Stories by Seth Arenstein

Internal communications often is the dark-haired stepchild of PR. The communicators we spoke with insist a strong internal communications effort is a key ingredient in helping to avoid uncomfortable situations, including when disgruntled employees go to the media with their complaints.

NYPD commissioner James O’Neill crafted a well-written statement announcing the firing of Officer Daniel Pantaleo earlier this week. In a highly volatile situation, sometimes the best a communicator can do is stake out a position that she or he believes is correct, issue a statement and brace for incoming attacks.

PR employees can and will go to social media when they feel management is not listening to their opinions. This is so particularly when firms engage in work for controversial clients and staff find out in the media. Fortunately, one way to avoid having employee dissent spill into the public domain is to engage in a rigorous internal communications effort, several PR pros told us.

Late last month, cyber crime whacked yet another large brand. On the evening of July 29, Capital One , the nation’s largest issuer of credit cards and the 10th largest bank by assets, issued a statement that millions of its accounts were compromised. While brands are concerned about their sites and servers, few seem to take seriously the security of their social media platforms, a new study finds.

Brands and organizations often fail to create as much awareness around anniversaries and other milestones. To remedy this situation requires just a bit of creativity, argues Michael Munz, president of The Dalton Agency.

Even with something as relatively new as social media, it’s good to have a brand with years of name recognition. In addition, size can be beneficial. Harvard leads U.S. colleges and universities in consumer engagement with social posts for the first half of 2019, according to data provided to us exclusively by Shareablee.

The new Chief Strategy Officer at FleishmanHillard, Marjorie Benzkofer, talks to us about how she keeps 4,000 employees working in concert and why brands continue to struggle aligning their values and actions.

With school beginning soon (yes, the summer has flown by), we turn to educators, most of whom are or were PR pros, to tell us what areas of the profession communications students need additional training in. Then we ask PR pros to give us their assessment of incoming PR candidates and their training needs.

We assume journalists decide what to cover based on what their readers want to know about, right? Maybe not. A study of travel writers finds their top criteria is their interest in a topic. This means those who pitch to travel journalists must adjust their tactics.

Data breaches are happening at an alarming rate. They’re almost a fact of corporate life. As such, it’s critical that communicators be ready to communicate around a cyber crime incident. Capital One is the latest large brand to experience a mammoth data breach. Fortunately, the bank moved quickly to communicate and the hacker advertised her dubious accomplishment, which led to her arrest.