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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Friday Wrap #166: Google enables publishing, newsrooms are failing reporters, C-suite causes crises

Friday Wrap #166: Google enables publishing, newsrooms are failing reporters, C-suite causes crises

Friday Wrap #166The Friday Wrap is my weekly collection of news stories, posts, studies, and reports designed to help organizational communicators stay current on the trends and technology that affect their jobs. These may be items that flew under the radar while other stories grabbed big headlines. As always, I collect material from which I select Wrap stories (as well as stories to report on the For Immediate Release podcast, along with stuff I just want to remember to read) on my link blog, which you’re welcome to follow. If you want to make sure you never miss an edition of the Wrap, subscribe to my weekly email briefing.

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The news continues to flood my feeds daily about the meteoric rise of chatbots. People are experimenting with building personal chatbots (including me!) and Mark Zuckerberg believes they’ll replace human-powered customer support. They will play tremendous roles in public relations and organizational communications. Will you be at the vanguard? Will you be ready to talk about them when leadership or clients ask? Will you be prepared to propose them when they represent the best solution? Get up to speed in just one hour by attending my online webinar on May 20. Register here.

News

Is Google letting companies and marketers publish directly to search results?—Kind of, yes. It’s an experiment that lets marketers, media companies, politicians, and other organizations publish directly to Google and have the content appear instantly in search results rather than wait for the content to be crawled. Among early users are Fox News, People.com, and HBO (which was able to publish fake news stories based on the storyline of its series Silicon Valley to promote the season premiere). Google has developed a web interface for publishing posts, which can be as long as 14,400 characters and can include links and up to 10 images or videos. Google hosts the content on a dedicated page that appears in a carousel in results pages for searches directly related to the content. The takeaway: I need to chew on this one for a while, since it seems to prioritize search results from partner companies rather than a more agnostic approach we expect from Google: Deliver results that are relevant to me. From a marketing or PR perspective, though, the opportunities would be huge. You also have to wonder, though, if it’s overused, will it hurt the trust we have in Google’s results? If you want to see an example, just Google “Jimmy Kimmel.” Read more

Twitter is not a social networking channel—Twitter no longer wants you to think of it as a social networking platform. In the iTunes App Store, it’s now available under the News category, where it is the top downloaded app. That number-one ranking is critical as more people buying a new iPhone are likely to install it if they see it as the top app in the category; it was #5 in the Social Networking category. The change has not bee made in the Android Play store. The takeaway: Since most people use twitter as a news tool and not for social networking, the change in identity makes sense and could help attract a larger user base. LinkedIn recently overtook Twitter in terms of monthly active users. Read more

Doodling catches on—You’ve been able to doodle (or sketch) on a Snapchat video for a while, and now Twitter has made the same function available for Periscope users (at least, those using the iOS version). During a live broadcast, just tap the screen and choose the “Sketch” option. The takeaway: Doodling on video and images is becoming a thing; it could find its way to Facebook Live any time. There will be all kinds of ineffective attempts to use the feature in Periscope sessions from marketers, but some will figure out how to take advantage of it in a meaningful way, one that increases audience engagement. Read more

Millennials are now the largest generation—According to the Pew Research Center, Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers as the largest living generation in the U.S. There are now 75.4 million people who were between 18 and 34 last year, compared to the previously largest generation, Baby Boomers, who numbered 74.9 million. GenX is projected to surpass the Boomer population by 2028. The takeaway: It’s no longer just a good idea to consider Millennial preferences and attitudes in your communication. It’s a requirement. Even before the Pew data was released, we knew that Millennials were already the largest demographic age group in the workplace. Read more

Facebook, Twitter want to stop you from cross-promoting stuff from Snapchat—Social networks Facebook and Twitter are taking steps to prevent publishers and brands from cross-promoting their Snapchat content on their platforms. Web celebrities can no longer post deep links to their Snapchat accounts via Instagram. Facebook and Instagram have both discouraged brands from promoting their Snapchat accounts. Twitter accounts have stopped using Snapcodes as their profile pictures. The takeaway: Snapchat’s rise has brought about this resistance. Who can blame them? Would you want someone using your platform to promote a competitor? Sorry, no whining allowed on this one. Read more

Biz Stone brings Jelly back to life—Jelly was awesome when it launched—a place to ask questions with pictures and get answers that would then be accessible via search. But it never gained traction, and founder Biz Stone (a Twitter co-founder) tried going a different direction with Super, which let users post images and overlay text. That didn’t do well, either, and now Jelly is back. The new version is still a platform for people to ask questions, but you can now do it anonymously rather than have your question tied to your social media profile. You also don’t have to keep checking for an answer; your phone will buzz when one is submitted. Jelly is available for iOS and on the web. The takeaway: Jelly is more akin to Google Now, Siri, and the Amazon Echo than it is to Google. Some believe this approach represents the future of search. For brands, providing great answers to relevant questions can be as important as search engine optimization on Google. Read more

