Ragan and PR Daily’s 2024 Social Media Conference kicked off Wednesday with a memorable pre-conference workshop slate. During an afternoon session, Mackenzie Perna, co-founder at Sun & Sol Co., and Tyler Paget, social media director at Fox Racing, did a deep dive into how organizations can create impactful short-form content on TikTok, Reels and Shorts.

Here’s what we learned.

Establishing an ownable identity

Perna began by sharing how brands can create an ownable identity to show they’re truthful by embracing truth in various ways.

“We recommend that brands take on a very editorial approach and show their human community truth,” she said. “If we look around, we’re all diverse in ages and ethnicities, in what we like to do on the weekends. And consumers are looking at some of this from their brands as well. So when you’re programming your content showing diversity in your audience, and what you’re providing in regards to the entertainment and content, you’re sharing consumer truth. We all want to trust the brands that we’re purchasing from as well as the content we’re investing our time into.”

“The days of speaking through a one-way megaphone are over,” Perna added. “We really want to dig in.”

Lead with the hook

It’s important to remember that the hook is everything on TikTok — and action should come first. “Jump into a scene — don’t set it,” said Paget, emphasizing that this will encourage your audience to join you in the scene – and stay with you..

Some examples of effective hooks include:

• “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but..”
• “This is for you if [describe your target audience’s needs]”
• “Stop scrolling if you [describe your target audience] who [desire or dislike]”
• “Here’s 5 things to [desire]”
• “You need to do this if you [desire]”
• “Here’s a hack to [banish/attract]”
• “Did you know that…”
• “5 mistakes you are probably making…”

Optimizing your content

Creating a great video is only the beginning. When you’re putting the finishing touches on a piece of content, make sure you’re also considering:

• Showcasing premium content by staying in safe zones. “There’s a lot of stuff going on on your screen, a lot of business with engagement icons … making sure your content is within that safe zone is very pertinent,” Paget said. Checking preview mode can help here.
• Leveraging audio and voiceover to create an immersive expereince. Remember that TikTok started its life under the nameas Musical.ly, and music is still rooted in its DNA. Leveraging royalty- free, in-app music is the best way to go here.
• Optimizing keywords. These should be optimized in your profile, text on screen, caption and copy. “Social media has really become a search engine,” said Perna.
• Alt-text. Right before hitting post, you can find alt-text in your settings and add a description for what the content you’re sharing looks and feels like. This helps people with disabilities access and enjoy your content.

Telling a story and being a human

A 2024 Sprout Social Report found that most customers want to see more humans show up on brand social accounts.Front-line employees, social media teams, community employees and corporate leaders were most desired.

When spotlighting these employees, it’s crucial to not overthink it or try to be flawless. Accept that the aesthetics won’t be perfect and don’t stress having a strict storyline. Shakiness will happen, as will spelling mistakes and background noise. “If anything, it’ll cause chaos in the comment section, which is great for engagement,” Paget said with a smirk.

When to step in and when to stay out of trends

Just because a trend is happening on TikTok doesn’t mean you should be jumping in. Finding trends requires being an active participant. “Whether you’re on your lunch break or you’re having your morning coffee, just scroll through your brand’s account,” Perna said. “See what your community’s talking about. See what sounds and formats and conversations are happening in real time and allow this to be applied to your strategy on a daily basis. This allows your team to be quick and reactive.

When determining whether to jump into a trend,ask yourself:

• Is it authentic? 90% of consumers say that authenticity matters when choosing brands to support, from retail to healthcare to higher ed and beyond.
• Is it relevant? Citing Gary Vaynerchuk, Paget reminded us that good content is not about selling your content or services — it’s about understanding culture to decide when you can enter relevant conversaitons taking place online.
• Is it memorable? Visual appeal, evoking emotions and leaning on the tenets of storytelling will help you get there.

“If you answer no to any of these questions, consider sitting out of that trend,” Perna said.

Justin Joffe is the editorial director and editor-in-chief at Ragan Communications. He oversees the editorial strategy for Ragan across brands and products.

The post Live from Ragan’s Social Media Conference: Optimizing your short-form video content appeared first on PR Daily.

I promise that headline was the last ironic use of Gen Alpha slang you’ll hear from this elder Millennial.

But Generation Alpha, those born between 2010 and today, are rising. And they speak in their own unique way that PR professionals should understand — if only so they can avoid using it in a “how do you do, fellow kids?” sort of way.

New data from Morning Consult delves into the unique terminology this cohort uses, and we’ll break it all down. But first, let’s talk about Gen Alpha, and why you should already be paying attention to this generation of children.

About Gen Alpha

Gen Alpha is profoundly shaped by technology. The same could be true of both their Gen Z and Millennial ancestors, but Generation Alpha has a particular affinity for smartphones and tablets. They’ve never known a world without these touch-based devices.

Many are dubbed “iPad kids,” often derisively, for their parents’ habit of simply handing them devices to entertain them in social situations — and their frequently negative reactions when the stimulus is taken away. Their young lives were also profoundly shaped by the coronavirus, which caused many of them to spend their formative years in varying levels of lockdown and isolation.

Their economic impact is beginning already and is only expected to grow: by 2029, they’ll account for $5.46 trillion in spending. They’re also an extremely brand-savvy generation, and not necessarily the brands you might expect. As social media sites like TikTok and Instagram give kids more direct contact with adults, they start gravitating toward the same kinds of products that their elders enjoy. These are more likely to be Sephora and Ulta skincare aficionados rather than Toys R Us kids.

But it isn’t all about glowy complexions. Gen Alphas are also big gamers, and that love extends beyond the games themselves and into following their favorite streamers and chatting about their favorites. And they’re more likely to play on a cellphone than a fancy console.

Now that we’ve gotten to know Gen Alpha more, let’s dive into how they talk.

New generation, new slang

Every generation develops its own unique vernacular that they love and that profoundly irritates and befuddles the adults in their lives.

Gen Alpha is certainly no exception.

Morning Consult’s survey found that 29% of the parents of Gen Alpha (who are mostly Millennials, with a few Gen Zers thrown in for good measure) have heard their children use language they did not understand. This percentage increases as the child grows older, with 43% of parents of 8-10-year-olds scratching their heads over the words coming out of their children’s mouth. Children who socialize online are also far more likely to use confounding phrases than those who don’t (47% vs 23%).

And what are some of these neologisms the youths love so much?

You may have heard some of these. Heck, you may have used some of these. There aren’t bright generational lines around these terms; for instance, GOAT (Greatest of All Time, used to describe someone or something that’s very good) has been used in sports for years.

But let’s take a quick look at what these terms actually mean.

Bet: A term of agreement or being game for something: “Bet, let’s go!” Depending on tone, however, it can also be used to express doubt, according to Dictionary.com.

GOAT: As previously mentioned, this means the Greatest of All Time. It’s pronounced just like the animal and the adjective “goated” can also be used as a descriptor, USA Today reported. You might also see the goat emoji, which indicates the same thing.

Sus: Short for “suspect” or “suspicious” and conveying the same idea. While the slang term grew in popularity due to its use in pandemic-era game Among Us, it’s been around for nearly 100 years, Merriam-Webster said.

Bussin’: Something very good. Originates from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) on TikTok, according to Today.com.

Cap: Another AAVE term, cap means bragging or lying. No cap, however, means something is true or real.

Rizz: Dubbed the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year 2023, rizz means charm or attractiveness, particularly in a romantic sense. It possibly derives from the word “charisma.”

Gyat: Business Insider explains this is a compliment for a girl with a nice behind.

Sigma: Usually used in the phrase “sigma male,” it means an independent man or a lone wolf, according to Dictionary.com.

Lore: In this context, lore means the story behind something. It’s often used to describe the worldbuilding of TV shows and video games, according to very reputable source Urban Dictionary.

Ratio’d: Someone is ratio’d when the ratio of the replies on a piece of social media content is much bigger than the likes or shares on that post. Typically, it means someone did something dumb and is getting dragged for it.

Fanum tax: Named after streamer Fanum, this refers to stealing part of someone’s food.

If you choose to use these words, make smart decisions.

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

The post By the Numbers: The slang Gen Alpha uses, no cap appeared first on PR Daily.

Alysha Light is the founder of Flight PR. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

When it’s time for companies to name their next CEO, they often look to their C-Suite. CFOs, CMOs, CSOs, CTOs and even general counsel are the usual suspects who are in the running by default. Meanwhile, their chief communications officers colleagues are rarely considered. It begs the question: why are the very leaders who have mastered the art of storytelling and understand stakeholder engagement better than anyone so often left out of a company’s succession planning?

Perhaps they are a little too good at their jobs. CCOs spend their days crafting the perfect messages, mitigating crises before they explode, thinking endlessly about optics, working across almost every department, and essentially, making everyone else look good. They’re the unsung heroes toiling in the background who clean up the messes and smooth over the blunders. In a world where a company’s reputation can be its biggest asset or its biggest liability, you’d think corporate leadership would hold this role in higher esteem.

In my 15+ years in the PR industry, I’ve crossed paths with many outstanding comms pros, but I only know one who made her way to the CEO seat: the indomitable Jill Kelly, who is wrapping up a two-year tenure as CEO of EssenceMediacom. What’s stopping others from forging a similar path?

Comms pros need to end their inferiority complex 

While the corporate world has yet to fully recognize the value of strategic communication as a key driver of sales and business success, communications professionals are guilty of buying into the false belief that our skills aren’t just as suited for the top ranks as our colleagues in finance, marketing, strategy, or engineering roles.

To get more insight, I asked Becca Chambers, CCO at San Francisco-based ControlUp, an IT monitoring software and digital employee experience provider, for her thoughts.

“Today, successful leaders need so much more than inside-out knowledge of their companies,” she said. “They need skills like authenticity, connection, heart, empathy, and the kind of creative thinking that translates data into differentiators, challenges into opportunities, and companies into iconic brands.”

Chambers added: “The skill sets that make a great CEO today look very familiar—because they’re the exact skill set of a great (CCO). CCOs (need) to understand nuanced market dynamics, competitive landscapes, internal and external brand reputation, positioning, audience motivations, and how to navigate through a crisis. They need to be relentlessly strategic and relentlessly human. That’s why companies that win in this next phase of business will be those that seek CCO-like qualities of their top leaders—those who listen, strategize, and connect the dots. I can guarantee that we’ll be able to tell which companies do, and which don’t.”

Indeed, we live in an era where brands are built and burned at the altar of public opinion; where a single post or statement can send stock tumbling, and yet, the very people who navigate these treacherous waters daily are seen as unfit to hold a company’s highest-ranking position. Who better to lead a company than someone who’s made a career out of employing their listening skills, reputation management, change management, building support and trust, and cross-functional acumen?

