This is a guest post by my HubSpot colleague Samantha Dillon.

Are you someone who feels as though they frequently ‘burn the midnight oil’ at work only to feel continuously exhausted?

Are you someone who constantly has to manage between the multiple distractions at once (phone, email, instant message communication…) while still trying to focus on a task at hand?

I’d say one or both apply to almost everyone these days, so I encourage you to read-on!

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a half-day session with The Energy Project at our Cambridge office at HubSpot and came to learn more about the energy dimensions that are impacting us all in our professional and personal lives as well as how to manage them better.

Did you know that after watching a video, 64% of viewers are more likely to make a purchase? 

No wonder then that video has become a favourite content format for consumers and professionals alike. It's much easier and more enjoyable to consume than text or some images and it certainly keeps the attention for longer (when done right). 

Read any article about 2018 trends in marketing or communications (like this one) and you'll see video in there. Video can not only help you increase awareness about your brand, but also drive a ton of conversions and leads to your business. 

Every minute, 300 hours of video are being uploaded on YouTube. With that rate, within a year video will account for 70% of all Internet traffic. 

I've long said that visual content is king, however, only a few years later I think I need to rephrase that to video content is king. 

This is a guest post by Nick Holland from ARPR.

Much has been said about the PR industry’s struggles to adapt and find its place in a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected.

Global PR industry growth slowed 5% in 2015, and Gould Partners says annual agency operating profits have consistently fallen, dropping from about 19% in 2011 to about 15% in 2017.

As if that weren’t enough, the roller-coaster ups and downs of 2017 has made executives more conservative by reducing their marketing and communications investments as cost-cutting activities are now prioritized over long-term investments.

While these figures can be unsettling for agencies and professionals that fail to see and adapt to PR’s growing value in departments like sales, marketing and more, PR professionals now have more resources than ever to demonstrate and prove the value of our craft from headline to sale.

The rise of new digital media channels, marketing technologies and analytics software are a few of the new tools at our disposal to accomplish this. As we transition into a new year with new possibilities, it is important to understand some of the ways PR has changed in 2017 and how you can take advantage in 2018.

In 2018 PR is….

"Firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something." - this is the definition of trust in the Oxford dictionary. 

The Edelman TRUST BAROMETER is the biggest study of trust. I cover it every year. 

The 2018 research reveals yet again a world of seemingly stagnant distrust where people’s trust in business, government, NGOs and media remained largely unchanged from 2017 — 20 of 28 countries surveyed now lie in distruster territory, up one from last year.

But 2018 marks a number of interesting shifts such as the return of experts, increased trust in journalists and bigger faith in CEOs. 

Let's take a look at the key learnings that I took from the research. 

9 Things You Need to Know About Trust in 2018: 

As companies grow, scale and expand in international markets, the need for cross-cultural sensitivity and communication ability increases.

In fact, communication is what underpins both stakeholder management and change management - two areas without which a company cannot function or grow.

However, when we add cultural differences to how people make decisions and follow orders, organisations face a tremendous challenge to getting things done.

Two Areas for Consideration

There are two key areas that companies should be strategically looking into when operating in a cross-cultural setting: