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2017 could be described as the year of social video, particularly for U.S. B2C brands, as data provided exclusively to PR News by Shareablee demonstrates. It was also a year where brands began to become more mature in their social media choices, posting fewer times but accruing more consumer engagement.

It’s not a surprise that Facebook is the dominant social platform. That was one of the conclusions from the 3rd annual RBC Capital Markets study of 5,000 U.S. Internet users. There were surprises, though. One of them was the satisfaction rates of the various platforms (Facebook could do better here). Another surprise (well, not really) was the dominant showing of Snapchat with children and teens.

One of the holy grails of PR must be the definitive word on Google’s SEO regime. While that might be unattainable we can make educated guesses as to how the search giant ranks articles. Branded3 of the U.K. has issued its list of best guesses as well as a list of things that can be done to a site and its contents to improve searchability ranking.

Our weekly roundup of news, trends and personnel moves in communications and marketing. This week’s stories include Weight Watchers and D.J. Khaled, President Trump’s nuclear button tweet, Logan Paul’s departure from YouTube and the passing of Louis Williams Jr.

Many of us believe we know all about activist investors. A pair of investors threw a curveball last weekend, urging that Apple seriously consider warning parents about the dangers of excessive iPhone use for children and teens. Their demands were well crafted and included a bevy of studies and statistics.

You’ll find few people who like ads interrupting their social media experience. Still, content costs and really good content costs even more, so ads are necessary. A new study from university researchers shows far more sites than originally thought are using anti-ad-blocking measures.

As the year ends with this edition of PR News , we begin the first of three data installments provided exclusively to us by data partner Shareablee. In this first edition Shareablee provides the most-engaged B2B brands during 11 months of the year with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Our regular crisis measurement guru Katie Paine considers crises of 2017 and selects the crisis of the year. Can you guess which brand has the dubious distinction? Hint, the brand was handed an awful situation, partly through its own negligence, and then sat on the situation for several weeks before announcing it to the public.

Is there anything more dangerous than attempting to predict industry trends? Fortunately we found 17 PR, marketing and communications leaders willing to take the risk of prognosticating for 2018 and sharing lessons learned in 2017. Among the many themes recurring in the predictions are the need for PR to embrace technology, produce better content, speak with authenticity and attempt to create a sense of humanity.

Our weekly roundup of news, trends and personnel moves in PR and marketing. This week’s stories include an unsavory dish cooked by Chef Mario Batali, Tavis Smiley says he wasn’t involved in unsavory activities and will PR pros need to pay for the privilege of pitching?