• PR takeaways from Starbucks, Chipotle leadership changes

    PR takeaways from Starbucks, Chipotle leadership changes
    Transparency and answering the ‘why’ are key.
    Starbucks’ decision to replace CEO Laxman Narasimhan on Aug. 13 was as much a PR statement as it was a business decision. The action aimed to signal to Wall Street, stakeholders and employees that it’s committed to making major improvements.
    The coffee chain has struggled since Narasimhan took over in March 2023. Since then, Starbucks has faced concerns about rising prices, decreased customer service and questions about qualit
  • How to capitalize on an influencer’s trust with users

    How to capitalize on an influencer’s trust with users
    Limiting product exposure to 3 times a day, on-brand products can cut down on influencer fatigue.
    Nowadays, it seems like just about every social media user has taken an influencer’s opinion on something, whether it’s about trying a product or visiting a new restaurant.
    Even if they don’t know each other in person, the time they spend watching videos creates a kind of relationship that lets them build a rapport, even a sense of trust.
     
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  • By the Numbers: The bleak state of local news – and a few bright spots

    By the Numbers: The bleak state of local news – and a few bright spots
    Local news remains an important option for many PR campaigns.Let’s not bury the lede: local news is in a tailspin and has been for nearly two decades.
    The 2024 State of Local News Report from the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications sheds a light on just how things have deteriorated in the last year. The report specifically examines newspapers, public broadcasters, network websites and standa
  • The Scoop: CNN sends clear message that it won’t allow hate speech on air

    The Scoop: CNN sends clear message that it won’t allow hate speech on air
    Also: Starbucks faces hard sell on RTO policy; Prime could become boycott topic after Washington Post endorsement snub. 
    CNN has banned conservative writer Ryan Gidursky from the network after a contentious on-air exchange with panelist Mehdi Hasan for his support of Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas War. 
    During a discussion about Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on “NewsNight with Abby Phillip,” Gidursky told Hasan, “I hope your beeper doesn’
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  • Generative AI is the creative colleague you’ve been waiting for

    Generative AI is the creative colleague you’ve been waiting for
    You can accomplish more together.Samantha Stark is founder and chief strategist at Phyusion. 
    As AI tools become available to everyone, it’s now easier than ever to produce polished materials at scale, creating new challenges for PR professionals. As more organizations leverage AI tools, we’re seeing a sea of sameness in content that makes it increasingly difficult to capture attention.
    This new reality means the bar for quality content is rising. The key to better content is un
  • PRing the PR: Use flash reports to highlight successes

    PRing the PR: Use flash reports to highlight successes
    These concise reports serve as a table-setter for more robust campaign analysis down the road.
    Public relations teams constantly seek ways to show their value to business objectives. One effective approach is to highlight the behind-the-scenes PR efforts driving certain campaigns or business functions.
    At a recent Ragan virtual conference, Elizabeth Winter emphasized the benefits of using “flash reports” – concise overviews of PR activities. The goal is to gather on-the-ground
  • Rebranding relevance: How PR can breathe new life into tired brands

    Rebranding relevance: How PR can breathe new life into tired brands
    Communicators need to stay on top of trends to keep brands fresh.
    Few brands remain at the top of their field forever. They can coast on your past reputation for a while, but eventually, it will lose its luster. Then, creative communicators need to find new ways to show their value to new generations who might see them as old-fashioned or not think of them at all.
    Public relations should be at the forefront of any reinvention strategy, according to Jacqueline Babb, a senior lecturer at Medill Sc
  • The Scoop: The comms decisions that went into Washington Post’s non-endorsement disaster

    The Scoop: The comms decisions that went into Washington Post’s non-endorsement disaster
    Plus: Puerto Rico insults rock the race; the cottage industry of avoiding DE&I backlash.Friday, just 11 days before the U.S. election, the Washington Post made a decision not to endorse either presidential candidate.
    Publisher and CEO William Lewis leaned heavily on history in explaining the choice, extensively quoting a 1960 editorial board missive describing that 64-year-old decision then not to endorse. However, the paper later reversed course and has endorsed in all but one race since 19
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  • Handling external headaches internally

    Handling external headaches internally
    Repositioning the narrative, both internally and externally.Earlier this week, Fortune reported that Meta terminated a group of employees in its Los Angeles office for violating its rules around perks. Specifically, the employees were accused of misappropriating food delivery credits for use in the office and instead using them for household items directly delivered to employee residences.
    While these terminations are a window into how companies enforce policies, most coverage has focused on the
  • Communicators share their best writing tips

    Communicators share their best writing tips
    Nearly 300 comms pros shared their best ideas. These are the best.Recently, I took to LinkedIn to ask communicators to share their best writing tip.
    I received nearly 300 fantastic, insightful comments on every part of the writing process, from planning and research all the way through to editing.
    Here’s a sampling of those responses, edited for style and brevity.
    Research and planning
     
    Raven Carpenter is PR account director at Fox Agency.One of the best writing tips I’ve ever
  • The Scoop: Podcasts influence election season like never before

    The Scoop: Podcasts influence election season like never before
    Also: White House strategy underscores potential power of AI; consumers remain sluggish despite improving economic landscape.
    With a week and a half  until Election Day, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are doing everything in their power to fi engage, and sway notoriously hard-to-reach segments of the American electorate.
    One rare area of agreement between the candidates has been on the power of podcasts.
     