Facebook is developing a camera app of its own—In an effort to encourage users to create and share more photos and video, Facebook will introduce a standalone camera app. The takeaway: As I reported here a few weeks ago, there has been a decline in the amount of personal sharing on Facebook. The camera app is an attempt to reverse that trend and make it easier to share personal content, and it doesn’t hurt that photos and videos create greater engagement than narrative text. Read more

Mobile-only use of Facebook hits 60%—Sixty percent of the people who use Facebook do so exclusively on a mobile device, according to the latest data release accompanying the company’s quarterly earnings report. More than 90% of monthly active users access Facebook through a mobile device at least part of the time. The takeaway: I’ll quote the fine folks at SHIFT, since I can’t say it any better myself: “Discard any claims that X group or Y demographic has fled Facebook. Whether or not they think it’s ‘cool,” Facebook is the Internet’s front page for a significant portion of the planet.” Read more

Commerce Department seeks public input on Internet of Things—Communicators will spend part of their time over the next few years figuring out their place in the Internet of Things, a subject about which the U.S. federal government wants to know more. The Commerce Department will accept public comments on the Internet of Things through May 23, with those interesting in sharing their thoughts invited to answer a 28-question survey. The goal is to learn the “benefits, challenges, and potential roles for the government in fostering the advancement of the Internet of Things.” The takeaway: Communicators will be involved not just in developing the messages connected devices deliver, but also in communications about the Internet of Things, from introducing new services and tools inside and outside the company to align with the impact the Internet of Things will have on jobs. Keep an eye out for the release of information based on the public comment, as the Commerce Department plans to make the information public. Read more

Mobile and Wearables

Mobile ad blocking not the big deal we thought it was—According to one review of data, fewer people are blocking mobile ads than was feared. AdRoll, a platform that places ads on websites, found that the number of ads being seen by mobile Safari users has climbed steadily since the significant drop that occurred after the initial introduction of ad blockers. The takeaway: Whether this data is representative of the entire mobile space, it’s still a good idea to create ads that don’t attract ad blockers’ attention; better yet, to find other means of conveying messages, such as native advertising or solid content marketing. Read more

Snapchat users watch 10 billion videos daily—More than one-third of Snapchat’s daily users create “Stories,” those collections of photos and videos that remain active during a rolling 24-hour period. And users watch those videos, currently at a clip of 10 billion per day, up from 8 billion in February. The takeaway: Snapchat is a big deal and the appetite for Snapchat-created videos made available through the publicly-accessible Stories is growing. Assess the audience and determine whether you or your brand should be participating. Unlike buying filters, there’s no fee to Snapchat for having an account and contributing content through it. Read more

Trends

Brands will keep on riding the coattails of cultural events—Prince’s untimely passing was the spark for a glut of “tribute” tweets from brands that just can’t seem to stop looking at every trending topic and cultural event as an opportunity to become part of the story—and with luck, earn a boatload of retweets. According to one PR exec, “They are just, frankly, thirsty. They want to be retweeted.” Despite backlash, some expect brands to get better at these messages rather than give up on them. The takeaway: I continue to believe that nobody will criticize your company, and it won’t lose sales, because it opts to keep its mouth shut when a celebrity dies. No matter how heartfelt the tribute, no matter how strong a connection the organization had to the celebrity, there will be too many people who will view the message as opportunistic and crass. If your organization really did have a connection to the celebrity, let real people express their sorrow on their personal accounts. Read more

The day is coming when we won’t use devices—So says Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, who believes the next step “will be for the very concept of the ‘device’ to fade away. Over time, the computer itself, whatever its form factor, will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. We will move from mobile-first to an AI-first world.” Pinchai’s comments were part of his first letter to shareholders, and is worth paying attention to. Pinchai wrote, “The average parent has different needs than the average college student. Similarly, a user wants different help in the car versus the living room. Smart assistance should understand all these things and be helpful at the right time, in the right way.” The takeaway: If you have used Amazon’s Echo, you get a hint of what Pinchai is talking about. I have every confidence that he’s right. What should communicators do about it right now? Nothing, other than be aware of the inevitability of the change so we’re not caught unawares when it begins to come true. Read more

