean more responsibility. 

More respect…and responsibility

Culture and policies roll downhill, and more respect for comms from the C-Suite means more respect commanded and assumed throughout an organization. It’s a significant opportunity to be integrated into the different departments and functions of the broader corporation. 

“Many corporate public relations teams already seek this integration – but a Chief Communications Officer makes it easier for it to happen,” said Nick Lagalante, a B2B corporate marketing and communications executive who has led global teams for technology companies. “This creates more opportunities for a higher quantity and quality of brand storytelling that impacts markets and drives the business forward.”

It’s easy to see where this is all leading: in-house comms teams will suddenly have twice the workload.

Casually skimming an engineering report’s Executive Study to prep answers for a “general business” beat reporter or new product press release is no longer going to cut it. Spokespersons will now need a comprehensive understanding of technical specifications to hold their own in interviews with top-tier trade outlet journalists who know every three- and four-letter acronyms in industry parlance. Gaining this mastery will require extensive new training and more rounds of technical editing on content, all while conducting outreach to a wider swath of media outlets.

Stephanie Roberts is Head of Global Communications for Hitachi Industrial Equipment Systems, a company with over two billion dollars in annual sales and 9,000 employees. She said that this increased responsibility is the natural consequence of a business landscape that radically changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“External stakeholders have greater expectations about transparency and how a company functions,” she said. “Senior executives expect to share thought leadership and company news on social media, through SEO, and via webinars and conference speeches. Instead of being its own silo, communications now demands knowledge of operations, sales, finance, etc. as well as working relationships with those department heads to ensure alignment.” 

Public relations department and team leads, therefore, must take advantage of the boss’ new seat at the C-Suite table. Alan Shoebridge is Associate Vice President of National Communication for Catholic healthcare system Providence, which has 51 hospitals and a presence in seven states. He says communication leaders must build “a solution reputation and good relationships” to successfully advocate for a bigger team, more budget for outside help, and greater operational freedom. 

“It’s critical that leaders understand what resources the communication team needs to keep the lights on, continue the current level of service, or elevate to an even higher level,” said Shoebridge. “Effectively advocating for more resources – budget or people – requires showing a vision, clear goals, and a measurement plan to elevate the communications function and impact the business.”

CCO integration can make you indispensable today – and for the rest of your career 

Integration comes with another benefit: whereas once upon a time, comms people were viewed as mere guards at the branding gate, now we are designing Central Command’s design and strategic choices. 

This means that comms gets to be a part of making the decisions that determine how the PR soldiers will carry out their battle plan. But those soldiers will also become more embedded into the organization – and therefore indispensable and hard to fire or lay off. This means both short-term job security and opportunities for career acceleration because of the in-depth knowledge gained about corporate operations, sales, finance, HR, and other key aspects of business.

“Being seen as a primary guardian of reputation instead of a mere order-taker has major implications for PR team leads beyond their current roles,” said Jeremy Tunis, a fractional PR advisor to start-ups, conglomerates, and nonprofits who has worked in-house at Edelman and Amazon. “The more that CEOs integrate communications into everything the organization does, the more that PR team members will be tasked with complex matters like bridging internal communications friction between departments, and managing the inevitable crisis.The tactical skills of PR are important; applying those unique skills as a company-wide trusted business counselor is far more difficult and valuable.” 

Start preparing now for the brighter future

The authors of Four Disciplines of Execution pointed out that growth happens when leaders take 20% of their time to focus on one critical area of improvement. PR leaders are in Q4, with all the last-minute goals, holiday vacations, and other stresses associated with it. They can hardly stay ahead of the news cycle, never mind look a few months down the road.

But you must, or you’ll miss the CCO opportunity that’s going to deluge your department with opportunities and responsibilities. 

The post CCOs are getting a seat at the C-suite table. This is how in-house PR teams should prepare. appeared first on PR Daily.

The dust is settling from the 2024 U.S. elections. The news environment that surrounded the ballot casting was, in many ways, as contentious as the election itself, with rows about endorsements, debates about covering Trump’s firebrand of politics and more taking center stage and dividing both journalists and consumers.

But amid all those controversies, where did Americans get the news that helped inform their voting decisions? Even though the most intense period of interest in politics may have passed for another few years, understanding the news sources Americans use to help make big decisions can likewise help PR professionals better target their pitches.

Research conducted by Pew Research in September sheds light on the most popular political news sources. Here’s what PR pros should know.

