Binns There Done That: A few words about Twitter’s hiring of Kristin Binns as senior director of corporate and consumer communications Sept. 7. She replaces the recently arrived and more recently departed Natalie Kerris, who joined the microblogger in late February ( PRN, Feb. 29) and left after just six months Aug. 2 ( PRN, Aug. 8). That was only days after the brand’s disappointing financials were released July 25. The former Apple hand was supposed to represent one of the key parts of the new Twitter under CEO Jack Dorsey. Ironically, Binns arrived Sept. 7, one day before Twitter’s board met, supposedly to discuss the company’s future as an independent entity or perhaps cost cutting via layoffs and other austerity measures. Twitter has nearly 4,000 employees. Should Twitter be sold, presumably we’d see the new, new Twitter. Enough with the Twitter jokes, though. Communicators know the platform’s 313 million active users punch well above their weight, particularly when prominent people like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump practically run their entire campaign on it. Brands respect the platform, too. Based on Shareablee data provided exclusively to PR News Pro, the 30 most-engaged B2C brands registered gains of more than 300% in consumer engagement year over year during Q2 ( PRN, Aug. 8). Engagement is defined as consumer retweets and likes. Binns, who has an impressive resume, including a recent 6-year stint running PR at health insurance behemoth Anthem, will report to Leslie Berland, freeing Berland to focus on CMO duties. While you could argue Binns comes to Twitter at a precarious time, particularly for a communicator who might have to explain layoffs, the optimistic viewpoint will focus on how quickly she was hired. Ironically, for a platform that values brevity, Twitter is known to linger before hiring replacements (see austerity measures, above?). Another point: Perhaps the Twitter is acknowledging the important role communicators play. Yeah, we’ll go with that.
Corp Comm, Wells Fargo
Wells Far to Go:Not a great stretch for Wells Fargo, the country’s largest bank by market value. You probably know it had to admit Sept. 8 that it’s fired 5,300 employees who created more than 1 million fake credit card and bank accounts. The details of how they did so, which we omit for space reasons, are shocking. Yet those details are relevant, as they will make Wells Fargo communicators work harder as they attempt to regain trust in the brand. The bank did itself few favors with its apology, which was cold and somewhat off point. It’s worth a read. The other Wells Fargo incident, which seems trivial by comparison, is puzzling. Publicizing its Sept. 17 Teen Financial Education Day, the bank ran ads that seem to urge teens to forego the arts in favor of jobs in science and technology. Needless to say, the artistic community blasted the bank and its ads on social, resulting in a quick and full apology from Wells Fargo Sept. 3. We’re wondering, of course, if communicators were involved in the creation of those insensitive ads. We also asked Oscar Suris, EVP, corporate communications at Wells Fargo and chair of the Institute for Public Relations, how the brand will prevent such incidents in the future. To his credit, Suris returned our call promptly Sept. 6. He didn’t answer our questions, however.
Lauer the Boom: The Sept. 7 Commander-in-Chief Forum with the presidential hopefuls raised useful points for communicators. As you know, Democrats, Republicans and journalists whacked NBC Today host Matt Lauer heavily on social for being an inept moderator. What caught our eye, though, was criticism from Lauer’s NBC colleagues. Due to NBC’s social media policy, we’re guessing, they didn’t attack Lauer by name, but their displeasure with his work was obvious. Regarding Donald Trump’s assertion that he was against the war from the start, NBC News senior political editor Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) tweeted, “That’s not true.” After Trump hit Hillary Clinton for her “terrible mistake” in Libya, MSNBC host Chris Hayes (@chrishayes) pinged Lauer for failing to challenge Trump on his support for intervention in Libya. “Two of Trump’s biggest critiques of Clinton are Iraq and Libya, both of which he supported,” he tweeted. The takeaway for communicators: Have a social media policy that’s clear regarding criticism of colleagues and the brand. And make sure the policy adheres to National Labor Relations Board rules re free speech, as our item on Chipotle highlights ( PRN, Aug. 29).
Note to Subscribers:NLRB documents and other resources pertaining to social media policies were added recently to the PR News Pro Essentials Page at: prnewsonline.com/pr-news-pro-essentials/
M&A: W2O Group said it acquired med tech firm Pure Communications Sept. 7. Pure founder Andrea Johnston will continue to lead the firm.