I recently got some tips from Christine Hayes, Director of Market Insight and leader of a very cool and innovative research team. She shared her thoughts on trend spotting and tracking; a process that can identify opportunities, predict competitor strategies and expose industry movements. Here are a few tips from the expert:

1. Define the Trend

If you are looking to stay on top of what's happening in your market, you need to track the trends in products or services, buzz words and growth areas. This first step can be the hardest part. You have to catch the trend at an early point in its life, which can be difficult because the terminology used to describe it may vary widely.  At this point, try looking back at the historic mentions of the trend terms in the news and in blogs over five years. Dig into any coverage peaks. Was there an event, like an acquisition or viral video, that fueled the increase in interest?

 2. Identify Resources

Once you identify a trend in your marketplace, you need an action plan for taking advantage of this learning opportunity. Find a tool to access and analyze media coverage from major news outlets, local and niche news sources, blogs, company profiles and business news like press releases, M&A filings, executive move announcements and social media. Think about what you'll need both in content and in technology to answer these questions:

• How are you going to track new coverage on your trend and analyze past coverage?
• How are you going to research impactful events in this industry?
• How are you going to identify companies at play in the trend and their background?

3. Identify Competitors

Once you established your means of research, dig into the drivers of the trend. In particular, you want to look at the companies—your competitors if you're looking to turn this trend into an opportunity—that are in play in this space. Look at the companies that are mentioned in articles along with your trend. Acquisitions and hiring initiatives can tip off movement into a new market. Another way to spot companies in play is to dig in to peaks of media mentions or activity. What caused those spikes? Who were the key contributors to the activity?

4. Monitor ongoing movements

You've discovered a trend at it's earliest point. You've set up the tools and resources to research and watch the life of it, and you've painted a picture of the marketplace as it stands today. *Pat yourself on the back* Now you have to watch it ebb and flow as you decide to enter into the trend or not. At this point, to keep a close pulse on the trend, you need to continue to look at a broad variety of media; newspapers, blogs, television, magazines, social. Keep a running analysis of the past 100 days coverage. Answer questions like who is talking about it? Where are they talking about it? What terms are they using to talk about it? How do they feel about the trend (sentiment)? If you're making the investment to capitalize on this trend, you need to know how your competitors are approaching the market. You also want to keep a close eye on the life stage of the trend. By definition, a trend is a practice or interest that is gaining popularity. You need to know when the popularity has peaked and adjust your plans accordingly.

 5. Share your research in a way that makes sense

Your research is fueling a business decision, therefore, you need to share insights with your team and stakeholders. You intimately know the sprawling spreadsheets, endless lines of data and false alarms, but to communicate your findings, leave the gory details out of the story if you want  people to engage with your research. Think about how you can present your hard-earned insights in a succinct way. Data visualization has been a proven method for clearly communicating complex ideas and creating sticky stories. It is visual storytelling—the intersection of data and information. Christine shared with me some of her favorite examples of data visualization. Check out these resources the next time you're in need of a creative hand when presenting your trend spotting, research and monitoring analysis.

Christine's best practices can help our trend spotting, but without the right information or all the information, we cannot make an accurate assessment of a trend. Christine and her team use Nexis and Nexis Analyzer to research and analyze media coverage and trends. 

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention was signed on 17 December 1997. It required its member countries to create legislation to make bribing a foreign public official illegal. In this blog, the Head of the OECD’s Anti-Corruption Division gives LexisNexis BIS an exclusive assessment of the Convention’s first 20 years.

 The rise of anti-foreign bribery legislation

 Twenty years ago, the US was the only country that really took the bribery of foreign public officials seriously. Foreign bribery was made illegal by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977. Since then, foreign bribery has become illegal in all 43 countries and states that have signed the convention. Moreover, Patrick Moulette, Head of the OECD’s Anti-Corruption Division, said the Convention has had a “much wider effect” on the global fight against bribery and corruption. “When countries improve their legislation for holding companies liable for foreign bribery, in fact this also changes the law for domestic corruption and other financial crimes,” he told us in a phone interview from the OECD’s headquarters in Paris.

 But Mr Moulette said that although countries like Germany have improved their enforcement record of the bribery of foreign public officials, there are still not enough foreign bribery convictions around the world. Half of the Convention’s signatories “still do not have a single conviction for the bribery of foreign public officials,” he said. He also expressed concern that important members of the G20, like China, Indonesia, India and Saudi Arabia, are “missing from the Convention”.

 Legislation against foreign bribery getting stronger

 In an illustration of how legislation against foreign bribery continues to evolve, the US Department of Justice recently made its FCPA Pilot Program permanent. The Pilot, which offers companies a reduced punishment for voluntary disclosure of compliance failures, was launched in April 2016 and extended a year later. A new FCPA Corporate Enforcement Policy has also been introduced to provide “additional benefits” to companies that voluntarily self-disclose a breach of FCPA and fully cooperate with the investigation and make timely and appropriate remediation.

 The announcement was timely - it came shortly before the United Nations’ annual Anti-Corruption Day on Saturday , December 9th. This year, the UN focused on how corruption is “one of the biggest impediments” to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

How quickly can a trickle of negative news accelerate into a flood of financial and reputational risk?  These days, the answer is fast—at least when it comes to sexual harassment allegations. As more women (and a few men) come forward to share their experiences of sexual harassment, it’s clear that companies can suffer significant reputational and financial harm when bad actions of top executives and board members come to light. In fact, the fallout from the latest sexual harassment scandal prompted a post on the FCPA blog—a site that is normally focused on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and corporate compliance with it and other anti-bribery and corruption regulations. 