As Son Pham excellently puts in this Raconteur piece, the corporate world increasingly recognizes reputation management, a core competency of any successful CCO, as critical to an organization’s success. Leadership, adaptability, and crisis management are areas where CCOs excel, given their day-to-day responsibilities involve navigating stakeholder interactions and shaping public perception. These skills can define a successful CEO, particularly when corporate reputation can be a company’s biggest asset or its greatest downfall.

It’s time to normalize comms leaders ascending to the highest ranks.

As communications leaders, we bring much more value to a company’s bottom line than the crises we avert and the media we generate. By expanding how we view a CCO’s contributions and nurturing their well-developed leadership capabilities, the corporate world can tap into a more diverse pipeline of potential CEOs already well-versed in one of the most critical aspects of today’s business: communication.

The post The case for elevating CCOs to CEO roles appeared first on PR Daily.

There are more questions than answers following the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore Tuesday. Authorities say six workers who were filling potholes at the time of the collapse are likely dead and that the container ship that struck the bridge lost power just before the disaster. Beyond that, the door is open for people to speculate on who is to blame for this tragedy.

According to The Wall Street Journal, investigators will look into whether contaminated fuel led to the power failure that caused the ship to strike the bridge. Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that the board planned to inspect the safety records of both the ship and the ship’s owner and operator. “This is a team effort,” said Homendy. “There are a lot of entities right now in the command post.”

Maryland Governor Wes Moore also commended the first responders who stopped traffic on the bridge with their swift communication. “I​​ have to say I’m thankful for the folks who – once the warning came up and once the notification came up that there was a mayday – who, literally by being able to stop cars from coming over the bridge, these people are heroes. They saved lives last night,” Moore said according to Fox Baltimore.

Why it matters: There a few lessons communicators can take away from the tragedy in Maryland. First, in a crisis situation, the public often looks for someone to blame. The NTSB’s handling of the situation (and they’ve been busy with the whole slate of Boeing issues lately) shows a commitment to getting to the bottom of the problem, and in a world in which conspiracy theories and misinformation can run wild on the internet, that’s no small job. That might not bode so well for the container ship’s owners, operators, or manufacturers in the long run.

Additionally, local leadership in Maryland stepped up to the occasion as well. Having Maryland Moore on the scene hours after the collision to both back up the efforts of first responders and to also debunk any speculation over nefarious causes of the collapse shows a strong commitment to proper leadership communications. In the face of a disaster, strong, stabilizing leadership serves to both help quell fears and as a side benefit, protect the brand of Baltimore and Maryland as a safe place to live and do business.

This will be a long-term battle for the city, the state and the country. Baltimore is a major port and its closure will have ripple effects for months and years to come. Keeping an eye on clear, timely communication will help ease this awful situation.

Editor’s Top Reads:

• Only a few days after she was hired at NBC News, former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel is out. The decision came after numerous on-air personalities at NBC and its affiliates harshly criticized the hiring over McDaniel’s attacks on the media and role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, according to CNN. “There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group,” NBCUniversal News Group President Cesar Conde said in a memo to staff. “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor. I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down,” Conde continued. “While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.” Sometimes leaders might make mistakes — but Conde’s ability to listen to his staff and right the wrong choice shows decent awareness of the situation. NBC was lambasted in recent days by critics – many of them on their own payroll– of the decision to bring McDaniel on given her track record, and this was likely the only move possible to right the ship for the Peacock’s news brand.
• If you’re a sports fan (or you just watch enough TV), you’ve probably seen advertisements for sports betting. Since its ban in the U.S. was struck down in 2018, it’s seemingly everywhere. But with the ease of access through mobile apps, there were bound to be issues with problem gambling. That’s why the seven largest sportsbooks in the country are joining forces to share information about problem gamblers, according to CNBC. “I’m incredibly excited to move this forward and to really do some impactful things and to really expand the knowledge through the research and to create these evidence-based best practices and to really empower players with information,” said Jennifer Shatley, executive director of the Responsible Online Gaming Association. Sportsbooks are now an embedded part of the sports viewing experience, whether fans like it or not. The major sports leagues, particularly in the wake of the Shohei Ohtani betting scandal, need to refine their relationships with gambling. Otherwise, the brands might take a hit in the longer term for pushing betting to the detriment of some fans.
• Two of America’s most popular fast foods are teaming up. According to ABC News, McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme partnered to bring the iconic sweet treats to the Golden Arches across the country by 2026. “The top request we receive from consumers, every day, is, ‘Please bring Krispy Kreme to my town.’ Partnering with McDonald’s on a national scale will provide our fans and doughnut lovers unprecedented daily access to fresh doughnuts and the joy that is Krispy Kreme,” Krispy Kreme CEO Josh Charlesworth said. Even if your brand is an American mainstay, it often doesn’t hurt to keep things fresh and always evolving, and collaborations help do that. This partnership doesn’t just stand to garner positive chatter among fans, it also serves to drive sales, particularly for customers who don’t have a Krispy Kreme location nearby. Sometimes teamwork does make the dream (or Kreme) work. It’ll be interesting to see if any of Krispy Kreme’s unique marketing strategies (like discounted donuts on Leap Day this year) carry over to the McDonald’s partnership. Even the biggest of brands can use new marketing tactics to keep sales moving.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.

The post The Scoop: The communications fallout of the Baltimore bridge collapse appeared first on PR Daily.

Sean O’Leary is vice president at Susan Davis International.

Everything about the site looked legitimate.

The reporter had a headshot. The article properly shared the news. But the use of one word gave away the fact it was all generated by artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, our agency sent out a press release for a client about three new leaders joining the company. As we reviewed the news clips, a new site popped up in our results. We hadn’t heard about the site and were initially excited.

Then we read the lede. The company had not hired a “trio” of new leaders – it had hired a “trinity” of new leaders. There’s not a human reporter alive who would ever refer to three new business leaders like that.

Indeed, it wasn’t a human reporter. Everything about the article was AI-generated, including the “headshot” of the “person” who “wrote” the story.

The phenomenon of AI-generated news is not new, as evident by the Sports Illustrated scandal late last year when the once-revered outlet was reduced to publishing AI-generated articles and attempting to sneak it past an unsuspecting public.

Most would agree that journalistic best practices would indicate a proper news outlet should make the reader aware if AI was responsible for the article they’re reading. But what if the entire outlet is AI-generated?

For PR professionals, we almost always want to expand the media footprint for our clients, and more sources of coverage are good. For this particular article in question, there was nothing wrong with it, other than the bizarre use of the word trinity. It showed up in Google News. It showed up in our media monitoring. There was nothing negative.

On one hand, I should be happy as a PR professional. We got an extra article for a client that was delivered to people around the world. For a majority of the general public, they do not know they’re reading an AI-generated article.

On the other hand, there’s a helpless feeling. An AI-generated news story can be good, but what if it’s bad? What if it starts needlessly sharing incorrect or unfavorable coverage to the masses?

As we enter the AI age of news media, here are a couple of tips for PR professionals.

Educate your clients on the AI media landscape

Even the savviest communication leader can be fooled by a strong AI-generated article. The first step in approaching AI-generated news is to educate everyone involved about what’s going on. Although they may be aware of AI news articles, they may not have experienced one personally.

For most AI-generated news, there is no action item beyond education. An article in these publications does not register on the same level as a legitimate, established outlet, but the average person reading these articles may not know that. As long as the news is correct, it’s simply bonus coverage.

Review every AI-generated article

However, just because one AI-generated article was good does not mean they all will be. While it’s always best practice to review articles to ensure your client’s news is presented factually and correctly, it’s even more critical with AI articles.

One such instance happened last fall, when an AI-generated news article popped up about a client’s annual sustainability report. Unfortunately, the AI-generated article published a story on the 2022 annual report as if it were released in 2023.

This was not an easy correction, as AI reporters are notoriously hard to track down. Instead, our team had to reach out to multiple salespeople at the site until finally reaching a human being who could remove the article completely. Ultimately, we were successful and there was little to no impact of the false article – but it was a warning sign.

Stay current with AI trends

By the time you read this article, there might be a new AI trend emerging in journalism. We’re only starting to scratch the surface of generative AI, with altered photos impacting Presidential campaigns and the most famous pop star on Earth.

There will be more AI-generated news sites, more AI-generated news articles, and more AI-generated news reporters. That much, I know. The rest? I’m not sure.

AI has the potential to completely upend and disrupt the news media. For public relations, that means our industry could be upended and disrupted too.

We can’t predict the future of AI. We can be prepared.

The post PR pros must prepare for the rise of AI journalism appeared first on PR Daily.

Figuring out the best medium for reaching external audiences is never easy. There are so many factors to consider: who you’re trying to reach, the messaging, the timeline and the budget.

But when we take a step back from specifics and look at the big picture, what are the best tools for reaching an audience?

This is one of the dozens of questions the Ragan Communications Leadership Council Benchmark Report answered. Hundreds of communicators shared their insights into all aspects of their practice, from how their teams are organized to their views on AI. Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council members can view the full 66-page report. But as an Insider, let’s give you a little, well, inside scoop.

Social media still reigns supreme

The survey asked respondents to choose the three most effective tools for reaching external audiences. Perhaps unsurprisingly, social media remains the No. 1 way of reaching a broad audience. Seventy percent of respondents said it was the most effective tool for reaching external audiences. It’s logical, of course: More than 62% of the world’s entire population uses social media, and 91% of Americans do. Given the wide variety of social platforms, it’s all but assured you’ll find a niche that your audience calls home and where you can deliver effective messaging.

However, there are drawbacks to social media, too. X has been in a constant state of upheaval for more than a year now; TikTok’s continued existence in the United States is in peril; and other platforms leave communicators scrambling to adapt to changing algorithms.

In other words, never put all your eggs in one basket.

That, perhaps, is why the second most effective method of reaching audiences is the much-maligned press release at 43%. While perhaps not as effective as it was in the glory days of media relations, this is still a tried-and-true method of getting important news out to a large number of people quickly, whether that’s through the press, by posting on a news wire service or putting it on your own website.

Going one step further and into owned media, brand journalism storytelling/website were the third most popular methods for reaching external audiences at 28%. As traditional media has continued to decline, creating avenues for artfully telling your own stories has become more important. Using SEO, social media and other techniques for helping audiences discover your content gives you a unique sense of control over your own story without the need for a middleman.

Rounding out the top five responses were speaking opportunities and conferences (22%) and email (20%, notably down from 25% in the 2023 survey).

All of these platforms give strong opportunities for storytelling and drawing audiences into a deeper, more intimate connection with your brand.

Which of these media do you find most effective for reaching external audiences?

To view the full report, become a member of Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council.

The post These are the most effective external comms tools, according to Ragan’s Benchmark Report appeared first on PR Daily.

Google has opened a new line of attack in its never-ending war against low-quality content and spammers.