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  • How I Got Here: Anti-Defamation League’s Bill Hicks on the key to personal growth

    How I Got Here: Anti-Defamation League’s Bill Hicks on the key to personal growth
    ADL’s Associate Director of Leadership Engagement shares why you should embrace your contributions no matter your title. Bill Hicks serves as the senior associate director of leadership engagement for the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) central division, which spans 16 states. In this role, he is instrumental in cultivating leadership opportunities and actively seeking out and nurturing individuals committed to championing the organization’s mission. Through his efforts, Hi
  • The Friday Reporter: CBS Mornings’ Shawna Thomas

    The Friday Reporter: CBS Mornings’ Shawna Thomas
    A new episode of The Friday Reporter podcast.Shawna Thomas is executive producer for CBS Mornings, an award winning journo and a media superstar. She’s also been nominated by dozens to do the Friday Reporter, so this one has been a long time coming.
    Shawna shares her remarkable stories about breaking into the media herself, her DC-NYC intersections and the grueling and rewarding side of morning television.
    Tune in today to learn more about this dynamic media pro who firmly believes that, &
  • By the Numbers: B2B social video benchmarks

    By the Numbers: B2B social video benchmarks
    Including some brands that are doing it right.The rise of short-form social video can leave B2B marketers feeling left out. There just aren’t that many cute, quirky trends that lend themselves to SaaS or enterprise accounting services. And the need to foster trust and credibility in these high-stakes, high-cost deals can result in content that feels stale and lawyered to death.
    It’s a struggle.
    But there are still B2B brands that are making a splash even on TikTok, Instagram and YouT
  • Using custom digital twins to better target messaging

    Using custom digital twins to better target messaging
    An evolving tool for long-term strategies.
    The emergence of generative AI has brought significant changes to many areas of the public relations sector. One gaining traction right now is “digital twins” – virtual replicas of target personas.
    In essence, digital twins are similar to the character profiles used in communications and marketing plans for decades, according to Ephraim Cohen, global managing director of media, platforms and storytelling at FleishmanHillard. The key di
  • How AI helped Intel’s Leslie Douglas take social to the next level

    How AI helped Intel’s Leslie Douglas take social to the next level
    A look at AI, its impacts on communication, and the ethics of it all.AI’s seemingly sudden rise has opened up a lot of new questions about how exactly it will impact communications. This also invites speculation on how the teach will change the way that communicators interact with social media platforms.
    In our latest edition of our ‘How AI Helped Me” series, we spoke with Leslie Douglas, global head of social media at Intel. Douglas talked about her AI origin story, where she
  • The Scoop: McDonald’s wild comms week

    The Scoop: McDonald’s wild comms week
    Plus: CCO of Intuit asks for part of interview to be deleted; news outlets bite back at Perplexity.When Donald Trump steps foot into any establishment, it instantly becomes a political lightning rod.
    That was the case for a McDonald’s franchise in Pennsylvania, where Trump spent a few moments serving fries in a carefully constructed political photo opp.
    The location was immediately bombarded with one-star Yelp reviews, prompting the site to temporarily suspend reviews. McDonald’s cor
  • Strategies for crafting measurements that don’t exist yet

    Strategies for crafting measurements that don’t exist yet
    You can’t manage what you can’t measure.
    It’s important for PR teams to have a strategy for selecting and presenting metrics and information to the C-suite that showcases their value to the organization’s overarching mission. But sometimes the information leadership wants isn’t available – at least not in a format that tells the story they want to read.
    Northwell Health, for instance, has run into issues properly gauging press sentiment. That’s a data po
  • Microsoft CCO on how AI can enhance internal comms

    Microsoft CCO on how AI can enhance internal comms
    Shaw shared his ‘Dream State’ internal comms workflow during Ragan’s Internal Communications Conference.The rise of generative AI technology has proven to be a reckoning point for communicators over the past few years. Whether you fear that it could come for comms jobs in the future, or that it’ll free up communicator workflows for increased creativity and productivity, nearly everyone has an opinion on what AI means for the future of communication.
    Microsoft Chief Commun
  • Microsoft CCO Frank Shaw on how AI can enhance your internal communications workflow

    Microsoft CCO Frank Shaw on how AI can enhance your internal communications workflow
    Shaw shared his ‘Dream State’ internal comms workflow during Ragan’s Internal Communications Conference.The rise of generative AI technology has proven to be a reckoning point for communicators over the past few years. Whether you fear that it could come for comms jobs in the future, or that it’ll free up communicator workflows for increased creativity and productivity, nearly everyone has an opinion on what AI means for the future of communication.
    Microsoft Chief Commun
  • How PR teams can help a brand rebound from a product flop

