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Howard Bragman, the legendary Los Angeles public relations agency leader, passed away from leukemia on February 11, 2023, at the age of 66. Bragman was known for his pioneering work in the field of public relations consulting, helping to shape the image of numerous celebrities, politicians, and organizations over his long and distinguished career. In…

In this podcast episode of For Immediate Release B2B, Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman interview SAP Head of Social Business Sarah Goodall about the risks of relying on social networks to deliver news in a democracy, Sprinklr’s Get Satisfaction acquisition, Meerkat and Periscope. Fair use is essential for journalists, enabling them to draw upon copyrighted…

Morgan Stanley’s decision to loosen the reign for their financial advisers on Twitter is the latest in a long list of financial services case studies of interest to website marketing companies. FINRA fined Barclays $3.75M for system is record keeping and email retention failure. The regulator warned investors against trading on “pump-and-dump” emails. The finance…

Ideally, you want someone with a neutral point of view editing Wikipedia entries, not a PR firm clandestinely gussying up their client’s pages.  PR has a conflict of interest. But that doesn’t mean they can’t also help improve the accuracy of Wikipedia entries or that they shouldn’t have a right to do so.   It’s…

Most people think social media policies are just for regulated industries. It is true that regulated industries have more rules to comply with. But social media compliance is everybody’s business.   Whether you’re business is regulated or not, there are dozens of federal and state regulations and local ordinances that dictate how you can and can’t…

In a significant legal development, a US Federal judge has deemed it unlawful for social media policies to require employees to include a disclaimer in their posts, stating that their opinions are their own. The judge expressed that such a restriction was “unreasonably burdensome,” adding a new dimension to the ongoing debate on employee rights…

The number of social media policy violations by employees has doubled over the last 16 months.  Ann Handley didn’t violate anyone’s social media policy, and those aren’t schadenfreude likes from Beth, Shel and Richard. They’re only there to demonstrate what kind of screen capture you need to take of a Facebook post if you’re documenting…

What steps has the FDA taken to provide the pharmaceutical industry with guidance and regulations around using social media for marketing, and what should their social media policies be?   We talk to John Mack, editor and publisher of the Pharma Marketing Network, about the issues and challenges of regulating pharmaceutical companies on social media.…

In a podcast I recorded with Doug Bonney, the chief counsel and legal director for Kansas’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), we delved into the complex web of issues surrounding the Kansas Board of Regents’ social media policy. As a public relations agency leader, I was interested in the Kansas Board of Regents social media…

In this eye-opening podcast discussion, Corynne McSherry, the Intellectual Property Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), delves into the intricate details of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to repeal net neutrality. The proposal, which became available for public comment via DearFCC, prompted McSherry to scrutinize its potential ramifications meticulously. Net Neutrality was officially repealed…