On March 5, Google announced its newest core update. These broad updates make major changes to the all-important search algorithm that dictates what you see when you do your Googling. Small changes in the algorithm can make or break a site, rocketing it to front-page traffic or dooming it to obscurity at the bottom of page 5 forever more.

The March 5 update focuses specifically on low-quality content and spam, including several different abusive practices that make Google searches less useful. Among these are site reputation abuse (when a high-quality site hosts low-quality, third-party content that then surfaces based on the site’s reputation) and expired domain abuse (squatting on a domain that was formerly home to a trusted site and using it as a repository for low-quality content).

But above all, this content update strikes at what Google calls “scaled content abuse.” Here’s how Google defines it in their announcement:

We’ve long had a policy against using automation to generate low-quality or unoriginal content at scale with the goal of manipulating search rankings. This policy was originally designed to address instances of content being generated at scale where it was clear that automation was involved.

Today, scaled content creation methods are more sophisticated, and whether content is created purely through automation isn’t always as clear. To better address these techniques, we’re strengthening our policy to focus on this abusive behavior — producing content at scale to boost search ranking — whether automation, humans or a combination are involved. This will allow us to take action on more types of content with little to no value created at scale, like pages that pretend to have answers to popular searches but fail to deliver helpful content.

Reading between the lines: AI-generated content is getting better. It’s hard to tell if something is automated, but it doesn’t really matter if the content isn’t helping people find answers to their questions.

“Marketers can’t have nice things,” said Derek Chew, founder and CEO of FMDM, an Orlando-based creative and media agency. They thought generative AI would change the game overnight – and it did, but for the worse.

Chew gave the example of starting a website that shares winter vacation ideas. All the content is created with generative AI. Another person does the same. Then another. Suddenly you have 100 people creating sites with the same generic content, completely obliterating the usefulness of search results for winter vacation ideas.

“Suddenly, everything is just spam because the AI is probably going to write the same thing for you as for the 100^th person,” Chew explained. “There’s really no uniqueness at some point when it becomes a mass adoption. Then it becomes very low-quality content.”

Chew points to the irony of Google, a company which itself pushes generative AI tools, in suddenly needing to crack down on the kinds of content its tools make possible.

“They’re fixing their own problem,” Chew said. “And they’re not fixing a problem that is new. They’re fixing problems with low quality content, what they call unoriginal content. They’re trying to keep spam out of your index. If I were to read between the lines, my hypothesis is that Google has enabled a new type of spam, a very high-class, high-level procured spam. And now they’re trying to fix it.”

How to protect your content from algorithmic changes

The biggest takeaway from this update, Chew says, is that, “Good things don’t come easy.”

“It’s really having that patience to really deploy the best and time-proven strategies for content,” he said. “And honestly, if you’re working with a brand that doesn’t have the patience to develop content, it may not be the right client to work with.”

That isn’t to say that there aren’t good reasons to use AI in content creation. Chew notes it’s a great tool for brainstorming and researching. But it just isn’t where it needs to be to create helpful, original content – especially at scale.

So the best way to keep yourself safe from this newest algorithm update is to simply keep creating content that answers real questions in plain language using smart experts and judicious use of AI.

And really, that’s always the best strategy.

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

The post Google has changed its core algorithm again. Here’s what you need to know. appeared first on PR Daily.

Nonprofit communicators have some of the most compelling stories to share. Their messages support efforts that transcend a simple bottom line.

We’ve highlighted some of the first-place winners from last year’s Ragan PR Daily Nonprofit Communications Awards to take a closer look at their tactics and successes. Be sure to apply to this year’s awards before submissions close on April 5.

Best Media Relations Campaign: Brodeur Partners — Returning to the Boston Marathon Course

The situation: The Boston Marathon’s Jimmy Fund Walk is a heralded event in New England each year. Benefiting the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the walk usually takes place along the famed route of the Boston Marathon. But when the COVID pandemic broke out, the walk ended up being canceled in favor of a virtual event in both 2020 and 2021. When the walk returned to the course, Brodeur Partners needed to ensure that the word got out in a big way.

The solution: To celebrate the walk’s return, Brodeur looked for the faces that made the walk a special event. The team looked through hundreds of submissions to find the right walker stories, eventually identifying 257 walkers and listening to 70 unique walker accounts to gain a better perspective on the cancer battles and courage that led people to the walk.

The campaign also leveraged influencers to help spread the story of the walk’s return throughout the Boston area. One notable influencer on the campaign was Spencer the Dog, at the time the official dog mascot of the Boston Marathon.

Brodeur’s work paid off, earning nearly a thousand media placements, including two in the Boston Globe and a feature in the Boston Herald, in addition to millions of impressions.

The takeaway: Highlighting the people who make a difference in a nonprofit campaign is just as important as communicating about the campaign itself.

Best Public Affairs Campaign: FleishmanHillard and AARP — The Fight for Fair Rx Prices

The situation: Americans spend more on their prescriptions than any other country in the developed world. This issue is particularly pronounced for Americans over 65, with 3.5 million older people in the U.S. struggling to afford their medications.

The solution: In collaboration with FleishmanHillard, AARP created a target media campaign following President Biden’s highlighting of drug pricing reform in his 2022 State of the Union Address. Titled “Fair Rx Prices Now,” the campaign called upon Congress to take action on pricing reform, highlighting women over 50 as an important voting bloc. Fair Rx Prices Now earned 340,000 earned media placements and over 620 million impressions.

The joint campaign helped influence the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which included provisions for drug price negotiation, expanded vaccine coverage, and capped insulin costs. AARP CEO Jo Ann was also invited to the law’s signing ceremony in honor of the organization’s contributions.

The takeaway: Strategic collaborations can expand the scope of what’s possible to make a meaningful difference.

Nonprofit Communications Campaign of the Year: Stop AAPI Hate — No Place for Hate

The situation: The COVID pandemic saw an unfortunate rise in hate crimes against people of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) descent.

The solution: Stop AAPI Hate, which documents incidents of hatred against AAPI people, launched No Place for Hate. This campaign aimed to shift the burden of these hateful incidents away from individuals and towards public agencies that can help.

The campaign had two main goals. The first was the passage of two bills in California co-written by Stop AAPI Hate to further the conversation about stopping street harassment. The other was to increase awareness around harassment in the public forum.

The campaign featured virtual and in-person events with people discussing the issues of street harassment across different communities. Additionally, there was a social media aspect to the campaign, in which people held whiteboards that had a blank space after “I want a #SaferPlace to _____”. These images were displayed both in public spaces and across social platforms.

The legislative push succeeded when in late 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed both bills into law. The campaign also secured more than 120 media hits across local, state, and national outlets such as the San Francisco Chronicle and NBC News.

The takeaway: Supporting a just cause that’s focused on one specific community can create impact that resonates across multiple communities.

Read more here.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports, a good pint and ’90s trivia night.

The post Lessons from Ragan Nonprofit Communications Awards winners appeared first on PR Daily.

More than two months after a door blew off a Boeing 737-9 plane, sparking a series of safety disasters for the aircraft giant, sweeping leadership changes have been announced.

Effective immediately, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Stan Deal will retire from the company, handing the reigns to COO Stephanie Pope. At the end of the year, Dave Calhoun, president and CEO of Boeing as a whole, will step down. Finally, Board Chair Larry Kellner will not stand for re-election, paving the way for Steve Mollenkopf to take his place and lead the search for the next CEO.

“As you all know, the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 accident was a watershed moment for Boeing,” Calhoun wrote in an email to employees, which was also published on Boeing’s website. “We must continue to respond to this accident with humility and complete transparency. We also must inculcate a total commitment to safety and quality at every level of our company.

The eyes of the world are on us, and I know we will come through this moment a better company, building on all the learnings we accumulated as we worked together to rebuild Boeing over the last number of years.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing’s stock ticked up 2% in pre-market trading in the wake of the announcements, a notable bump for a stock that has plunged 25% this year.

Why it matters: There is a point at which trust can no longer be repaired with the same leadership team. Boeing had reached that point.

Airline CEOs had requested what the WSJ calls an “unusual” meeting with Boeing’s Board to vent their frustrations over a seemingly endless string of manufacturing issues which have led to blown out doors, missing panels and malfunctioning seat switches. The company’s biggest customers losing faith in leadership was a death knell for the current guard.

The communications around the sweeping changes are bland and to-the-point, with little reference to the ongoing crisis, save a few oblique references, such as “(Calhoun) will continue to lead Boeing through the year to complete the critical work underway to stabilize and position the company for the future.” The rest is largely the departing and incoming leaders thanking each other.

While the communications might not signal much of a path forward, the leadership decisions certainly do. The head of the most affected business unit is out today, but Calhoun will give some runway to transition the company. A new board chair will lead the search for the new CEO.

Who will they choose? Who can step into such a role? And how will he or she help usher in a new era of trust for Boeing?

It’s going to be an interesting year.

Editor’s Top Reads:

• Days after Princess Catherine announced she is undergoing treatment for cancer, the British media is blaming Americans, both in the media and on social media, for the conspiracy theories that festered while the princess was out of the public eye. The New York Times noted that the infamous British tabloid press was unusually restrained even as wild rumors circulated online, and that English papers refused to publish some photos of Catherine that American-led TMZ was happy to publish. But there was also an acknowledgement from experts that the royal family’s silence and the release of an edited photo allowed for those rumors to run wild. As we wrote on Friday, it’s almost impossible to balance an individual’s right to privacy with the voracious appetite of the public. But the release of that doctored photo certainly seems to have tipped the family’s hand into revealing information, perhaps before they were ready to.
• Axios has identified 12 news bubbles that define how Americans receive information. Developed based on conversations with influencers, media executives, C-suite leaders and more, the list includes categories like “Musk-eteers” (a mostly male group who love X, Elon Musk and Joe Rogan); New Age Grandmas (older women who use Facebook primarily to keep up with the grandkids – but who sneak a little news in, too); and Passive-ists (those who just don’t consume much news at all). The entire list is worth reading and absorbing for PR professionals who often must pop into several of these bubbles to reach their target audience. Expect the news sphere to continue to fracture, making the role of media relations ever more complicated.
• The European Union continues to investigate and penalize American tech giants for allegedly failing to comply with its new, sweeping Digital Markets Act, CNN reported. The DMA is intended to increase competition and choice in the digital spaceand means big changes for major players already in the space. Among the investigations underway:
  • Meta’s option for customers to pay a monthly fee to remove ads may not be enough for the EU, whose commission wrote that, “the binary choice imposed by Meta’s ‘pay or consent’ model may not provide a real alternative in case users do not consent, thereby not achieving the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by (large companies).”
  • Apple and Google may be hampering other companies’ ability “to freely communicate and promote offers and directly conclude contracts, including by imposing various charges.”
  • Google may not be doing enough under the act to ensure that competing services show up in search results versus its own products, such as Google Flights.

