Stories by Erika Bradbury

In a broad-reaching conversation via virtual roundtable, we discussed the impact the pandemic has had on the deaf community, the lessons learned about communicating during crises,  how so-called mainstream communicators can work to make accessibility part of their DEI conversations and what corporations looking to embrace DEI and accessibility should do to push forward inclusive campaigns.

Social engagement around mask mandates peaked several times this year. Content mentioning mask mandates generated nearly 24 million consumer actions this year, with more than one-third (7.7 million) occurring between 7/26/21 and 8/25/21,

With the in-person Social Shake-Up Show coming Sept. 22-23 in Atlanta, we’re giving readers and soon-to-be attendees a chance to meet members of this year’s speaker roster. In this interview, we meet #SSU2021 speaker Mara Butts, PR pro and social media strategist at Hexagon, who will focus on the importance of internal social media policies and how to identify high-priority governance issues—the main subjects of this brief interview.

As is our end-of-summer tradition, we asked data partner Shareablee to look at consumer engagement with back-to-school social posts. The data were provided exclusively to PRNEWS and predate the late-July CDC mask advisory the Delta variant spurred.

With the Tokyo Olympics scheduled for July 23, but not a sure thing, we asked data partner Shareablee to measure the games’ social engagement.

PRNEWS has announced the honorees for this year’s Top Women in PR. The 2021 honorees are recognized in five distinct categories: Changemakers, Entrepreneurs, Industry Innovators, Mentors and Rising Stars.

As awareness for Juneteenth rose, so too did consumer engagement with the topic on social. Consumer engagement rose nearly 4,000 percent (May1-May 25, 2020 vs the same period in 2021), according to Shareablee data, provided exclusively to PRNEWS.

We asked Alex Slater, founding partner, The Clyde Group, and Christina Ferraz, founder, Thirty6Five how they’re advising companies around Pride month and what role PR should have in advancing careers of those in the LGBTQ community.

Shareablee data for 2021 show an 18 percent increase in consumer engagement versus 2020. Yet 2021’s consumer engagement was off a whopping 60 percent from 2019’s pre-pandemic figures across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

As we get ready to celebrate PR’s role in CSR, we spoke with several finalists of the PRNEWS CSR Awards about how the pandemic and the economic and social reckonings of 2020 influenced their organizations. Fortunately, this moment has bolstered CSR at many companies and organizations, they told us.