Other and none

In this survey of 8,000, respondents were allowed to name any sources they chose. The open-ended nature of the survey means that the top two responses weren’t a network at all – they were people listing sources too unique to be listed in the overall findings or they didn’t list a primary source at all.

Nearly a third of respondents chose a niche outlet as their primary source, putting their responses into the “other” category.

This should be a massive wakeup call to PR professionals. Long gone are the days that a front-page newspaper hit or a mention on the nightly news would make your brand. Instead, people are looking to a plethora of different sources that more precisely fit their news wants and needs. Pew Research did not share precisely what these “other” were, but if you’re curious, just ask a friend. Or better yet, ask your target audience. The myriad sources they name will show just how dizzying the media landscape will be – and just how savvy communicators must be to wade through it to find the most meaningful sources.

The second largest category in the survey was people who did not name any main source. Again, we don’t know exactly what they said here. It could have been “I don’t follow the news” – a Pew Research poll from 2023 found that about 9% of Americans don’t follow the news at all, a number that very much could have increased in the last year as the news became more acrimonious.

Or it could be pointing to another problem with the news media: a lack of name recognition. As more and more Americans cite sources like “social media” as where they get news, the exact journalists behind that work can fade into the background, struggling from poor branding until all journalistic content seems homogenized in a tweet or a TikTok.

Regardless, the fact that nearly half of Americans are in their own media bubbles – or none at all – should ring loudly in the ears of media relations professionals.

What people pay attention to

Among those respondents who chose a news source, television reigns supreme. Of the top 10 named news sources, seven are TV stations, and all of the top five.

The most popular news sites for political news are:

• Fox News (13%)
• CNN (10%)
• Local TV (6%)
• ABC News (5%)
• NBC News (3%)
• NPR (3%)
• MSNBC (3%)
• The New York Times (3%)
• CBS News (3%)
• X/Twitter (2%)

In other words, a full third of Americans list a television news source as their primary way of getting political news.

This is not to say that they aren’t also getting news from local newspapers or influencers or the Wall Street Journal. Only that their top choices tend to gravitate toward television.

What is ‘the mainstream media’

Since Trump burst onto the political scene in 2015, there has been a great deal of discussion about “mainstream media.” What is it, is it bad, is it biased against Republicans. Pew Research asked about whether Americans consider their news source of choice to be part of the mainstream media. And overwhelmingly, the answer is “yes.”

Whether it’s MSNBC on the left end of the political spectrum or Fox News on the right, the majority of both stations’ viewers say they’re mainstream (88% and 61% respectively). Only 57% of viewers said that local TV was mainstream media, only 8% said it wasn’t – the remaining 34% said they weren’t sure. Of course, this is to be expected when dealing with a nebulous term like “mainstream media” which is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Is anything not on national television “mainstream news”? Or is it the prominence, prestige and power of a news source what makes it “mainstream”?

There is a strong political divide here. While 60% of all respondents said their favorite news source is mainstream media, only 48% of Republicans agreed, compared to 72% of Democrats. This is understandable given President Elect Donald Trump’s antagonism toward the mainstream media.

Regardless of political party, this survey shows a deeply fractured media environment with few clear winners. Clever PR professionals must truly understand their target audiences on a deep level to choose the right outlets – because there is no one size fits all.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post By the Numbers: Where Americans got election news appeared first on PR Daily.

Donald Trump has decisively won the presidency.

Not only did he take down the much-vaunted “Blue Wall” states needed to win the electoral college, he is also expected to win the popular vote, a feat he did not accomplish in his 2016 victory.

What was expected to be a long, perhaps drawn-out counting and legal process was curtailed, with final swing state calls made between midnight and dawn. Television anchors who had prepared for days of coverage found that the picture of the race became clear early in the evening, as exit polls began to indicate widespread anger at the direction of the country – difficult headwinds for an incumbent candidate who repeatedly declined to explain how her tenure would differ from that of her unpopular predecessor.

“I will govern by a simple motto, promises made, promises kept,” Trump said during a late-night victory speech. “We’re going to keep our promises. Nothing will stop me from keeping my word to you, the people. We will make America safe, strong, prosperous, powerful and free again. And I’m asking every citizen all across our land to join me in this noble and righteous endeavor.”

Vice President Kamala Harris has not yet conceded the race, though she is expected to address supporters at Howard University, where she held her election night watch party, on Wednesday.