    How PR teams can help a brand rebound from a product flop
    Don’t be afraid to try new things.
    There’s no such thing as surefire homerun when it comes to a product launch or campaign. No matter the quality of content or the product its promoting, sometimes things just don’t resonate with the target audience.
    While no one likes to admit failure, there are important lessons that a PR team can learn from these situations. By understanding what went wrong, there’s a chance to make fixes that can salvage the effort.
    “If you&rsquo
  • New social media updates and features to know this week

    New social media updates and features to know this week
    Including big moves from X and YouTube.Two social media platforms are making big moves this week. Some of X’s decisions have users running for competitors, while YouTube is going all-in on Shorts and offering a number of quality-of-life improvements. Let’s get into it.
    X
    After a relatively quiet period without major, platform-changing updates, Elon Musk is now busily shaping the platform to meet his exact desires.
    But will those be appealing to the average user — or to brand us
  • The Scoop: Harris’ finishing strategy is using Trump’s words against him

    The Scoop: Harris’ finishing strategy is using Trump’s words against him
    Also: NFL plays long game to land international fans; Chick-fil-A takes brand into own hands with new app.
    Vice President Kamala Harris is using her remaining time on the campaign trail to remind undecided voters about why they rejected former President Donald Trump at the polls four years ago.
    With Election Day just two weeks away, most polls have the presidential race as a 50/50 contest. The Washington Post has Harris ahead in four of seven key battleground states, but the leads are tight.
    &nb
  • Key highlights you missed at the Internal Communications Conference at Microsoft’s HQ

    Key highlights you missed at the Internal Communications Conference at Microsoft’s HQ
    Key highlights you missed at the Internal Communications Conference at Microsoft’s HQ.
    Hundreds of communications professionals gathered at Ragan’s Internal Communications Conference in Redmond, Washington to gain actionable insights, learn new strategies and network with peers.
    Speakers dove deep into the nitty-gritty of internal comms, covering everything from the role of AI to the critical importance of strong leadership. Speakers also discussed RTO challenges, brainstormed creati
  • What you need to know about the rise of Substack

    What you need to know about the rise of Substack
    It’s an opportunity to reach new audiences — but carries a few risks.
    In the last month, more high-profile media personalities have announced they’re taking their talents to Substack.
    From creator economy journalist Taylor Lorenz to bestselling media mogul James Patterson to magazine legend Tina Brown, these disparate professionals have all cited creative freedom as a reason for striking out on the email platform.
    “I write about the attention economy, and I write about th
  • The Scoop: Harvard sends message of change to donors after disappointing financial year

    The Scoop: Harvard sends message of change to donors after disappointing financial year
    Also: Kroger responds to price-gouging claims; Browns try to sell fans on relocation plan.Harvard’s coffers took a hit as mega-donors followed through on promises to pull back gifts over the school’s response to acts of antisemitism on campus related to the Hamas-Israel War.
    The Wall Street Journal reported that the prestigious university received $1.17 billion in gifts for the fiscal year that ended June 30. This amount is lower than the $1.38 billion it received during the same per
  • The Friday Reporter: Madeline Fetterly

    The Friday Reporter: Madeline Fetterly
    A new episode of The Friday Reporter podcast.Madeline Fetterly is the CEO and Founder of Be the Brand Collective, a D.C.-based, worldwide company that is partnering with individuals who are ready to take their professional and personal brand and translate it online in order to make themselves more visible, to raise their credibility and to open new doors to opportunity.
    At a time when we’re all trying to build and grow and expand our reach, learning from a seasoned professional Madeline an
  • How I Got Here: University of Michigan’s Communications Director Lauren Love on authentic storytelling

    How I Got Here: University of Michigan’s Communications Director Lauren Love on authentic storytelling
    Lauren Love shares how Beyoncé and some of her favorite books have inspired her career.Lauren Love has dedicated over 15 years to shaping narratives in the nonprofit and higher education arenas. As the Communications Director for the Office of the Vice President for Government Relations at the University of Michigan, Love works to illustrate the vital role of higher education, research, and innovation to a diverse audience, including government officials, alumni, and internal stakeholders
  • Margot Edelman embraces the ever-changing comms landscape

    Margot Edelman embraces the ever-changing comms landscape
    As told to Diane Schwartz, CEO of Ragan Communications.The post Margot Edelman embraces the ever-changing comms landscape appeared first on PR Daily.
  • Own the customer journey to help prove PR’s role in driving sales

    Own the customer journey to help prove PR’s role in driving sales
    Time to start thinking like a marketer.The lines between marketing, advertising and public relations have become increasingly blurred. As a result, PR professionals can’t rely solely on metrics like media impressions to prove their value – the C-suite wants hard numbers that directly impact the bottom line.
    Greg Swan, senior partner and Midwest digital lead for FINN Partners, believes it’s time for PR professionals to think with a marketing mindset. Swan suggests finding ways t

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