A new media model emerges—Odyssey is a new breed of media that seems to be working in a landscape littered with the corpses of failed new-media experiments. A Business Insider report calls it “a bit like a college paper on steroids.” Over 10,000 writers (age 18-28) contribute on article per week. Odyssey relies on their social networks to amplify the content’s reach. If that sounds like a blogging platform, consider that each article undergoes three editing steps. The takeaway: Media relations isn’t dead, but the targets are changing. If your audience includes college-age groups, reaching the writers who write for publications like Odyssey could become increasingly important. Read more

Content creators are winners in shift to video—The money is flowing from social properties to creators of video who draw eyeballs to their sites. Twitter has begun paying the creators of Vine videos who have made the platform an entertainment destination. Facebook is also spending big money to attract high-end video. Twitter even ponied up impressive sums to stream 10 NFL Thursday Night Football games during the upcoming season. The takeaway: It wasn’t that long ago we were talking about the era of “good enough” video. Those days seem to be drawing to a close. The popularity of video on social channels is upping the ante, and strong production values are once again in demand. Read more

Brands love live-streaming video—Executives from several high-end brands attending a summit were asked for their views and live streaming and, in particular, Facebook Live. The responses were almost universally favorable, though there were voices calling for improved video quality on Facebook Live since people tend to watch Facebook Live on desktops (whereas Periscope is almost entirely viewed on smartphones). Others found the lower-quality video on Facebook Live an opportunity to present the brand more authentically. The takeaway: Live streaming video is a hot trend despite the fact that it seems completely contrary to the original value proposition of the web: its on-demand nature, pull vs. push. Ultimately, live streaming video will serve you well if you can find a way to serve the interests of your customer with it. Read more

Research

Most corporate newsrooms are failing journalists—Only 6 percent of journalists say digital newsrooms meet their needs and more than 65% say most PR resources fall short of their expectations. The Isebox survey found that, while PR practitioners believe they h ave set up their companies’ newsrooms with journalist needs in mind, 69% of reporters said the newsrooms they visit are out of date and have inaccurate contact information (which 90% said is the most important element of a newsroom). Sixty-five percent of reporters said newsrooms lack images and video, and 54% said search was ineffective. Journalists also cited a lack of press archives and social media kits, the inability to schedule interviews, a shortage of social media information, and badly-written press releases. The takeaway: I find this research frustrating, to say the least. We have had similar data literally for decades, but companies can’t seem to get their act together even as they crave earned media coverage. I suspect this research will be one more reason for most communicators to do absolutely nothing about it. Read more

The C-suite presents the biggest threat of a PR crisis—Poor decisions made at the top of the organization are responsible for most PR crises, including Toyta’s recall, the BP oil spill, and Chipotle’s E.coli episode. Employees know it: A survey by online reputation agency Igniyte found 39% staff think higher management teams are the greatest threat of a PR crisis, ahead of hacking, the CEO, and social media (although these rank high, as well). Only 22% of workers were aware of their company’s crisis communication strategy; 24% said they didn’t even know if their company has a strategy and another 17% are sure their companies don’t have crisis communications plans in place. The survey was conducted in the U.K. The takeaway: Where to begin? Leaders need to understand the impact of decisions on possible risks to reputation. Employees need to be in the loop on crisis responses, and they should also know about what’s expected of them during a crisis as part of a crisis strategy. Read more

Influencer marketing drives 11 times more revenue than advertising—That’s the result of a case study by Tapinfluence and Nielsen Catalina Solutions, and it relates to real dollars, not softer metrics like views or shares. In the case study, influencer marketing generated $285 per 1,000 impressions, 11 times more than digital advertising. The takeaway: No surprise here given what we know about trust and relevance. It’s also consistent with a study we reported recently about “crowdcultures,” which arise around topics ranging from espresso to bird-watching. Within these crowdcultures are influencers whose word is gold to others in the community. Read more

You don’t need to reach your customer on every device she owns—Consumers increasingly own multiple connected devices, and each one they add to their personal network “creates new opportunities to better score each moment of influence for reaching that person,” according to Robert Jones, director of research and insights at Rocket Fuel, a programmatic marketing platform provider. The challenge for PR and marketing teams is to decide which device is the right one for delivering a message to a target audience. Some insights from Rocket Fuel’s study include the fact that adult millennials own more than 8 devices on average, consumers are willing to share entertainment and wearables data in exchange for more personalized and targeted advertising, and available impressions on mobile device outpaced desktop in the real-time bidding space. The takeaway: Understanding how consumers use their devices, and targeting to devices, will be just as important as understanding how they use their networks. Read more

This week’s wrap image is courtesy of Zeeveez‘s Flickr account.

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