Republicans also successfully flipped the Senate. Currently they are projected to hold 52 of the upper chamber’s seats compared to the Democrats’ 42, though six seats have yet to be decided. Control of the House of Representatives has yet to be determined, with the counts just before 8 a.m. at 198 seats for Republicans, 180 for Democrats and 57 yet to be determined.

Should Republicans take the House, it would represent a nearly total control of the levers of government, including the Supreme Court that Trump reshaped in his first term to feature a conservative majority.

Trump’s return to power was shaped by a more diverse coalition of voters than he carried in 2016, especially focusing on men of all races and people without college degrees of all races. While his success with people of color remained relatively low (he garnered about 15% of the Black vote and 41% of the Latino vote), it was more than enough.

For instance, Trump notched a major victory among men under 30. He courted them extensively through his appearances on podcasts, including earning a last-minute Joe Rogan endorsement. And it paid off, with Trump winning that demographic by 11 points, compared to losing it by 15 in the 2020 election. It demonstrates how powerful consistent, concerted messaging can be, especially to a group, like young people, that had long been taken for granted by Democrats.

Why it matters:

The country is moving into a new era politically, economically and perhaps culturally. These shifts will deeply impact every aspect of a communicator’s work, from how to approach demographically different audiences to crafting messaging to the business environment in which we all operate.

Politico identified key policies that Trump has promised to implement. Those most pertinent for communicators include:

• Sweeping changes to border policy, including mass deportations of immigrants, which could have high impacts on labor in certain industries.
• The implementation of hefty tariffs.
• Changes to the healthcare system, including a possible ban on vaccines and the removal of fluoride from water.
• A crackdown on DE&I policies, especially in schools, continuing the ripple effects of an affirmative action decision made by the court Trump helped shape.
• Regulatory rollbacks and freezes on climate-related rules.
• Massive tax cuts.

The U.S. markets seemed happy with the results of the election, with the Dow Jones Industrial Index leaping more than 1,300 points in pre-trading.

Trump’s victory also revealed major changes within the Latino community, an important and growing demographic for most businesses. This diverse group of Americans, representing people with roots in dozens of countries, made a shift to the right, despite incendiary language Trump and his campaign used toward Puerto Ricans and immigrants in general. From more conservative-leaning Cubans in Miami-Dade County to Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia, this group once again showed its importance in American life – and its refusal to be pigeonholed.

Looking to the Harris campaign, there will of course be finger-pointing about why the vice president fell so short. Was it her determination not to separate herself from her historically unpopular predecessor? The unprecedented nature of her ascension to the top of the ticket, with just 100 days to introduce herself to the nation and make her case? America has twice rejected a woman for its highest office – was that a factor, or was it their similar political stances? Or was it simply that people preferred Trump’s bombastic style over her careful, quiet vibes?

PR pros might point to her media schedule as a major factor. Harris was criticized, both by her opponents and some within her own party, for a cautious media schedule that often left the candidate a mystery to the public. With such a limited time to truly get to know the vice president, Harris nonetheless waited more than a month after she assumed the nomination to give her first sit-down interview. Even after that, she only made a concerted push toward media in the last few weeks, including appearances on popular podcast “Call Her Daddy,” which aimed to consolidate her support among young women rather than expanding her pool. She declined to fly to Austin and spend three hours sitting down with influential podcaster Joe Rogan, which would have put her in front of the young, male demographic who spurned her in the end.

Ultimately, it’s unlikely that her media strategy was the only reason Harris was defeated. But the lessons of being aggressive with media, reaching out to new audiences, experimenting with new media, letting personalities speak for themselves is advice professionals would do well to carry into the second half of the Trump era.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post The Scoop: What the election of Donald Trump means for communicators appeared first on PR Daily.

In marketing, there are so many activities that are tedious. Whether that’s updating dozens of banner ads to reflect new legal disclosures or writing a marketing brief,  AI is increasingly a way to reduce the tedium and increase the creativity in any marketer’s day.

Chris Cullmann, chief innovation officer at RevHealth, and Douglas Barr, AI lead and founder at PixieDust Labs, worked together to create a tool that would cut down on some of these headaches while also understanding the unique regulatory challenges in healthcare. So AgencyOS was born.

Here’s how the idea came together – and here’s what’s next.

Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

How did you come up with the idea for an AI that could give a marketing brief in seven minutes?