It all could spell major changes for these companies – both in Europe and back in the United States, which seems to be following the EU’s lead and launching several antitrust investigations of its own.

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

The post The Scoop: Boeing undergoes major leadership changes amid escalating crisis appeared first on PR Daily.

Ryan J. Taylor is the Founder and CEO of 440 Strategies in Washington, D.C.

Walking the highwire that connects politics and business is complicated, and mistakes can have real consequences. This is especially true every four years during the race for the White House. As a result of today’s bitterly divisive political environment, both large and small companies risk finding themselves in the crosshairs of presidential campaigns like never before. No company or industry is immune. Posts on social media, off-the-cuff remarks or coordinated campaigns by the candidates’ teams can affect a brand’s reputation, customers and profits. Being called out is something companies should prepare for proactively. To survive this storm, businesses need these four key strategies.

Know your strengths and your weaknesses
Every company should identify potential vulnerabilities that might attract political attention. It’s a good idea for each executive to review their respective business lines and corporate communications to understand the potential pitfalls. We live in different times now; any past mistake or oversight a company makes is fair game on the campaign trail. This is an involved process, especially for large, multinational companies, but the time invested pales in comparison to the cost of having to launch a crisis communications effort if caught unprepared. When business leaders do this work in advance, they’ll have a plan on hand, complete with a way to pivot from defending their brand to going on offense. That way, they can emerge from contact with the campaign trail with a larger, more loyal customer base and stronger market share.

As an example, in 2017, President Donald Trump slammed Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s clothing line. Obviously, the post generated a lot of media attention and speculation about Nordstrom’s future. The company stood firm in its decision and communicated clearly that the decision was tied directly to sales performance. Nordstrom’s response was decisive, concise and difficult to argue with. Most importantly, the company avoided alienating the president’s supporters while simultaneously endearing itself to its existing customer base.

Do no harm
One of the most obvious ways to avoid being dragged through the mud while the entire world watches on national television is to avoid becoming ammunition for political adversaries in the first place. This seems easy on the surface but requires diligent work to understand potential points of contention.

A great way to figure out what’s going on is to keep an eye on public sentiment through polling, focus groups and social media analysis. Science and art go hand in hand when it comes to using this analysis to plan scenarios and assess risks. Anticipating political events and examining potential outcomes from all relevant angles is another avenue to consider since those inflection points can have a huge impact on businesses, brand reputations and customers. These scenarios include government policy changes, public reactions to company statements and actions, and potential boycotts and protests.

Make a plan but stay flexible
There is an old adage that says, “prepare for the worst, hope for the best.” Nothing could be truer for business leaders with the 2024 presidential election just over the horizon. Start by setting up clear lines of communication and appointing spokespersons who know the company’s values and what’s going on in politics. At this stage of the planning process, pre-approved messages should be written to counter points of possible contention or to provide context for past mistakes. But remember, sometimes silence can be just as an effective response to political criticism.

In the past, one line of defense usually involved showcasing charitable giving practices, DEI and CSR commitments, or pro-environmental programs. This strategy used to work, but in today’s campaign cycle could create additional headaches. Rather than reflexively engaging, instead focus on the company’s core business and consider the following questions:

1. Do the critics matter?
2. Will the controversy blow over?
3. Is the best counter a rebuttal or a redirection?

The answers to those questions will determine whether the best course of action is to release additional statements, pitch the CEO to be on television or opt for silence to avoid adding additional fuel to an otherwise dying fire.

Make some friends
There is power in numbers. Creating a network of key stakeholders, like employees, customers and community leaders, is crucial in times of crisis. This alliance of third-party validators, which sometimes includes a bevy of strange bedfellows, can be a buffer against political hostility. Building this coalition and maintaining it will take time, treasure, and persistence. It starts by communicating regularly with them paying attention to their concerns and addressing their issues promptly. Taking these steps will foster goodwill, strengthen the company’s position in the community and ultimately defend it against political attacks.

Lastly, companies must be willing to engage in constructive dialogue with politicians, regardless of political differences. Taking a defensive stance invites unnecessary conflict and is at odds with the whole purpose of running a business, which is to make a good product that people want while turning a profit with the help of a well-trained team of employees. Ultimately, the ability to engage in meaningful discussions can turn potentially damaging situations into opportunities for business growth.

This isn’t rocket science, but it will take diligent work and potentially difficult internal conversations. Having a crisis communications plan, conducting risk assessments, building a strong network and engaging in constructive dialogue make it possible to handle political crossfire and come out stronger on the other side. A company’s ability to weather storms like these is more than just a strategic advantage, it’s a necessity for its long-term success.

The post 4 ways business leaders can prepare for presidential criticism appeared first on PR Daily.

Kennyatta Collins is a freelance brand strategist. Follow him on LinkedIn.

The emergence of new social media apps has blessed us with tools and features to enhance how we communicate. After Elon Musk purchased Twitter and subsequent changes led to a mass exodus of users from the platform, Threads became the ideal destination for many social media marketers, including Hubspot. The customer platform saw the Meta-owned network as a unique alternative that provided what many enjoyed about the early days of Twitter and Instagram.

Chi Thukral, Hubspot’s senior team manager of brand social, has adeptly navigated the changing social media landscape while spotting opportunities for deeper connections for the brand’s audience. Her latest social media strategy positions the text-based app Threads as a core platform for building stronger connections with the Hubspot audience.

“When it first launched, it was a special moment where everyone was exploring it, people were having fun and brands were just showing up as people. You could see how much the audience enjoyed that, and we decided to keep that going,” said Chi. Hubspot entered the platform in proper form with a meme and caption that spoke to the mood of many social media managers at the time.

With almost a year on Threads under her belt, Thukral shares how to get the most out of Threads, especially when looking to connect with Gen Z, extend the lifespan of your visuals and maintain relevance.

Threads is not Twitter

“Sure, Threads is a Twitter competitor, but that’s a completely different audience there. It might lean closer to your Instagram audience or even your LinkedIn audience, but you can’t assume it’ll match your Twitter audience,” says Thukral. Being born of Instagram, Threads naturally skews to a younger demographic than Facebook or X, as 61% of users fall within Gen Z and Millennial categories.

Similarly, user behavior on Threads takes root from years of Instagram use, so it’s just as important to consider when building a strategy around it. “Things that are going viral on Twitter don’t necessarily go viral on Threads,” Thukral said.You have to think more in line with what would work on Instagram now and what would have worked on Instagram when great copy and long-form captions were a thing.”

The value is in the visuals

Even though it’s touted as a text-based app, Threads is built to harness the power of visual storytelling, combined with text to build deeper context for narratives. “Because of how many people are using Threads from Instagram, we know that visuals work well. Threads is the one platform where you can include 10 mixed media in one post and build a digital storyline,” said Thukral.

Hubspot’s strategy takes advantage of this by extending the lifespan of graphics and visual media that may have worked well on Instagram and repurposing it for their growing audience on Threads.

“Because Threads is tied with Instagram, people are switching between those two so easily,” Thukral explained.”So when people are enjoying our content on Instagram, they can head to our bio and engage with it even more on Threads and vice versa.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by HubSpot (@hubspot)

 

Post by @hubspot

View on Threads

 

Experimentation is essential

The name of the game is experimentation, and that has served Hubspot well, especially when it comes to connecting with Gen Z and resonating with their tone of voice.

“This is where the Gen Z audience is at their purest form,” said Thukral. |”With Threads still being a small pool, they’re comfortable sharing memes and expressing themselves more freely, so we are embracing that too.” Hubspot freely engages with its audience by using memes and tapping into cultural moments with commentary that coincides with the broader conversations of the day.

An added benefit is the brand enjoying increased relevance while becoming more approachable to its target customers due to relationships being built over shared interests.

“We’re keeping the same energy, especially in the replies and comment section, to keep that vibe going. That way if you’re going to hit the comment section, audiences can feel like we’re having fun just like they are,” Thukral said.

 

Post by @hubspot

View on Threads

 

Enjoy the ride

As Threads continues to welcome more users around the world, we’ll continue to see more creative ways people are using the platform to express themselves. Being in flow with the pace of the platform works to your advantage as an increase in relevance improves connections and audience synergies across relevant channels. Thukral points out Threads is more akin to early Instagram or even Tumblr in the way users engage with each other and share their experiences.

“Threads is a great place where people can still engage with long captions, share unique visuals and lean more into goodwill rather than being hyper-critical.”

How long that lasts, we won’t know. For now, however, it pays to enjoy the experience and contribute to helping the audience do the same.

The post How Hubspot brings it all together on Threads appeared first on PR Daily.

Following weeks of speculation and questions, Catherine, Princess of Wales, revealed Friday that cancer was found following her January abdominal surgery and has been undergoing chemotherapy, the BBC reported.

Many communications professional have been watching the Princess Catherine situation closely after an edited photo of Catherine and her three children was retracted by wire services, causing a PR scandal and deepening the mystery around the princess’ absence.

But the reason is now all too clear.

Catherine said in a video message that the unspecified form of cancer was discovered after a previously disclosed abdominal surgery. She needed time to recover from that operation and has only recently begun chemotherapy, she said.

Read more: After the Princess Catherine photo disaster, have this conversation with your clients

In the video message, she said, “William and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family.”

“I am well and getting stronger every day,” she added.

A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales pic.twitter.com/5LQT1qGarK

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) March 22, 2024

In addition to Catherine’s diagnosis, her father-in-law, King Charles III, is also undergoing treatment for cancer.

Why it matters: It’s not easy being a royal. Yes, they get fairy tales and fancy lives but lose all semblance of privacy.

We now know that the radio silence and lack of public appearances by the princess were due to serious illness rather than something more nefarious. But while a regular person has the right to conceal their illness if they choose, that same luxury is simply not afforded to a monarch-to-be.

In the absence of information, the frenzied, fevered rumor mill filled in the blanks with the worst, most conspiracy-laden theories possible.

From the outside, it’s impossible to say who drove the PR strategy of silence, though a dignified lack of comment has long been a hallmark of the royal family. But it’s possible that Catherine herself, striving to keep some autonomy over herself and her family, insisted on waiting to reveal the news until it became clear that the scandal would not subside without a clear, direct explanation of what had been going on with one of the most visible women in the world.

It’s a horrible, heartbreaking situation. There’s no real way to win here. The conspiracy theories won’t end, especially not with cancer cropping up twice in the same family at the same time. Catherine will continue to have to fight for any shred of privacy, as even her medical records were breached.

It’s all a sad, weary echo of the life (and death) of Princess Diana, Catherine’s late mother-in-law whom paparazzi hounded until the very moment she was killed by their voracious appetite for another photo of her.

It also calls to mind another recent scandal over the non-disclosure of a medical condition. Lloyd Austin, the U.S. defense secretary, came under fire for failing to disclose to the White House or his temporary replacement that he had been hospitalized for cancer surgery.

