Stories by Steve Goldstein

Instagram reported earlier this year that it gets 8,500 likes and 1,000 comments per second. That’s exciting news for b2c brands that sell colorful products or exotic vacations, but for high tech and b2b brands, are these just two more ho-hum statistics?

PR News’ PR Agency Elite Awards recognize agencies in 23 practice areas, such as branding, business to business, community relations, crisis management, digital/social media, internal communications, media relations, mulitcultural PR, nonprofit/association and reputation management. All of the finalists will be celebrated at a luncheon on Sept. 10, 2013 at the Grand Hyatt in New York.

A great quotation can be the perfect bait for a journalist and, as New York University’s Don Bates says, “because they’re someone’s ‘own’ words, editors will almost never edit them except to correct a grammatical error.”

Most measurement experts recommend foregoing the search for a magic monitoring and analysis tool. Instead, communications pros should develop a methodology—an overall approach that can be modified over time.

Knowing how and when to unplug will be one of the key skills for communications leaders in the coming years, says Greg Swan, SVP of digital & interactive for Weber Shandwick.

Andrew Hindes, president and founder of PR and marketing copywriting company The In-House Writer, will be leading press release and email pitch writing clinics at PR News’ Writing Boot Camp in San Francisco on Aug. 5. He offers three tips to cut through the clutter.

Facebook is going to implement menus and options that will enable users to say why they are hiding a particular ad or sponsored post in their news feed. This presumably voluntary feedback will help brands target their paid content better on Facebook.

At a complimentary CARMA/PR News webinar on Tuesday, Aug. 6, Don Bartholomew, SVP, digital & social media research for Ketchum, will discuss how to align key performance indicators (KPIs) to demonstrate the organizational impact and value of social media, and what industry efforts are being made to standardize social media measurement.

You may not be working with a brand name as catchy as “Sharknado,” but whatever the product or service, you can experiment with silly hashtags that may catch flight.

Rolling Stone magazine took an image that most of us knew well from coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and slapped it on its cover, and is now facing condemnation on social channels and boycotts.