Cullmann: In conversations with Doug, we were forecasting the role artificial intelligence is going to play into not just the search market, but the experiential market for any industry where access to accurate information is important. In our exploring ways to build out structures around accuracy, removing hallucinations and limiting the data sets a manufacturer wants access to the most relevant information about their therapies in the context of treating patients, we started talking, very casually about, what if you know we could do this? What are the challenges inside of an agency that we could leverage these same technologies for? And from that, Doug built a prototype that was fascinatingly close to the iteration that that launched us into the solution that you’re talking about.

Barr: When we started thinking about our understanding of healthcare, healthcare data and content generation, there was a perfect lead-in to generating quality, solving some of the more complex problems within healthcare and content generation.

Obviously regulatory needs were top of mind. Data privacy, I’m sure, was a huge issue. Walk me through how you addressed some of those issues.

Barr: We put safeguards into place and privacy protection, more on the code side of things, that allowed us to maintain privacy and make sure that we were compliant with all the privacy acts and HIPAA. So that was actually a very complex problem to solve … So we had to develop a couple of intellectual property models to help prevent the hallucinations from occurring and make sure it didn’t divulge any private data, things that weren’t into market. We began with using in-market, publicly available content, and Chris and the partners there allowed us to consume that type of knowledge, which lessened the restrictions on what we had to what we were getting out of it, and to make sure that again, it wasn’t out of compliancy. So that was the beginning of how we began there.

Cullmann: I also think the partnership between RevHealth and Pixie Dust allowed us to be able to explore models that worked with incremental steps to a potentially automated future, but more importantly, one where we’re allowing our team members to completely interact and inform that model.

This allows our team members, when they’re working with the platform, to review and verify the information that’s coming out of the artificial intelligence, and one that allows us to be able to have our teams augmenting this. The brief process itself, timelines for all the individual projects that go through, especially in a regulated industry like ours, all of them need due diligence. It’s incredibly repetitive, and for organizations like ours that thrive on creativity and strategy and the human spark combating the fatigue of that day-to-day work with the achievement and the creative process is one that needs to be balanced. AgencyOS allows our team members to really focus in on the creative process, strategy process and being able to interact with our clients to be able to refine what the best solution is for them. From a communications standpoint, by removing a lot of the repetitive actions, we really are creating an opportunity for much fertile exchange of ideas and to challenge those more complex jobs, to have more time and for us to explore more challenging ideas.

Barr: The other aspect of it that’s remarkable is the fact that we’re able to take that human feedback and adjustment and through what’s called a reinforcement learning, or an RL, algorithm. That feedback goes back into the model as part of the human in the loop.

So tell me, what is the output of AgencyOS like today? You put in your parameters, you get out a brief, what does that look like? How much time do you have to spend editing and refining it? What does that process look like?

Cullmann: When the internet was much, much earlier on, I think there was a lot of nuance around search. The quality of the search returns you got were very much related to how we were able to put in search. The same thing is true when we begin working with prompts. Doug’s team has built out a process inside of agency OS that automatically refines some of the prompts through an engineering process.

It will prompt you for additional information if you leave out deadlines or requirements. It understands some of the nuances of medium. It understands what an email is, what a banner ad is. It understands the requirements of Facebook, X, TikTok from a structure standpoint. It understands what marketing objectives look like. It also understands, when trained against a specific clinical claims library, those libraries of the disease state that allow a client’s product to have a unique value in the marketplace, and all of the justification for an FDA approval that’s associated with that. All of the due diligence is folded into that claims library, which means, when trained, it can not only create emails, but also be able to create emails that are pertinent to our clients’ unique value proposition in the marketplace and its unique value proposition to a physician as to how they might choose that for a specific patient, assuming the patient meets the profile.

Barr: One of the differentiators between our platform and something like ChatGPT, where ChatGPT is a single agent. What we what we’ve done with our platforms is that we have multiple versions. Each represents a separate role within an organization. We have a senior project manager, we have a creative director, we have just a straight-up project manager, we have a strategist involved, and we have a programmer. And then we can scale these. They all communicate with each other to accomplish a specific task.

Cullmann: A product may change the indication, the solution or the patient that would be approved for the FDA  for it, … we could quickly iterate on many different changes that could be through those tactics, thus changing the speed of response we can have in making this more compliant as an industry.  When you’re a person and you spent the last year working on a specific indication, it’s very hard to pivot when you’re doing a lot of these repetitive tasks. If you had to update 20 or 30 banner ads with the label information, the likelihood of a mistake dramatically increases as you go through those repetitive tasks.