All of this demonstrates how messy and complicated communications can be when it comes to a personal health issue.

There are no easy answers here. No finger-wagging maxims about what you should always do in these situations or what you should never do. Only that if you find yourself in a situation where you are helping a principal, client or even a friend deal with whether or how to disclose a medical issue that is impacting their official duties, lead with empathy. With listening. By releasing what information you can while fighting like hell to preserve as much privacy as the client wants.

There will be times when this balance is difficult — even impossible — to maintain. When stakeholders’ right to know will outweigh an individual’s own personal tragedy.

If that day comes, be as kind, as sensitive and as understanding as you can be.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery for Princess Catherine and all those battling cancer.

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

The post Princess Catherine reveals cancer treatment after weeks of PR unrest appeared first on PR Daily.

Today’s guest is a strategist, an author, a publisher and a podcaster with a passion for making people famous for what they do. Torund Bryhn is the author of “Fame Revolution,” and she’s captured the essence of today’s public life in a way no other author has yet done.

The post The Friday Reporter: Author Torund Bryhn appeared first on PR Daily.

Not so long ago, Reddit was a fairly lawless place. Yes, moderators oversaw some of the thousands of subreddit communities with an iron fist, but others allowed some of the worst abuse, hatred or even criminality the web has to offer a place to thrive.

That’s changed radically. Reddit is now one of the buzziest companies on the New York Stock Exchange, closing at $50.44 after its first day of trading, which means a market cap of $9.5 billion.

New York Times columnist Kevin Roose lays much of the success for the booming stock at the feet of a major shift in moderation policies in the last few years.

Roose points to three key factors that allowed Reddit to clean up some of the nastier corners of its website, and how its content efforts succeeded when many other social media companies have failed, creating environments that are unsafe for both users and brands.

1. Rather than trying to ban individual bad actors, Reddit deleted entire online communities that caused repeated problems. Granted, part of this is possible due to Reddit’s unique format that is built around communities. This wouldn’t work on a site like X, for instance. But Roose says that by getting rid of entire subreddits, it either forced bad actors off the site or forced them to clean up their act.
2. Reddit outsourced content moderation to volunteers. Each subreddit is governed by a team of moderators who are charged with enforcing both the site’s rules as well as any unique rules of that particular community. While this can cause issues, such as a wide-scale moderator revolt last year over API changes, Roose credits this volunteer army with much of the site’s turnaround.
3. Finally, as Roose puts it: “policed behavior rather than morality, and it did so without worrying too much about being seen as capricious or biased.” While Meta in particular has bent itself into a pretzel trying to appear balanced to largely conservative critics, Reddit simply banned the bad behavior, whatever side of the spectrum it came from.

Why it matters: Reddit is becoming an increasingly attractive option for brands. Due to the IPO, they’re rolling out tons of new ad options, tools and analytics to woo brands, making it an attractive place for both paid and organic social activity.

Reddit is also becoming an increasingly important search tool. Roose notes that he often adds “reddit.com” to his Google searches to help him find relevant information from real people amid the myriad of posts on the site. Google has taken note of this and is now partnering with Reddit in a variety of ways, including to train its LLM.

To be clear, there are still plenty of dark corners of Reddit. There’s porn galore, for one thing. But for many brands looking to connect with customers, it’s now worth a look, whether for simply monitoring to see consumer sentiment or being an active participant in relevant communities.

Editor’s Top Reads:

• Glassdoor, a site long known (and hated by employers) for giving workers the ability to anonymously review their workplaces, is accused of adding real names to profiles without warning or consent, even if those names weren’t provided during the setup process. One user says her name was added after she had a call with customer service, and she was told the only way to remove it was to delete her entire account, TechCrunch reported. This poses a challenge for the website: it can be difficult to be honest about an employer, especially a powerful one, if your name is attached. From a PR perspective, Glassdoor is adding few details on what’s changed, why or how they’ll move forward to rebuild user trust.
• The Walt Disney Company is waging what Axios has dubbed “the most expensive proxy battle in history” as it fends off a challenge from Nelson Peltz. Because so many retailer investors have bought into Disney, the company must case a wide net to get its message out ahead of the vote. It’s turning to social media ads, dedicated social media pages, phone calls, landing pages, videos and more. Peltz is also fighting back with his own digital assets but also traditional media relations, including a profile in the New York Times. Whose public relations will reign supreme?
• The Department of Justice and 16 attorneys general offices are suing Apple, alleging it engages in antitrust behavior to keep its iPhone at the top of the cellphone game. Among the issues cited in the suit are how iPhone handles texts with rival Android (those infamous green bubbles), blocking developers from creating tap-to-pay technology that could compete with its own and more, The Verge reported. This is all part of a broader antitrust movement against big tech companies in both the U.S. and the European Union. But if the suit is successful, we could see increased competition and options on cellphones — which could lead to cool new tools for many communicators.

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

The post The Scoop: How Reddit went from unmoderated mess to hot IPO appeared first on PR Daily.

There is hardly a university in the world that hasn’t hosted political activity on campus. They’re critical sites for getting young voters registered, encouraging civic participation and giving students a voice in political discourse.

However, even the highest-ranking schools have stumbled in recent years when navigating contentious, politicized topics and student activity around them. Notably, Harvard struggled to time and align its messaging around the outbreak of the ongoing Israel-Hamas crisis last year.

The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) has this dynamic well in hand: Year after year it has been dubbed a “Voter-Friendly Campus” by the Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and the national association for Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (which goes by the legacy acronym NASPA).

The school does so in large part thanks to the work of its Student Affairs department.

But it’s going to be a big year — and especially for UIC, because the 2024 Democratic National Convention will be held just three miles from its campus in August.

Joy Vergara, assistant vice chancellor for student engagement at the university, spoke to Ragan about how her teams and other departments are preparing for the coming election season. She discussed the importance of ethics and compliance guidelines, annual training and efforts to ensure inclusive expression on campus.

Open expression comes first

UIC’s Student Affairs department prioritizes and encourages open expression on campus, including politically oriented events organized by students, faculty and departments.

Its open expression policy emphasizes the importance of facilitating “the free exchange of ideas and the expression of dissent within the university community,” UIC states, provided any demonstrations are done “in a peaceful and non-disruptive manner.”

Empowering the community to engage in these events using university facilities and spaces requires a constant commitment to preparedness, including communicating and implementing safety measures to ensure events do not get out of hand.

“A lot has changed since the last election,” Vergara said. “We are anticipating that there will be more open expression, so we are having more discussion around staffing. We want our students to debate the topics, and we want our students to bring in different speakers. We just want to make sure safety measures are in place so our students can have these different discussions, whether it is left, right, in the middle or independent.”

Open expression and academic freedom policies are distributed and reinforced each semester through the Dean of Students Office.

Student Affairs plays a lead role in creating safe environments for peaceful demonstrations and political events, collaborating with event organizers, demonstrators, faculty or staff sponsors, campus police, and the Public Affairs, Emergency Operations and Dean of Students Administration departments. According to the university’s grid of open expressions policies, procedures and responsibilities for open expression, these parties:

• Annually create and review guidelines and “Incident Action Plans” around demonstrations and political events.
• Outline and document plans and participants in each event to ensure campus safety officials are informed and prepared.
• Monitor events and demonstrations to ensure they adhere to guidelines and do not become disruptive, and activate security and safety protocols, as well as disciplinary action if necessary.
• Monitor social media and news coverage around the events and prepare official statements and responses as needed, as well as respond to media requests for comments and information.
• Maintain open communication with the organizers and demonstrators before, during and after the event.
• Conduct an “After-Action Report,” which is “a detailed critical summary of a recent incident made for the purposes of reassessing decisions and considering possible alternatives for future reference.”
• And far more besides.

Training is critical

All of the above requires a highly trained staff who is well-versed in protocol, communication and ethics every step of the way.

Vergara said that annual ethics training is mandatory for faculty and staff. As someone who has worked at the university for 10 years, she’s done 10 separate ethics training sessions, all of which covered communications around political activity and events. These trainings, which are conducted online with reporting mechanisms to ensure accountability, are guided by on-campus ethics and compliance officers.

Ethics often come into play when external speakers and participants — say, a political activist or candidate — are invited to participate in on-campus political events, and when external organizations rent space for political activities.

“We always want to make sure that the student organizations know what they’re allowed to host on campus, who they can bring to campus,” said Vergara. “There might be stakeholders that disagree with whoever they bring in on campus. And so the student organizations and leaders provide some guidance. We have to carefully navigate what we help our students host versus what the university is allowed to host or not.”

These situations can present fine lines between what is allowed and what isn’t, so it’s important to clearly define what political activities are prohibited. “When the staff is well versed in that, we can ultimately prepare for what the students may want to do and how people may react,” Vergara said.

Student Affairs is also responsible for managing annual registrations of student organizations and communicating with students about what they are permitted to do on campus.

They also lean heavily on the expertise around departments focused on political science, race and beyond. Resources such as “Diversity Dialogue” courses and faculty research are also offered to help staff and students engage in productive conversations around difficult topics. “We can tap into some of this expertise if we’re not feeling confident enough to lead these facilitations,” said Vergara. “Faculty and staff can help you in the knowledge gap.”

Planning ahead

As this sure-to-be contentious election cycle heats up, Vergara and her department are focusing on consistent communications of those open expression policies each semester to ensure students, faculty and staff are able to engage while the other operations of the university continue.

The DNC in August will not only make the campus host to a range of political events and activity, it will also impact campus transportation and logistics. UIC will work with the city and the national conventions to keep the university’s day-to-day operations running smoothly and address any safety concerns as they arise.

Vergara stressed that communicating “time, place and manner” for open expression is critical.

“We need to allow coursework and academic work to proceed and make progress,” she said. “We need to make sure that the community understands when there’s a time and place and manner when open expression could occur.”

Joy Vergara will join Ragan at our 2024 Employee Communications and Culture Conference, April 16-18, in Chicago. Learn more and register.

Jess Zafarris is director of content at Ragan and PR Daily.

The post How university communicators are preparing for a heated election season appeared first on PR Daily.

Joseph Abreu is the chief communications officer for the clerk of the court & comptroller of Lee County in Fort Myers, Fla., overseeing strategic communications, public affairs, media relations, emergency management, and reputation/brand management. He is also the PRSA’s 2024 Chair. Abreu has served for over 17 years in leadership roles with PRSA, including five years on the national board.

 Before his CCO role, he directed communication efforts for the clerk & comptrollers of St. Lucie and Palm Beach counties. He managed communications and development for Compass, a prominent LGBTQ community center.

Abreu has been recognized with awards like the PRSA Sunshine District’s Trailblazer Award and the PRSA Palm Beach Chapter’s Hall of Fame Award, Abreu’s campaigns have garnered over 40 national, state, and local accolades.