 Why companies are in crisis management mode over sexual misconduct

 For decades, sexual harassment lived in the shadows.  Rumours were plentiful. Innuendo was rampant. For the most part, however, companies kept a lid on sexual harassment allegations against key figures through a combination of non-disclosure agreements and behind-the-scenes settlements.  But as digital media strategist Heidi Moore wrote on LinkedIn, “Starting now, companies should start thinking about settlements as a bad investment. Non-disclosure agreements do not prevent scandals. It’s human nature: People talk.”   What’s more, in the digital age, this ‘talk’ spreads like wildfire across social media and the blogosphere, increasing the likelihood that any scandal will grow to epic proportions in hours or days, not months.  Moore cited a series of scandals as proof:

• Roger Ailes was ousted by Fox News only 15 days after Gretchen Carlson spoke out about his sexual harassment in July 2016.
• Bill O’Reilly was shown the door just weeks after the New York Times revealed that 21^st Century Fox or O’Reilly had paid millions of dollars to settle a series of sexual harassment cases. The Guardian reported that “O’Reilly would assume a mentorship role in the women’s careers and then make sexual advances, causing them to fear professional consequences if they refused him.”
• Harvey Weinstein was pushed out by his board of directors three days after an investigative report by the New York Times, and the company will likely change its name to further distance itself from the negative repercussions of his past behavior.
• Justin Caldbeck, co-founder of Binary Capital, was forced out within days, and the company had to shut down a $175 million investment fund when investors jumped ship over sexual harassment allegations exposed in an industry publication, The Information.

 Noting that “… the potential fallout [of sexual harassment] is nearly infinite,” Moore continued, “Payouts on a grand scale are unsustainable. Harbouring a sexual harasser, however connected, powerful or brilliant, poses a far more significant business risk than simply firing the executive.”  While money spent on settlements may represent a ‘drop in the bucket’ compared to a company’s annual revenue, the reputational damage can lead to long-term financial consequences—a fall-off in advertising dollars and loss of investor and consumer confidence, to start. In addition, if investigations reveal that warning signs were ignored, the collateral damage for other corporate leaders and board members can disrupt business, lower employee morale and curtail progress toward growth goals while the company regroups.

3 tips for reducing reputational and financial risk

 Businesses need to take a proactive approach to mitigating reputational and financial risks of sexual harassment. Here are some steps to take:

1. Create a clear, no-tolerance policy against sexual harassment and enforce it.  One fact that is clear from all of the recent allegations is that the stories only came to light after the woman—or in some cases, numerous women—reported the misconduct and saw a lack of action to remedy the situation.
2. Do your due diligence before hiring key personnel.  Sexual harassment is wrong, no matter who does it, but the greatest liability comes when the harasser is in a leadership role. When vetting a potential executive hire, look for adverse media, past court cases or other red flags. Likewise, entering into a partnership with an individual or company demands rigorous due diligence to help you avoid a relationship that could taint your image with investors and the public.
3.  Monitor the media for risk warning signs. Even the most robust due diligence process can miss a risk factor, but with ongoing risk media monitoring, you can stay alert to potential problems and respond proactively to minimize the damage.

 Risk media monitoring is particularly important given today’s 24/7 news cycle and the tendency for big stories—whether positive or negative—to go viral on social media. If you’ve been on social media in recent days, you’ve probably seen the #MeToo hashtags on Twitter or the MeToo posts on Facebook.  The trend was started by a tweet from actress Alyssa Milano who encouraged women to tweet #MeToo if they had experienced sexual harassment or assault.  Twenty-four hours later, reported The Atlantic, a Twitter spokesperson said the hashtag had been tweeted almost 500,000 times. The message is clear; women are prepared to step out of the shadows about sexual harassment. The question is: Are you ready to mitigate the reputational and financial risks associated with it? 

3 Ways to Apply This Information Now

1. Visit us online to explore our solutions for monitoring for adverse news.
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In October, Twitter announced its decision to test a new 280-character limit on tweets and officially started rolling out the new extended word cap during the first week of November. Over the next few months, all users will have 280-character tweeting capabilities.

This change will impact all Twitter users to some capacity, but it may have a larger influence in the marketing space for PR professionals. Over the years, social media has changed the way marketers work, giving them more opportunity to assess and leverage data to their advantage. As a PR professional, a simple character adjustment can make a serious impact on how you represent your brand. To ensure you're taking advantage of the update, here are three ways to leverage the new character limit to your best ability:  

1. Tweet press releases
If you want to share an extended message with your audience about your business or a client who has a new product or upcoming event, the new character limit allows you to provide more information instantly. The former option was to share a link with a short description; now you can provide an in-depth statement or direct quote from the press release, which can make your post more engaging.

2. Share multiple links
In the past, sharing more than one link in a tweet at a time was out of the question. Instead, you were forced to tweet multiple times, sending a series of tweets with various links to get the message across to your followers. The new character limits enables your brand to be more concise yet in-depth by sharing one, wholesome tweet, instead of risking your message getting lost in translation.

3. Focus on visual content
When your tweets have a visual element, they're more likely to produce engagement rates. According to HubSpot, tweets that include an image receive 150 percent more retweets as compared to those without a picture. With the new character limit, you don't have to choose between sharing a picture or video and text; rather you can fit both elements and create more comprehensive (and engaging) tweets.

Remember: Proofread all of your tweets to check for spelling errors, grammar mistakes, false information, inappropriate phrases and sentences that can be taken out of context. This new feature may be beneficial, but it opens up more room for error and can have a long-lasting, negative impact on your brand reputation if you don't take the time to copyedit.

3 Ways to Apply This Information Now

1. Never miss a conversation with a social listening tool and social analytics solution like LexisNexis® Social Analytics (powered by Talkwalker.) 
2. Check out ways that PR pros can gain critical business intelligence
3. See how media monitoring and analysis help address PR challenges in this eBook