So what’s next? Now that you’ve got this tool, how are you going to keep building on it? And how do you see AI helping in that?

Barr: At Pixie Dust, we actually have two challenges that we’re looking to solve in the future. The first is more immediate. We’ve demonstrated a platform to people, and the truth be told, some of them have pulled me aside and said, “the team’s terrified.” So we have to educate people to understand what it does correctly, what it doesn’t do correctly, how people are still involved and need to be involved. We actually have to spend a lot more resources into educating people on the technology, which is kind of surprising to us. We thought, we developed this, and everyone’s gonna jump on board and use it, but there’s that fear that’s involved in, what does that do to our business model?

And the second thing was, we want to focus on what are called V]vision models. So currently, large language models are exactly that. They’re language models. It essentially predicts the next word and it writes it out. But that’s only one half of the world. The other half of the world is vision based. It’s through video, or it’s through images. So vision models are models that allow us not just that creative output, like Adobe Firefly, where it generates images. What I’m really describing is how these models see and interpret the visual world around them. For example, you can upload an image of a graph and start asking the model questions about the data points in the graph from an image. We can do that work today. That world needs to be expanded upon to make better use of it.

Cullmann: As businesses begin to use this, I think there’s a lot of initial fears: we can’t put our proprietary data into the cloud for general collection. So there needs to be a lot more nuanced understanding as to data and data rules as to, this is my company’s data. This is my client’s data. This is public data, and managing that and what platform you choose to manage that are all important elements to the decision making process as to how you’re using this to the risk and reward benefit.

The post AI Helped Me: Creating a tool for marketing briefs in minutes in a regulated industry appeared first on PR Daily.

As we lumber out of the election and into the end-of-year holiday rush, we’ve got a light week of updates – but still some significant changes. From X block updates going into effect to YouTube rebranding “comments,” let’s see what we’ve got.

X

X has at last instituted an Elon Musk-driven change to how the block feature functions. The previously announced change means that users can still see posts from users who have blocked them, though they won’t be able to interact with them. Musk says the change was made in the name of transparency and to protect blocked users from potentially harmful information; opponents of the change expressed concerns over potential stalking and privacy concerns.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is changing chat filters into more formal Lists. Now, users can group chats into self-defined categories to make it easier to find the most important conversations. Both one-on-one and group chats can be added to Lists.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is getting rid of some of the celebratory animations users can post around various life events. Say goodbye to the Appreciation, Welcome and Skill Assessment templates. But you’ll still have access to more popular animations, including New Position, Work Anniversary and Project Launch.

The app is also reportedly testing a new mobile UX, that switches the nav bar from the bottom to the top.

YouTube

YouTube announced a number of tweaks, including:

• Updates to the mobile YouTube Studio interface, including easier filtering and adding analytics directly to the content tab.
• The comments tab is being renamed “Community.”
• New audience metrics will make it easier to keep track of comments. Community Spotlight will also enable creators to interface directly with their top commenters.
• Updated, improved AI suggestions for comment responses. These responses can be edited.
• Expanded rollout of AI-generated summaries for videos. YouTube stressed that these will not replace creator-penned descriptions.

Instagram

Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced new filters to make it easier for creators to parse through DMs sent to them. Creators can filter to only see messages from other creators, businesses, people they follow, people who follow them and so on. Users can also see just responses to Stories in the inbox. Mosseri noted there was more to be done to improve the inbox, so you can expect more changes in the future.

Netflix

Netflix doesn’t usually make an appearance in our social media roundup, given that it’s not a social media platform. But this week it’s done something interesting enough to warrant inclusion. The streaming service has rolled out My Moments, which will allow users to clip and save their favorite portions of Netflix content. Those clips can then be shared with a tap to Facebook, Instagram and other platforms. Netflix notes that this new ability coincides with its new “It’s So Good” campaign. Their move to make users their primary marketers by sharing social media excitement is clever: it will not only generate buzz on social media, but it will also enable the streamer to get a whole new type of analytics to show what content is most interesting to its audiences.

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The post Social media updates and features to know this week appeared first on PR Daily.

Matthew Levison is global head of consumer at KWT Global.