The thing I’m most excited about for the future of my profession is:

I’m excited about how new technologies, like artificial intelligence and augmented reality, will continue to impact the way public relations professionals work in the near future. These new tools will give us unique opportunities to work faster, produce more content, develop personalized messaging and engage audiences.

One thing that worries me about the future of my profession is:

As much as I embrace AI and other burgeoning technologies, I do worry about how they will amplify mis- and disinformation in our societies. We are already highly susceptible to misleading and false statements, but when it is made with authentic voices and videos, it will be even harder for people to discern between truth and lies. As public relations professionals, we will have to work together to combat unethical practices.

A tool or a piece of software I cannot live without is:

My iPhone. Like many PR professionals, I need to be accessible as well as be able to access the internet, email, and social media – right at my fingertips. I often use my phone to take notes, create videos, and manage all my finances.

The most underrated skill in my profession is:

Financial literacy. If you go into communications without a strong understanding of numbers, you will limit your growth. Communications executives must be comfortable with budgets, P&L statements and balance sheets. We also need to be able to measure our results against the bottom line and prove our value in the C-suite. 

One way I stay creative and motivated is:

Graphic design is a skill that can truly benefit communicators, and I have been proficient in many Adobe programs for nearly 20 years. It gives me a creative escape from everyday work, and the artistry allows me to recharge and better contribute to my team.

Someone who has helped me be successful in my career is:

 My husband. He has always been encouraging and supportive of my career and my passions in life, whether it be volunteering for PRSA for the past 18 years or moving across the state for a new career opportunity. He helps me stay positive in the toughest times, and I wouldn’t be where I am without him.

Isis Simpson-Mersha is a conference producer/ reporter for Ragan. Follow her on LinkedIn.

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Off the record, on the record, on background. The terms are commonplace for PR professionals but are often used incorrectly. And that can be very dangerous.

I’ve dealt with various record requests as a PR rep, as an editor and as a reporter myself. These terms can be confusing. Use the below guide to ensure you understand – but perhaps more importantly, include this as part of your media training for clients and principals. A confident executive saying “well, this is off the record, BUT” could well wind up as front-page news tomorrow.

Basic definitions

On the record is the default status for talking to a reporter in a professional capacity. It means anything you say in an interview can be quoted and reported on, with your name attached. You should assume that anything you say to a reporter is on the record unless they have stated otherwise.

That part is important, so let me repeat it, this time in bold: you should assume that anything you say to a reporter is on the record unless they have stated otherwise.

Off the record is, of course, the flip side of that. Nothing in that conversation should be included in coverage, either as a direct quote, a summary or a reference. Nothing.

Finally, the last status is on background, which is the most complicated terminology. On background often means that the information may be used either via quote or a summary, but without a specific name attached. This is often used to not put the focus on a person, such as attributing a quote to “a company spokesperson” as opposed to “Jane Doe, head of communications.”

A less common term you may hear is “deep background.” The AP defines this as, “The information can be used but without attribution. The source does not want to be identified in any way, even on condition of anonymity.” This is often used when a journalist needs to speak to a subject matter expert to understand a topic enough to write about it with authority, but the identity of that expert doesn’t necessarily need to be in the story.

When in doubt about the definitions of any of these terms, ask up front.

A journalist’s obligation

In a perfect world, a journalist will always make the record status of a conversation clear. I like to tell people upfront, “I’ll be using this in an article, so everything we discuss is on the record. Is that OK?” It’s also fine to make it clear that nothing you say is on the record: “Hey, this is just a getting-to-know you chat, so let’s stay off the record unless we both decide something comes up that’s worth reporting on. Is that OK?”

But not all reporters do this. So again, assume that anything you say to a reporter is on the record unless otherwise negotiated.

Because going off the record or on background is always a negotiation. And it must happen before you say whatever you don’t want to be reported.

Reporters have an ethical obligation to preserve a source’s trust by respecting agreements about going off the record or on background. Breaking that rule is considered a deep faux pas. But that does not mean you can simply preface a statement by saying, “this is off the record” and expect that to be respected. Both sides must say yes.

There have been several high-profile situations, including one that involved Elon Musk, where sources sent emails to reporters flagging information within as “off the record.” But because the reporter in question never agreed to be off the record, they published the contents of those emails. They were within their ethical rights to do so. You also generally can’t say something, then backtrack with “that was off the record.”

It’s rarely to your advantage to go off the record with a reporter. Even if they can’t report what you told them off the record, they can investigate it and try to find an on-the-record source. But if you do want to give it a try, approach it like this:

“I’d like to go off the record with my response because…Will you accept those terms until we both agree to go on the record again?”

Get a clear yes or no. And if it’s a no, then move on. Change topics.

The trouble with background

Again, background is the squishy middle ground between on and off the record. Some  journalists have grown sick of it.

In 2021, The Verge updated its public ethics policy to change its stance around “on background” reporting. As the outlet’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, wrote at the time:

There are many reasons a reporter might agree to learning information on background, but importantly, being on background is supposed to be an agreement.

But the trend with big tech companies now is to increasingly treat background as a default or even a condition of reporting. That means reporters are now routinely asked to report things without being able to attribute them appropriately, and readers aren’t being presented with clear sources of information.

This all certainly feeds into the overall distrust of the media, which has dire consequences in our current information landscape, but in practice, it is also hilariously stupid.

It’s worth reading the full story for some deeply cringey examples of PR professionals demanding to be on background in ridiculous ways. Don’t be one of them.

The Verge clarified that it will only accept on background requests “at our discretion and only for specific reasons that we can articulate to readers.”

While it may be awkward for PR professionals, it’s good for journalism. The public’s ability to evaluate the credibility of a source by knowing who they are is vital. If you aren’t comfortable with putting a name to your spokesperson (whoever they may be), you need to reevaluate your strategy.

Remember: reporters are not your friend. They are professionals there to get a story. Most aren’t out to burn you either, but protect yourself and your organization by deeply understanding and aggressively negotiating these terms.

Get more expert insight into smartly working with the press during PR Daily’s Media Relations Conference, June 6 in Washington, D.C.

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

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Time and again, research reminds us that Hispanic Americans are one of the most diverse groups in this country. While we discuss them demographically as one homogenous group, Hispanic people can identify as many races, be domestic or foreign-born, trace their origins to 20 different nations, and speak a variety of languages, including Spanish, English or the plethora of native languages spoken in Central and South America.

Read more: How Black Americans get news

By the same token, the way this group likes to get their news can vary widely, according to data from Pew Research. By understanding these patterns and preferences, PR professionals can better reach and influence this critical demographic.

English, Spanish or both?

One of the first questions a PR pro must answer is which language will best reach their target audience. A slight majority (51%) of all Hispanics prefer to get their news in English. Only 24% of people who identify as Hispanic prefer their news primarily in Spanish, while 23% have no linguistic preference.

However, the data grows more complicated as we dig a bit deeper.

Hispanic people born in the United States overwhelmingly (79%) prefer to get news in English. Since more than two-thirds of Hispanic Americans are native-born, this is significant. Only 3% of American-born Hispanics prefer to get their news in Spanish, while 17% are fine with either language.

To put it plainly, English (perhaps combined with some Spanish) is the most important language for reaching the largest chunk of the American Latino population.

These numbers shift when we look at Hispanic immigrants, but not as dramatically as you might expect. Twenty-two percent of immigrants prefer to get news in English, while 47% want Spanish instead. An additional 31% have no preference.

The bottom line is that being granular in your targeting and better understanding what segment of the Hispanic population you’re targeting will help you choose the most effective outlets to target, or what language to use in social media and other materials.

The most popular news sources

About half of all Hispanic adults get news from Latino-specific media at least sometimes, the survey found. Again, we see a significant split between immigrants and American-born people, with 69% of immigrants preferring Hispanic news sources versus just 33% of native-born. But it’s clear there is still utility in pitching outlets like Telemundo, Univision and others, especially if aiming for that immigrant population.

Most Latinos prefer to get their news from various digital sources. Twenty-one percent prefer social media; 19% go directly to news websites or apps; 18% use search; and 7% like podcasts. Twenty-three percent have a preference for TV, and just 4% each prefer print or radio.

But those are preferences. Most Hispanic people receive news from multiple sources, and their consumption broadly echoes that of Americans as a whole, with 87% getting news at least sometimes from digital sources; 62% from TV; 48% from radio; and 32% from print. So don’t be afraid to experiment with a broad range of new and old-school media to reach this audience. But perhaps veer a bit more toward digital sources overall.

Interest in news

One challenge to reaching Hispanics through media relations efforts is that many simply don’t follow the news. Just 22% say they follow the news closely all the time, a 6-point YOY decrease. Seventeen percent never follow the news at all. These numbers lag news interest in other ethnic groups, a disparity Pew Research attributes, at least in part, to age. Latinos tend to be younger than other demographics, and young people simply don’t follow the news as closely.

This might present opportunities for media relations with sources other than hard news outlets. Think influencers, podcasts, social media or more entertainment-focused news sources.

There are challenges to connecting with the Hispanic market in media relations, just as there are with any group. But with smart targeting, cultural awareness and creativity, it can always be done.

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

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If you’ve made the rounds on social media lately, you’ve probably seen the rampant speculation regarding everyone’s favorite recently reclusive royal, Kate Middleton. An edited family picture of the Princess of Wales and her children didn’t help quell the flames of curiosity, and in fact, probably just fed the conspiracy fire.

Even following an appearance in public with Prince William to buy groceries last weekend, the Kate Middle conspiracy parade marches on. and there’s a likely suspect — social media. According to a piece by The Wall Street Journal, the old royal adage of dealing with the media of “never complain, never explain” doesn’t always work well in a world in which anyone with an account can say whatever they’d like to add to the rumor mill.

The palace usually doesn’t dignify the rumor mill, but between the Princess Catherine situation and King Charles III’s recent, unspecified cancer diagnosis, the royal PR front has debunked some of the wilder rumors since the beginning of the year through press releases from the palace. One thing is clear — the nearly 1,000-year-old institution of the monarchy and its tradition of silence is being tested by social media and its power to spread rumors and misinformation.

Why it matters: While the British royals don’t always maintain the rosiest relationship with the tabloid-heavy British press, social media, with its light regulations, offers a freer place for individuals or organizations to effectively say anything about the royals. Social media (TikTok in particular) serves as a hotbed for Kate conspiracies, as one quick flip through the app will show you theories ranging from Kate being an effective prisoner in the palace to her hiding in Taylor Swift’s London home.

The lesson here? Any organization that deals with the media, including the British monarchy, needs to adapt to all kinds of media, including social media. Just because you’re an old institution doesn’t mean you can’t adapt to the times. The long-time practice of staid silence amid controversy and the 24-hour gossip cycle doesn’t work with social media in the picture. In the absence of information, social media will fill in the blanks. And you likely won’t like what they say.

