Cross-posted from the FIR Podcast Network

Marshall Kirkpatrick and Augie Ray joined host Shel Holtz for conversations about these topics:

• The hashtag just celebrated its 10th birthday. Is it a curiosity or an important feature of the digital environment?
• A study finds people who get business communication featuring emojis don’t think positive things about the person who sent it. Is there a place for emojis in business communication?
• Microsoft-based VR headsets are about to hit the market at lower price points than the competition, potentially propelling Virtual Reality into the mainstream…or not.
• Facebook Page reach has declined 20% in 2017. Why are we still talking about this?
• Influencer marketing may be an oversold magic bullet. But there’s a subtle distinction between influencer marketing and influencer engagement.
• In his Tech Report, Dan York discussed the impending change of the WordPress editor to a new “block-style” editor called “Gutenberg.”

Connect with our guests via Twitter at @MarshallK and @AugieRay.

Links to the source material for this episode are on Contentle.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

FIR is recorded using Zencastr.

About today’s guest co-hosts:

After a successful career blazing trails in new media as one of the top tech bloggers in the world (first-hired writer at TechCrunch, co-editor of ReadWriteWeb), Marshall Kirkpatrick led the Little Bird team building software for enterprise marketers to do research, real-time market intelligence and marketing amplification. The tool for influencer marketing, content marketing, and research was recently by Sprinklr, the full-service social media management system, where Marshall now serves as product director for Influencer Marketing and Research.

Augie Ray is a Research Director covering customer experience for marketing leaders at Gartner. He has had a diverse career, including leading a digital experiential agency, directing social business at USAA and managing a global customer experience team at American Express. In his present role, Augie researches and advises clients on topics such as Voice of Customer, customer journey mapping, customer experience strategy and virtual reality.