EPR Archive: Social Media, Brands & Crises Since 2009

Originally published June 2026. Updated June 2026.

Everything-PR has been reporting on communications, platforms, brands, and reputation since 2009 — through the rise and fall of the first social networks, the privacy fights that reshaped the internet, and the brand and crisis moments that became case studies. This is a curated index of that archive: original coverage, published as it happened, preserved as a record of how the social era actually unfolded.

We have covered the question the whole time — who controls the conversation, and how brands earn or lose trust inside it. The platforms changed. The discipline didn't.

The platforms: rise and fall

The first generation of social networks rose fast and, in most cases, fell faster. Everything-PR tracked them in real time.

• MySpace Sells for $35 Million. What's Next? — How a $580M acquisition collapsed to a $35M sale, and the PR lesson in responding too slowly to a competitor.
• Gone Are the Days of Bebo and Digg — Calling the decline of the first-gen networks while Facebook and Twitter pulled ahead.
• The 2012 Skype WiFi Launch — A Historical Artifact from the Pre-Consolidation Communications Era — Skype's platform-expansion attempts before Microsoft sunset the service on May 5, 2025. The case on platform expansion through adjacency.
• How Google TV Was Poised to Change Television — The early convergence of web and TV, and what it signaled for media.
• Conan O'Brien Conquers Twitter — An early case study in turning a platform launch into a personal-brand PR move.
• H&M's Location-Based Virtual Goods Play — One of the first brand experiments in location-based mobile marketing.

Facebook through the years

From the earliest privacy fights to the Cambridge Analytica–era crisis hires, Everything-PR has covered Facebook's communications story at every turn.

• Zuckerberg's Privacy Speech Raises More Questions (2010) — When "privacy norms are evolving" became a corporate-comms flashpoint.
• Facebook User Privacy Strategy (2010) — The Beacon-era pattern of opt-out-by-default and the trust cost it carried.
• Facebook Apps as Security (2010) — Third-party security apps and the early privacy-by-default debate.
• Facebook Speaking the Language of Brands (2010) — The "Become a Fan" → "Like" change and what it meant for brand interaction.
• Are We Stuck With Facebook Forever? (2010) — On technological lock-in and platform dominance.
• Facebook Adds Anniversaries to Profiles (2009) — An early read on Facebook's push to become a personal-organization layer.
• Zuckerberg's $100 Million Newark Donation (2010) — Reputation management through philanthropy, timed to The Social Network.
• Facebook's Nick Clegg Hire (2018) — The Cambridge Analytica–era global-affairs hire and the crisis-comms challenge behind it.

LinkedIn: the professional network, 2009 onward

Everything-PR has covered LinkedIn since 2009 — from interface updates and the first mobile app to personal branding, recruiting, sponsored content, and the thought-leadership era. The through-line: LinkedIn was always the network where professional authority compounded. For the current playbook, see LinkedIn for B2B Social — What Actually Works.

• LinkedIn APP Bump: Who Else Will Do This Dance? (2009) — The Bump-style contact exchange feature, and an early read on brands building out mobile apps.
• LinkedIn Updates Interface for Smooth Networking (2010) — Filtering contacts by company, industry, and location: early CRM-style networking.
• Personal Branding Matters; LinkedIn Launches BrandYou Across Europe (2010) — The pan-European personal-brand campaign, and rules for building a professional brand that still hold.
• Sir Richard Branson, Most Followed Thought Leader on LinkedIn (2012) — The launch of LinkedIn's Influencer/thought-leader program, years before it became central.
• LinkedIn Is Small Businesses' Favorite Social Network (2013) — The WSJ/Vistage survey naming LinkedIn the top network for small business.
• LinkedIn Announces Impressive Quarterly Profits (2013) — $303.6M revenue and the "1% most viewed profile" campaign that made 20 million users feel important.
• 4 LinkedIn SEO Tricks to Help Your Profile Rank (2013) — Profile optimization for search — the early PR/SEO convergence in practice.
• 10 LinkedIn Groups for PR, and Why We Love Them (2013) — A snapshot of where PR professionals gathered on the platform.
• LinkedIn Joins Facebook in Sponsored Content Frenzy (2013) — The rollout of Sponsored Updates and the start of LinkedIn as an ad platform.
• LinkedIn Recruiter, Vital for Social Recruitment Strategies (2013) — The talent-solution product that made LinkedIn the recruiting standard.
• 9 Super LinkedIn Influencers You Should Follow (2014) — A roundup from the early Influencer era, before founder-led content became a strategy.
• Becoming a Thought Leader on LinkedIn (2020) — The four-step framework that bridged the old content era to the modern executive-voice playbook.

YouTube: the second search engine, 2012 onward

Everything-PR has covered YouTube since the early days of brand channels — through the original-channels push, the creator and influencer era, the advertising crises, and the platform's emergence as the second-largest search engine and an AI retrieval layer. The through-line: YouTube was never just video — it was always discovery, trust, and authority infrastructure. For the current playbook, see Long-Form YouTube as a Search and Authority Channel.

• 6 Examples of How Businesses Can Use YouTube Channels (2012) — An early survey of how Cisco, Allstate, Starbucks, Microsoft, and others built out brand channels.
• YouTube Launches Original Channels in France, Germany and the UK (2012) — Google's $200M investment in original programming, and the bet on channels for every interest.
• How to Refine Ad Strategies on YouTube with Gamers' Insights (2013) — Google's gamer-video research and the seven content formats that shaped early video marketing.
• Creative YouTube Marketing from STIHL New Zealand (2014) — A choose-your-own-adventure campaign that made an ordinary product compelling.
• YouTube Ad of the Decade (2015) — The platform's 10th-anniversary best-ad battle and the storytelling lesson behind the winners.
• Fine Bros' PR Crisis and YouTube Controversy (2016) — A trademark-and-copyright misfire and the creator-community backlash that followed.
• YouTube Continues to Struggle with Advertising Issues (2017) — The brand-safety boycotts and the ad-adjacency crisis that reshaped platform policy.
• PR / Marketing Strategies For Big YouTube Stars (2017) — How creators build and keep audience trust in the influencer era.
• Google and Amazon Feud Means No YouTube for Subscribers (2017) — When platform rivalry made consumers the collateral damage.
• Logan Paul in Hot Water with YouTube (2018) — A creator-conduct crisis and the limits of the apology playbook.
• Making Revenue with Podcasting and YouTube (2019) — Beyond ad revenue: the alternative monetization models for creators.
• How to Promote Your YouTube Channel (2020) — SEO, thumbnails, and titles — the optimization fundamentals that still hold.
• Marketing a YouTube Channel in 2020 (2020) — Channel features, chapters, and the early move toward structured, searchable video.

Brand, reputation, and crisis case studies

The era's defining brand moments — the ones that still get taught.

• 99designs' GAP Logo Contest — The 2010 rebrand reversed in days, and the crowdsourcing response around it.
• Shkreli in Court, Called "Maybe Nuts" by His Own Attorney — A canonical reputation and crisis-comms case study.
• Play-Doh's Holiday Product Crisis — A toy-packaging misstep, weeks of ignored early complaints, and the holiday backlash that followed: a durable lesson in listening to the first signals.
• Craig Newmark and the Unvarnished Problem — Early online-reputation-management and personal-brand questions that only got more relevant.
• MC Hammer vs. Jay-Z — Turning a feud into free publicity: digital marketing before it had the name.
• Wendy's Father's Day Frosty Weekend — A cause-marketing case study with real numbers for the Dave Thomas Foundation.

Related: Social Media Brands: Data, Rankings, Strategies and Company Profiles