Editor’s Top Reads:

• The Stanley water bottle, once a mainstay for blue-collar workers, underwent a marketing transformation in the last year, as the company decided to market some of its products toward a new female audience. The decision was a good one, with Stanley-branded bottles gaining prominence as a status symbol for Gen Z and Millennial women. But Stanley is now seeking a marketing pivot — positioning its bottles as something for men as well. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company wants to show that Stanley isn’t just cool for outdoorsy guys, but men of all types. Stanley’s recent pivot worked so well that it managed to transform the brand’s identity for the better over the last year. It’ll be interesting to see if the company can replicate that magic by marketing to white collar men in addition to the company’s historic mainstay of blue-collar workers.
• Alabama passed a bill that effectively bans DE&I efforts in the state’s educational sector. According to CNN, the legislation that Governor Kay Ivey is expected to sign into law, outlines eight “divisive concepts,” including discussions about subconscious racism and more. The politicization of diversity and inclusion efforts marches on, and while this move might satisfy some people in the short term, it may not be a good harbinger for businesses in the long run, especially if the ban eventually moves beyond colleges and schools. Even amid some DE&I fatigue, many businesses are moving forward with their efforts, and Alabama might not be a place where those businesses choose to invest.
• If you were planning on doing some shopping on Easter this year, your options are going to be a little slimmer than usual. According to MSN, Target, TJ Maxx, HomeGoods and Marshalls will close for 24 hours during the March 31 holiday. An increased focus on customer service for many retailers has also in turn created an emphasis on better employee treatment. While it might be an inconvenience for some, a store that’s known for treating workers well is more likely to garner positive press and public sentiment. Forgoing a day of sales for that longer-term investment could well be worth it.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.

The post The Scoop: Why the Royal family’s PR strategy no longer works appeared first on PR Daily.

Amid the turbulence of the past few years, the outline of a new breed of communicator is taking shape.

Insights from the 2024 Ragan Communications Benchmark Report, an exclusive research project for Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council, paint a picture of communicators at the center of some of the most important conversations shaping the culture of their organizations.

The challenges are clear. Disinformation and misinformation erode the trust needed to attract customers and engage employees. A burgeoning backlash among a vocal group of stakeholders against priorities like corporate social responsibility and diversity, equity and inclusion continues to gain steam. Within the workplace, shifting power dynamics are pushing leaders to rein in popular hybrid and remote work arrangements.

Combine those trends with economic nervousness, global geopolitical tensions and a surge in technological innovation, and an opportunity emerges for communicators to reinforce the strategic value they bring to their stakeholders.

By linking their relationship management expertise and storytelling prowess with strong business acumen, communicators are poised to increase their influence and reshape the strategic role of communications.

The full 66-page report, based on a survey of 1,000 communicators worldwide, is available exclusively to members of the Ragan Communications Leadership Council and includes detailed analysis of the best practices emerging among the community of communications professionals.

Key highlights include:

• The skills and competencies comms teams are prioritizing to reskill and upskill.
• Detailed data on the rapid rise of generative AI investments.
• The most effective channels for internal and external communications.
• Key opportunities for measuring the effectiveness of communications.
• How the boundaries between internal and external communications continue to blur.
• Tips and tactics to reboot culture and rebuild trust and employee engagement.
• How shifting priorities around ESG and DEI are influencing strategic direction.
• How comms tactics are changing in response to a rising emphasis on in-person work.

Download your copy of the 2024 Benchmark Survey Executive Summary today to see how your communications efforts measure up. To receive a full copy of the report, become a member of the Communications Leadership Council.

The post Read the executive summary from Ragan’s 2024 Communications Benchmark Report appeared first on PR Daily.

You might think of writing voice as some fancy literary technique that only applies to novels and that you haven’t thought about since your last English class. But voice is a critical part of communications writing as well.

Voice colors the way your writing is received. It helps people understand how they should emotionally respond to a piece. The same ideas can come across very differently depending on the words you use. For instance:

“Our CEO is moving on to a new adventure! We’re grateful for all she’s done over her years of service. Please join us in wishing her the very best.”

Compared to:

“Our CEO has accepted another role. We wish her the best.”

The first is friendly, excited and positive, even though it’s conveying news that could be seen as destabilizing. It uses exclamation marks, positive language and a genuine call to action at the end.

The second is colder. More to the point. It makes it feel like something is being left unsaid. There might be times when that’s what you want, so it’s important to know how to switch between voices based on the specific piece you’re writing.

But how do you know what voice to use when? It starts by understanding the emotion you want to evoke, your audience and the purpose of the piece you’re writing.

Use the checklist below to help determine your voice for a given piece.

Defining your voice as a business writer

In the world of business, your voice depends on what you’re creating. To determine your voice, ask yourself these questions. Check all that apply.

The purpose of this piece is to:

• Evoke emotion.
• Tell a story.
• Give details.
• Share a vision.
• Give good news.
• Break bad news.
• Rally the team.
• Build excitement.
• Fill in your own: _________________________.

I want my writing to make readers feel:

• Informed.
• Understood.
• Enlightened.
• Heard.
• Excited.
• Energized.
• Cooperative.
• Driven.
• Competitive.
• Determined.
• Cautious.
• Emotional.
• Empathetic.
• Grateful.
• Inspired.
• Fill in your own: _________________________________.

My audience is _____________________________________.

My voice should be:

• o Informed.
• Understood.
• Enlightened.
• Heard.
• Excited.
• Energized.
• Cooperative.
• Driven.
• Competitive.
• Determined.
• Cautious.
• Emotional.
• Empathetic.
• Grateful.
• Inspired.
• Fill in your own: ________________________________.

The post How to define your voice in communications writing appeared first on PR Daily.

This story has been updated to clarify that Griner has not conducted one-on-one interviews since her return. 

Securing the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner from wrongful detention in Russia was a monumental feat of politics and negotiations.

But PR also played a critical role.

“It was about screaming from the mountaintop and trying to have the public and ultimately the government and White House pay attention to us, because we knew that without the government support and the support of the White House, she probably wasn’t going to come home,” Calder Hynes told PR Daily. Hynes is senior vice president of global communications at Wasserman, the sports and entertainment talent agency that has represented Griner for years.

Wasserman coordinated efforts to release Griner from her nearly 10-month imprisonment in Russia, a massive undertaking that required working with not only the government, international attorneys and hostage experts, but also the WNBA, USA Basketball and the court of public opinion.

In an interview with PR Daily, Hynes and Griner’s longtime agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas revealed how they worked to first keep the incident quiet – and then how to ensure every American viewed Griner as their sister, daughter or neighbor.

This story was in part developed based on reporting from “Inside Brittney Griner’s Russia arrest, detainment and release,” written by ESPN’s T.J. Quinn, for details around Griner’s arrest and detention. All quotes with Kagawa Colas and Hynes are from interviews with PR Daily.

An early morning call and an international incident

Kagawa Colas was awakened early one morning by a call from a colleague. There was a problem. The information they had was slim, just a text from Griner’s wife, Cherelle, that the basketball star had been arrested as she returned to Russia to kick off her play with UMMC Ekaterinburg due to her possession of two marijuana vape cartridges.

Brittney Griner and Lindsay Kagawa Colas after Griner’s release from Russian detention. Photo provided by Wasserman.

At first, this was just another problem to solve. A day in the life of a sports agent.

“We were still hoping that this was going to be a sports diplomacy issue that could be solved,” Kagawa Colas told PR Daily. “Some misunderstanding. She has a prescription for this medically prescribed cannabis oil. I’m sure we can figure this out.”

“The initial (PR) approach was, let’s try to keep this out of public knowledge. Move past it,” Hynes recalled.

But the timing meant that this would be more than a minor drug bust. Griner was detained on Feb. 17, 2022.

One week later, Russia invaded Ukraine.

From quiet to loud

For more than two weeks, few people outside Griner’s immediate circle knew of her detention. But on March 5, Russia itself broke the news of her detention, forcing her team’s hand.

“That was one of those early signals that she was a political pawn,” Kagawa Colas said. “And they were going to start using this as a negotiation.”

That began a new, cautious phase of efforts. The team wanted to correct misinformation and advocate for Griner, but they didn’t want to exacerbate the situation unnecessarily.

“It was more about being factual, trying to provide the public and the press with what they needed, keep them close, while at the same time not trying to go out there with an agenda or pushback about why she’s there, or why she isn’t, or what the treatment is in regards to her safety,” Hynes said. “We couldn’t really start a back and forth with the Russian government.”

But the months of Griner’s confinement dragged on. By August, she had been sentenced to a staggering nine years’ incarceration. By November, she was transferred to a Russian labor camp, where she was tasked with carrying bolts of cloth — she was too tall to perform the sewing other women did — and breaking ice. The cold weather required her to cut her trademark locs after they kept freezing.

At home, the campaign to bring her home began to ramp up.

“Early, it was ‘be quiet,’” Kagawa Colas remembered. “‘Let’s not raise her value. Let’s see if we can resolve this quietly.’ Then it was, ‘if we want to keep her visible and make sure she’s a priority at the White House, how do we do that without compromising the White House and compromising the negotiation?’”

One issue — and opportunity — was Griner’s identity. She is Black. She is a lesbian. She presents in ways that are gender-nonconforming. That allowed Biden’s political opponents to turn her into a wedge issue to strike at the president, with the fires further stoked by Russian-backed bots on social media. The more controversy around her, the more she could be used as a pawn by Vladimir Putin and his regime. But the team had to speak up. The time for silence had passed.

“How do we simultaneously decrease her value in a trade to make a trade easier, while also ensuring she’s a priority? That is a needle to thread,” Kagawa Colas said.

The answer was a campaign that emphasized unity.

‘BG is for everybody’

The Wasserman team decided that Griner’s multi-layered identity was an asset, not a liability.

“Maybe you can’t see yourself in Brittney Griner, but we’re going to tell you why you actually can,” Kagawa Colas said. In the PR campaign, they emphasized that Griner is the daughter of a veteran and a former law enforcement officer. Her favorite holiday is the Fourth of July. She’s an American hero, having won two Olympic gold medals for her country.

But her Blackness and her sexuality were not avoided either. The Wasserman team said these were obvious reasons that she was detained. As a result, Black women in media became some of the most valuable and powerful voices in the campaign.

“They intimately understood the story,” Hynes said. “And they understood the challenges more easily. They were much more understanding and open to covering the story with a little bit more of a personal connection. But more than anything, we didn’t need to go through all the explanation to them about the lesson. The whys of all this.”

And some did use Griner’s identity to tear her down or even say she should remain in Russia. But the Wasserman team tried to stay above the fray, pointing out that Griner has rights as an American and if you believe in those rights, you should be advocating for her.

