The nst blog

For years, the Food Foresight panel – and scientists and health professionals across the globe – warned it would happen: a pandemic capable of bringing the health of people and economies worldwide to their knees. COVID-19 has been the shock…

In the digital age, anyone with access to social media or other online platforms can be a content creator. Social media content can be genuine and authentic because users are willing to speak candidly about brands, products or services. User-generated…

Many of us in the government and public relations profession can recall a time when receiving a shout out from an elected representative of thousands, or even millions, of citizens required a significant amount of groundwork and often close connections…

Is your company or brand longing for a blue check mark online? In today’s day and age, brand recognition is everything. Influencers, brands and public figures want to stand out and be the best – and the coveted blue check…

While most of California’s local elected officials serve only as part-time mayors and councilmembers, they are responsible for representing the interests of thousands of their fellow citizens and must educate themselves on a wide-range of policy issues. The challenge of…

TikTok is the latest mobile app to take the internet – and world – by storm. Formerly known as the app musical.ly, TikTok is a short-form video app that prides itself on “mak[ing] every second count.” Released in the United…

At some point, companies may take a look at their current visual branding and think “this doesn’t really reflect who we are anymore.” They may have hobbled along with a just-OK logo, but realized its shortcomings over time. Or maybe the company…

Online usage is up with Millennial and Gen Z users, and YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat are the big winners. A May 2018 study conducted by Pew Research Center found that of U.S. teens ages 13-17, 85 percent of those surveyed…

Like the rest of the country, I’ve been drawn to the spectacle of the Fyre Festival documentaries on Hulu and Netflix. I wasn’t as familiar with the catastrophe of the “festival that never was,” so I was shocked at each…

The popularity of the Twitter meme took off in 2018. Twitter memes are tweet formats used by multiple accounts and are intended to relate to an audience, and usually make them laugh. Twitter users and popular brands such as Pop-Tarts, Target and others use this trend to generate engagement and entertain their followers. They take popular meme formats and change the wording to better fit their brand or products. This high engagement can result in social media success—but can brands become successful on Twitter by using humor and memes?

This article originally appeared in California Farm Bureau Federation’s Ag Alert. If there’s a term describing business in the second decade of the 21st century, it’s “disruption.” Entrepreneurs uncovering untapped needs and creating new ones, combined with technological innovations that…

We live in a confusing time when it comes to data privacy and security. While many of us want more protection and security, surveys have shown that people are willing to give that up if they understand the end benefit…