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What if we could change the course of the next crisis before it got out of hand? Speaking with people in and out of government, I came to believe that we were missing our moment of maximum impact. If we pre-constructed some of what I began calling counter-crisis capabilities (CCC), they could be ready when problems started to percolate. We might reduce the frenzy factor, increase our focus, and enhance performance, argues Brett Bruen, a former White House official.

At some brands, PR and social media are part of the same department. At others, the two mix as easily as oil and water, which is to say almost never. Allen Plummer of Vanguard argues, though, that PR and social media departments need each other to provide optimal return to a business. He provides useful lessons that Vanguard has learned as a result of integrating the two.

Our regular weekly roundup of trends, stories and personnel moves in PR and communications. This week’s stories feature the FTC’s 90 letters to brands and influencers about disclosure, the spin on Bill O’Reilly’s departure and the battles facing internal communications.

As we know, communications has changed greatly with the rise of social media. It’s the same with crisis management, argues Daniela Peting of Motorola Solutions. Several maxims for crisis management from the pre-digital days may not work as well in the digital era. In fact, they could do more damage than good. Peting explains how listening via social media can benefit your crisis management experience.

In Q4 2016 (Oct. 1 – Dec. 31), consumer engagement, or total actions, defined as the sum of reactions, comments and shares on Facebook, rose 6% year over year for U.S. B2B brands, according to Shareablee data. Video engagement jumped 151%, though. Data were provided exclusively to PR News Pro. Enterprise data integration and management software firm Informatica maintained its top spot on the B2B list that it established in Q3 2016. Consumer engagement with the brand’s posts rose 38% compared with the same quarter last year, says Shareablee’s Nathalie Nuta. Video was just 8% of Informatica’s engagement. Its top post was an image wishing all a happy Diwali, which is the Hindu festival of lights.

PR pros know it’s important to adapt to change. Yet it’s also comforting when some of the basics of PR can be applied to new platforms. Take Twitter, whose newsworthiness President Trump has cemented. We asked Rebecca Matulka, deputy director of digital, U.S. Department of the Interior, about creating engagement and growing a community on Twitter. Before setting out the tactics her organization uses, she noted that goal setting, a key component of nearly every PR effort you can think of, should comprise the start of your Twitter endeavors.

Sharp Claws: Maybe the biggest beneficiary of United’s woes was Wells Fargo, whose 113-page board report about its 2 million bogus accounts barely registered in the news cycle when it was issued Apr. 10. In short, it fingers a pair of former Wells employees: CEO John Stumpf and community banking chief Carrie Tolstedt. An encouraging note: The two will lose an additional $75 million through clawbacks, the largest clawbacks in banking history. In all, clawbacks will cost Stumpf $69 million; Tolstedt, who did not cooperate with the investigation and whose lawyer challenged its findings, will forfeit $67 million.

The way some PR pros avoid social media measurement you’d think it was the plague or worse. Yet even those who have little time and budget to devote to measurement can reap benefits, says Danielle Brigida of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. One of the benefits, she says, is that social listening can lead to more informed content creation. Brigida discusses how she measures, what she measures and why.

Our weekly look at trends, news and personnel moves in PR and communications. This week we look at the Bill O’Reilly sex scandal, the Pepsi race commercial and the Arthur W. Page Society’s reactions to fakenews during its spring summit.

As readers know, media pitching guru Michael Smart advocates taking a personal approach to targeting reporters. Still, Smart explains that there’s a fine line between personalizing a pitch and becoming too personal for a business situation. It’s also crucial to know when and where to personalize a pitch.