Your Metrics are Junk, Celebs are Toxic and Other Lessons from a ... - PR News - For Smart Communicators

Every communicator either is trying to avoid a crisis, planning for or dealing with one, or, at the very least, making sure she has the resources to deal with adverse news in 2023.

Last year we blamed the rise in PR crises on the focus on engagement as a key metric. Sadly, that metric, like COVID, still is around to plague us.

But in 2022 we had a cornucopia of factors that converted normal communication into a steady stream of crisis management. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, climate change's results, the insanity that accompanies any mid-term election and, of course, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. It’s amazing we accomplished anything.

Yet there were shining examples of people and organizations rising above 2022’s Sturm und Drang reality.

For instance, MacPaw, a Kiev-based firm, implemented a PR measurement system in the middle of a war. And Ukraine’s president–the year's best communicator–Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was constantly on screens and social reminding us about crisis communication best practices. The newest Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, used facts and history to make cogent arguments during her confirmation and highly fraught cases.

In a year when attention spans seemed to have gotten even shorter and an endless array of ‘celebrities,’ or influencers, rose from TikTok to claim our attention for a minute and a half, there still were a handful of useful lessons for 2023.

Lesson #1: Reach Jumps the Shark

Here’s a tip for the 56% of PR pros still using ...

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