If you gathered a group of journalists and thought leaders across the media landscape a decade ago to discuss the future of the industry, it would have lasted about 15 minutes, as the group simultaneous and emphatically proclaimed “print is dead and digital is king.” While at the time these claims felt alarmist, they also resonated as bold and visionary. Many moguls who made these declarations were seen as the realists, willing to say the quiet part out loud. A decade later, we still hear many of these statements and themes peppered through roundtables, bylines and keynotes, but today they feel reductive and out of touch. While it’s certainly true that the past decade has seen a reduction and refocusing of the print media landscape and the digital world thrives, the two are intimately linked alongside a far more nuanced ecosystem that sees the interconnectivity across print, digital, social and broadcast that complements and elevates the whole.

To further explore the dynamic between these various channels and unpack the interplay between them, KWT Global gathered a diverse set of editors and media leaders at the forefront of innovation across each, from Good Morning America, Cosmopolitan, Dossier and PS (formerly PopSugar). The insights in this piece are largely drawn from that discussion.

As digital platforms flourished and our media soothsayers began divining the impending print demise, online opportunities felt endless. Facing limitless audiences with instant access at their fingertips, the great traffic wars began, and the prevailing philosophy became “clicks at any cost.” Page views became king, and more eyeballs meant more money. That worldview reigned supreme throughout the birth and growth of digital, but about five years ago, a shift in thinking began to take hold and permeate editors across channels and outlets. With mass appeal, the “do it all” approach to editorial, and the rejection of specialized and focused brand growth came less loyal, less interested and less active readers.

While audience size and reach will always be an important part of a marketer’s mindset, alongside the media landscape, we too have grown, bringing a more sophisticated approach that prizes a qualified and engaged audience over a massive and mildly focused one. As both marketers and media leaders saw the value in a more tailored approach to content and the energized and active audience it brings, the industry’s next big course correction began, the niche-ification of today’s media landscape.

One of the most recent and visible manifestations of niche-fication is the recent full rebrand of PopSugar to PS. A complete overhaul that refocused and reframed the platform to double down on what they do best, driving the birth of this postscript to the legacy of the brand. As PS zeros in on real people with real stories and trusted reporting on health and wellness, audience trust grows, loyalty skyrockets, and engagement abounds.

This shift is happening across the industry, whether blatant or subtle, as all our panelists agreed. And what’s critical to the success of this shift toward niche-ification is the symbiotic relationship between a brand’s channels. What you lose in the mass audience you gain in the interwoven multi-point approach that inspires and activates these qualified audiences across multiple touchpoints. No longer is a story a story, as today’s story is tomorrow’s social post showing your product in action, next month’s print spread, and next week’s broadcast segment of best buys. Rather than the adversarial approach that defined the dynamic of the last decade’s media channels, today they work in tandem to strengthen, reinforce and drive to each other.

Smart marketers will embrace the change, dedicating resources and workstreams to a fully integrated multi-channel approach. This structural change should be designed to break down the silos that typically divide an agency to address the growing world of social editorial, the earned space living only on outlets’ social channels and the rise of the journo-fluencers  who have become the face of this content. A traditional editorial/influencer agency model is leaving results on the table as more and more value lies in the spaces in between. The agencies that will win are those whose barriers by channel fall away and refocus honing vertical experience to align with the focusing expertise and audience of each outlet.

Today’s media leaders and marketers understand that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and those that prioritize and respect the brand voice, perspective and authority of these outlets are those that thrive today and are poised to take on whatever shift is coming for us all next.

The post The niche-ification of today’s media landscape appeared first on PR Daily.

Frank Wolf is co-founder and chief strategy officer at Staffbase.

If you want people to remember a piece of information, wrapping it in a story is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. Studies show we recall stories anywhere from seven to 22 times better than isolated facts. Though, of course, the quality of the story matters.

Which would stick with you more—hearing that persistence leads to success, or hearing the story of Thomas Edison, who famously failed 1,000 times before inventing the lightbulb?

But the real magic of storytelling isn’t just in helping us remember. The true power lies in how stories guide us through a transition—moving us from an old world into a new one, helping us grasp complex ideas, and feel the weight of transformation. That’s what makes storytelling not just memorable, but transformative.

Senior leaders often think about the future regarding business strategies and goals. That’s the end state. But we all know the real challenge lies in the change and transformation needed to move from the current state to the desired future state. This is where we enter the sweet spot of communications. Like storytelling, it’s about understanding where your audience is today—their beliefs, dreams, and identities—and what story needs to be told to shift the narrative toward the desired future.