The other challenge was that Griner, locked up in Russia, could not speak for herself. She needed advocates. One of those was Kagawa Colas. The other key player was Cherelle Griner, Brittney’s wife.

“Cherelle was just an average American person, had not been a public figure, had not been in the limelight, had not done any media and not really engaged,” Hynes said. “And we were all of a sudden asking her to do an interview on ‘Good Morning America’ with Robin Roberts.”

The Wasserman team helped with media training, giving Cherelle the tools she needed as quickly as possible to succeed in a difficult role. From looking the part to telling her emotional story clearly, she got a crash course — and succeeded.

“Talk about a person who has the utmost strength in all this,” Hynes said. “Cherelle just really delivered.”

Beyond the media relations, there were rallies and events in Arizona, where Griner still plays with the Phoenix Mercury WNBA team, and partnerships with the NBA. Every measure was meant to ensure that attention stayed on Griner and the public remained invested in the effort to bring her home. #WeAreBG was used as a rallying hashtag to encourage others to advocate for and see themselves in Griner, used by both regular people and celebrities like NBA star Carmelo Anthony to keep her name in the news.

 

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A post shared by Carmelo Anthony (@carmeloanthony)

And then in December, nearly 10 months after Griner was stopped at customs in Moscow, officials reached a deal. Her freedom was secured in exchange for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a federal prison sentence.

Freedom

When Griner was returned to the United States and reunited with her wife, the team took a moment to celebrate.

“It was overwhelming. It was confusion. It was excitement. It was just pure joy,” Hynes said. “I got very emotional, and I cried because I don’t think I understood how much pent-up emotion I had over this.”

But the moment of celebration was brief. There was still a great deal of work to do.

Even choosing which photo of Brittney and Cherelle reuniting would be released to the media had to be carefully orchestrated.

“We wanted to balance both the historic significance of the moment, the personal, emotional side that grounds the story, and I think they’re the most compelling,” Hynes said.

Brittney Griner reunites with her wife Cherelle after spending nearly 10 months in detention in Russia. Photo provided by Wasserman.

The military and the government were involved, necessitating time and sensitivity as Griner readjusted. But there were also hundreds of interview requests pouring in. So far, Griner has stuck to press conferences and has not yet sat for one-on-one interviews.

“We all realized very quickly that obviously getting her home was the goal, but in her larger story and for our dealing with her, if you want to put it in the context of a PR campaign, it was actually only the first phase. It’s on to this whole next chapter of Brittney’s life,” Hynes told PR Daily.

But overall, Hynes said the campaign reaffirmed his belief in the power of PR to accomplish important things.

“It was gratifying that it seemed like a true-blue PR campaign, even today, can have a really tangible impact on this really positive outcome.”

The return

Griner returned to the court for the 2023 WNBA season, where she shot a career-high 61.8% and was again named an All-Star. Her memoir, “Coming Home,” will be released later this year.

“Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets,” Griner said in a statement about the book. “But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare.”

A documentary with Disney and ESPN on her experiences is also forthcoming. And so, Kagawa Colas says, is a new emphasis on activism and helping other people who are wrongfully detained, including Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich.

“We’d like to think that awareness around wrongful detention has been raised,” Kagawa Colas said. “And we helped people gain a better understanding of how important it was to do whatever is necessary to get Americans home. I hope that’ll be a part of her legacy, how many people have come home in the wake of her detention and our campaign bringing her home.”

Because as Hynes pointed out, basketball is only one part of the greater arc of Griner’s life.

“(The detention) is a core part of her identity. Her whole image and persona is just shifted now and long term for her. A lot of this is about setting her up for what she wants to do when she’s ultimately done playing. Who is she gonna be?”

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

The post The PR team who helped bring Brittney Griner home on how they kept her in the headlines appeared first on PR Daily.

After a fairly quiet period of updates last week, social media platforms are announcing a ton of new features. Some might cause you to raise an eyebrow, but others could seriously up your social media game.

Let’s get into it.

LinkedIn

In a move that will be either prove to be brilliant or a miserable failure, LinkedIn confirmed it will incorporate gaming into the professionally focused app, TechCrunch reported. Expected to be simple puzzle games similar to the massively popular Wordle, app researchers found that it’s possible that employees from different companies will be able to compete together against other organizations. This could be a great tool for internal team building — or an awkward fit for a platform that’s meant to be all business.

In more traditional LinkedIn news, the app is tweaking its collaborative articles function on the feature’s one-year anniversary. The AI-generated prompts allow users to share their experiences on a variety of topics.

New features for collaborative articles include:

• A focus on prompts that ask people to speak to personal experience.
• An “unhelpful” button to help weed out low-quality content.
• Updates to the algorithm that matches users to prompts.
• A mobile experience that now mirrors the desktop design.
• Expanded distribution that can match organic content.
• A collaborative article search filter.

Finally, new thought leader ads will allow companies to sponsor any post from a first- or second-degree connection, not just those from employees. The creator must approve the sponsorship before it appears, but this could be a unique way to surface content that matters, even if it wasn’t made by you.

TikTok

Even though TikTok’s future in the United States is in doubt, the company is still rolling out plenty of updates and even contemplating a whole new app.

Blog The SpAndroid did some digging and discovered strings of code that seem to indicate a separate TikTok Photos app in the works. That’s right, after years of Instagram chasing TikTok, TikTok is now creating its own Instagram clone. Photos can already be posted in TikTok itself, but this would create a new option. TikTok has not confirmed the app yet, but it’s certainly an interesting concept for marketing and PR pros to watch.

TikTok has also rolled out a new library of Sounds for Business — Voice Clips. These clips, voiced by popular creators on the app, are on a variety of small business-related topics and are free to use. Whether or not you’ll want to is another question. Take a listen for yourself.

Finally, TikTok unveiled a new Creator Search Insights tool that helps show what people are looking for on the app, which is now one of the world’s most popular search engines. The results are searchable by topic and  also show “gap topics,” or content users search for but for which there isn’t a great deal of content, creating a unique opportunity for creators.

Instagram

There are no new concrete announcements of new Instagram features this week, but plenty of intriguing hints leaked by the intrepid users who hunt through code for insight into coming attractions. Here’s a quick rundown:

• A survey hints at some new features that may be implemented into Meta’s Verified program, including the ability to add links in Reels, a dedicated customer service phone line and priority advertising reviews, among others.
• Instagram may soon allow you to attach files to DMs, though this feature might only be available for businesses.
• Photo Carousels could expand to 15 photos.
• A Spins feature could allow people to add their own audio and text to your Reels footage.

If any of these come to pass, you can read about it right here.

Snapchat

Snapchat is giving users the ability to opt-out of a core part of its functionality: the disappearing DM. Currently, if you want to save a message, you must do it manually each time. But in a feature currently in testing, users could choose to save all DMs from a conversation forever. Users would have the ability to change settings on each conversation so you don’t have to save every message from everyone, and in-chat notices would ensure everyone in the conversation knows how the messages will be handled.

Reddit

In a move that is certain to enrage Reddit users, the soon-to-be public company has announced a new set of ads that’s quite difficult to distinguish from organic content. Dubbed free-form ads, advertisers can share multiple media types in a single ad. “As our most native ad format yet, free-form ads are designed to look and feel similar to the type of content redditors share with each other, inviting maximum engagement from the community,” according to the announcement. These will likely be great for advertisers, but do be aware of the backlash from the notoriously advertising-averse community.

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

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is hyped to become a transformative force across all industries. According to Next Move Strategy Consulting, the global AI market was valued at $95.6 billion in 2021 and is predicted to grow with a 32.9% compound annual growth rate to reach $1.85 trillion by 2030.

As the use of AI expands, it has the potential to revolutionize HR and corporate communications by linking data with content, but we must use it responsibly. According to Top Trends in Privacy Driving Your Business Through 2024, a report by Gartner®, “By 2025, regulations will necessitate focus on AI ethics, transparency and privacy, which will stimulate — instead of stifling — trust, growth and better functioning of AI around the world.” Let’s explore what this might look like.

First, recognize AI for what it is: Artificial

While AI output is fascinating at this stage, remember that it’s only as good as its inputs. AI rehashes and rewrites existing content, just a bit more cleverly than traditional plagiarism. While people currently use AI to write news stories, concerns about job displacement are not unfounded. However, it’s essential to recognize that AI’s contribution to corporate communications is much more nuanced than merely replacing human writers. Yes, AI can quickly generate text, yet the output is limited to the quality and integrity of the sources it has processed. Rather than replacing human writers, AI is more likely to become a time-saving assistant, allowing communicators to gain insights from data and focus more on strategy and creativity.

How will AI assist employee communications?

1. Use communications analytics data to inform content strategy. One of the significant challenges in corporate communications is understanding message uptake. Communications analytics data like PoliteMail’s Benchmark Report reveals that employees are willing to spend about a minute with an average email, with the highest engagement observed in messages of just thirty seconds or less to read. It won’t be long before AI makes this type of data analysis available as real-time recommendations, with variable tuning based on the message content and intended audience. Internal comms and HR teams may leverage AI tools as an editor to quickly condense lengthy content into more concise, reader-friendly message summaries. For example, internal comms could ask an AI tool to take a Teams meeting transcript and produce a bullet list summary for broadcast distribution.

2. Optimize communications for higher engagement. AI excels at pattern matching and machine learning. So, when teams apply these tools to content analysis and communications metrics, they can enhance both assets’ value. Effective communicators possess strong intuition and language skills, and adding data-driven insights to evaluate the impact of their work will expand their reach and improve desired outcomes. For example, PoliteMail provides an AI-driven subject line suggester trained on attention rate data. Based on past performance, the tool suggests subjects likely to garner more attention. The communicator provides the content and ideas — what are we communicating and why — and AI helps optimize the how and the word choice.

3. Maintain a consistent brand voice. Beyond visual brand guidelines that define a company’s logo, font, and colors, corporate communications teams seek to maintain a consistent brand voice (the company’s style, attitude and tone). With its ability to learn patterns, AI can help a diverse team of writers execute a more consistent brand voice by mimicking a specific fashion, point of view and character. By training AI to edit content to align with an organization’s defined brand voice, communicators can ensure a cohesive identity. An organization could train an AI on its brand voice by inputting its current collateral library that fits the brand voice. Some have seen tools like ChatGPT accomplish this when prompted to rewrite a speech in the style of Teddy Roosevelt or write a story in the style of Mark Twain.

Say Hi to AI

While AI is a powerful up-and-coming tool, companies should view it as a collaborative partner rather than a replacement for human intelligence. Leveraged responsibly, AI can help streamline content production and provide valuable data-driven insights that help comms teams produce more engaging content. Used strategically, AI can elevate corporate comms by strengthening content strategy, optimizing communications for reach, readership and engagement, and defining and maintaining a robust and consistent brand voice.

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