The communicator’s storytelling structure

Telling engaging stories might be the ultimate goal for the entertainment industry but the same isn’t necessarily true for communicators.

However, whenever we talk about storytelling, attention often turns to professional storytellers from the entertainment industry. If you work for Disney and attend a communications conference to lead a session on storytelling, you can be sure it will be overcrowded.

This focus on structure is why there’s such an emphasis on the classic hero’s journey: the hero discovers a problem, meets a guide, and eventually overcomes their challenges.

But the entertainment industry aims to engage audiences and get them to subscribe to Netflix or sign up for a paid newspaper. Corporate communication, on the other hand, isn’t about entertainment—it’s about changing hearts and minds.

Changing hearts and minds is hard in a world full of noise. Telling a single story isn’t enough. Our attention spans have become so short that cutting through the noise has become increasingly difficult.

We need to hear information multiple times to take action.

Not only do stories help us remember, but they also guide us through change. One or two stories might be enough to be noticed, but it takes more to make people remember what you want them to. It takes even further repetition to build trust in your message and even more for people to take action.

Many studies support these insights. For instance, a study by Robert B. Zajonc and others from 1968 describes the Mere Exposure Effect, where people start to like things after being exposed to them about five times. In marketing, there is a widely accepted “Rule of Seven,” which suggests that people need to hear something seven times before they are likely to take action.

That’s why storytelling should not be viewed as merely a tactical technique for packaging information. Yet, we often see communications teams thinking of themselves as service centers, helping leaders and subject matter experts wrap their knowledge in better stories. As one of our clients once said, “In an average year, our communications team tells more than a thousand stories, but we don’t create impact. Our main goal is to focus on fewer topics and ensure these tell diverse stories that all feed into the same overarching narrative.”

This is where strategic storytelling comes into play. It’s about aligning multiple stories behind a joint strategic narrative. Strategic storytelling allows communications teams to focus on initiatives that create business impact and drive key transformations.

Narratives are more powerful than stories

People often use “story” and “narrative” interchangeably, but storytelling and narrative are different concepts. Narratives are patterns that emerge from multiple stories.

Stories and narratives share common elements. The most important is their basic structure — they have a beginning, then something happens, and then there is a new end state. This structure is immensely helpful if you want people to follow a vision. It’s not just about where you want to go (the end state), it’s also about the journey of getting there.

No matter how powerful stories are, they are mostly about other people’s experiences. Narratives, however, invite us to become participants. This inclusivity is what makes narratives so powerful — they turn abstract ideas into personal motivations, allowing people to see themselves in the larger scope and be part of a movement or cause. For example, a specific founding story of a company becomes powerful when people can relate to it based on their own experiences or stories they’ve heard from others.

Consider Patagonia, which has successfully built a narrative around environmental activism. Their stories of sustainable business practices feed into the larger narrative of a company committed to saving the planet.

This is why any impactful communications strategy should focus on the narratives you want to create or change through your storytelling. For example, a topic like “Let’s do more about sustainability” is a topic, not a narrative. A sustainability narrative would be “We are transforming this business to be carbon neutral by 2040.”

A clear and powerful narrative will allow a communications team to identify and elevate the best facts and stories to build and nurture the narrative. The broader scope of a narrative also helps in connecting with current events and opportunities through approaches like agenda surfing or newsjacking.

What narrative are you crafting for your organization?

How to get started

The main insight is to completely reverse the way of thinking. In many cases, communications functions as a service center, engaging with all stakeholders to learn about the stories that need to be told. This bouquet of stories is often hastily squeezed into something resembling a strategy, but not necessarily a coherent one.

The strategic storytelling approach starts with the reputation you want to build and protect. You then identify the corresponding narratives that need to be shaped. After that, it’s time to find the right stories to support these narratives.

The result is a communications team that says “no” much more often than stakeholders would like to hear. However, the reward is fewer, but far more impactful campaigns, along with measurable impacts on the most important transformation and reputation drivers in the business.

By focusing on strategic narratives, you’re not just telling stories — you’re shaping the future of your organization.

Wolf goes deeper into strategic storytelling on free Staffbase’s free webinar, “What Taylor Swift Can Teach You About Elevating Your Comms Strategy,” Nov. 12 during Ragan’s Communications Week. Register here. 

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