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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Friday Wrap #168: Logo hate, CEO scandals linger, most influencers are men, long-form content lives

Friday Wrap #168: Logo hate, CEO scandals linger, most influencers are men, long-form content lives

Friday Wrap #168The 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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News

Instagram’s new logo raises hackles—Like any company introducing a new logo, Instagram was the target of the online mob after revealing its simplified new graphic identity. The takeaway: Too many companies have retreated from new logos and other changes because of initial online backlash. By now, we should know better. The first people to jump on a new design are those who hate change. If you did your homework on your new logo or design change, stick to your guns. Most people aren’t complaining online and everyone will get accustomed to the new look. Read more

Amazon sort of takes on YouTube—Amazon Video Direct is a new service that aims to compete with YouTube—kind of. Creators can upload videos to Amazon’s Prime Video and earn royalties based on the how many hours their videos are streamed. Signing up requires you to include your Social Security number and bank information for payment, so don’t expect to see the flood of quick videos people share on youtube with no expectation of profit. The takeaway: It may be easier to find an audience, given Amazon Prime Video’s reach, especially if you don’t fit in the demographic of most YouTube stars. Read more

Viv could be the virtual assistant you’ve been waiting for—The creators of Siri have demonstrated their newest effort, called Viv, that blows away the competition when it comes to understanding your questions or instructions and interacts with you in a more natural, conversational way, no matter how complex your request. For example, the demo included the question, “Will it be warmer than 70 degrees near the Golden Gate Bridge at 5 p.m. the day after tomorrow?” The response was nearly instant and accurate. The takeaway: We’re getting closer to needing no website or app to handle a lot of our needs. We’ll just talk. Given how easy it is to build “skills” for the Amazon Echo, brands should be considering how they will interact with customers when those customers talk to an assistant rather than find your content when searching for answers. Read more

Brands are using pre-recorded videos on Facebook Live—Facebook is letting media companies and video creators stream pre-recorded content through Facebook Live. The takeaway: Before you start broadcasting every video your company has ever made, consider the pros and cons of oversaturating your followers with content they don’t want to see. While Facebook Live lets you stream pre-recorded video, the company notes that its strength is in the ability of on-camera hosts to engage in real-time with viewers. Read more

Facebook to let anyone upload 360-degree photos—You should see a lot of 360-degree videos on Facebook now that the social network plans to let anyone upload one. There are smartphone apps that let you shoot 360-degree videos, so their popularity should soar as people see more and more of them shared by their friends. No release date for the feature has been set, but Facebook says the feature will be available in a matter of weeks. The takeaway: Brands should find great uses for 360-degree photos, which inherently promote higher levels of engagement with users. Read more

Google shows off proposed emojis of professional women—As businesses ramp up their efforts to deliver on the promise of gender equality, Google has proposed to the Unicode Consortium a set of emojis of professional women. In the proposal, the four Googlers who developed the images wrote, “No matter where you look, women are gaining visibility and recognition as never before. isn’t it time that emoji also reflect the reality that women play a key role in every walk of life and in every profession?” The takeaway: Two vital points here: Businesses really are paying more attention to the issue of gender equality, and emojis matter more and more as a routine tool for consumers. Read more

 

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WhatsApp unveils a desktop app—Mobile messaging app WhatsApp—a Facebook property—now has a desktop app for both Windows and Mac. The takeaway: If nothing else, the app should make it easier for communicators to craft messages as part of their work. Read more

.blog domain coming later this year—The .blog domain is coming later this year, courtesy of Automattic, the company behind WordPress, which has obtained the rights to manage the domain. The company said prices will be consistent for new top-level domains. Automattic isn’t limiting availability to WordPress blogs. The takeaway: While having a .blog domain for your blog isn’t necessary, you may want to snatch up the domain anyway, lest someone else grabs it for your blog and tries to extort money from you to prevent visitors from accidentally visiting a competing or unsavory site. Read more

Algorithm could help identify Periscope streams in real time—Twitter’s Cortex is a “team of engineers, data scientists, and machine learning researchers” who are working on an algorithm that can help users find live broadcasts in real time. While the user broadcasting a building fire with Twitter’s Periscope could tag it “OMG WTF,” others might search for “building fire in Los Angeles.” The idea is to identify the fire and location from other data and let people find the live stream even though the title or tag don’t provide that information. The takeaway: The biggest problem with Periscope is finding broadcasts you’re actually interested in. If Perisocpe and Cortex can pull this off, it could make Periscope far more useful. Read more

YouTube opens “native sharing”—If you want to share a YouTube video, you usually copy and paste the link into some other channel, whether it’s email, Facebook, Twitter, or some other channel. YouTube doesn’t want you to leave its walled garden, though, and in an effort to keep you there, it’s introducing “native sharing,” initially to a small group of users. The feature allows them to share a link by inviting friends to conversation threads inside YouTube. The goal is to stay competitive as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat chip away at the user base while allowing people to have conversations and share videos in one place. The takeaway: Why YouTube didn’t do this years ago is a good question. After all, YouTube is considered a social network as much as it’s a content-sharing platform. Brands will now need to monitor conversations (not just comments) around their videos and be prepared to participate. Read more

Taco Bell gets 224 million views of Snapchat lens—On Cinco de Mayo, you could use a sponsored Snapchat lens to turn your head into a taco. The result: 224 million views, a new Snapchat record. Whether that translated into sales is anybody’s guess, but Taco Bell has been all-in with Snapchat since it started using the app three years ago. The takeaway: I would like to see at least some correlative data suggesting that there’s ROI in brand investment in Snapchat, though there’s nothing wrong with building a relationship with the growing number of Snapchat users. Seeing half your friends applying a branded lens can’t help but keep the brand top of mind. Read more

Research

Fallout from CEO scandals lingers long after the CEOs leave—The effects of a CEO scandal can sully the reputation of the company where he or she worked for an average of five years after the incident, according to an analysis released by Stanford University. The estimate is based on a review of 38 examples of CEOs who left an organization because they lied, cheated, embezzled, or were otherwise offensive. The takeaway: Crisis communication efforts need to do more long-term planning rather than wrap up as soon as the immediate crisis has passed. Read more

Twitter and Facebook play different news roles—Facebook sends the most mobile readers to news sites. Twitter mobile users spend more time engaged with news content. That’s the finding from a Pew research Center analysis. The takeaway: It’s not either-or. Share your news in both places. Read more

Men dominate influencer lists—Thought leadership on Twitter leans heavily male, according to research from influencer mapping company Little Bird. In 75% of 20 selected topical communities, at least 60% of the top 20 thought leaders were men. (Twitter’s user base is 54% male.) Categories included photography, data protection, storytelling, the future of work, diet, climate change, wellness, and retail. The takeaway: As Little Bird founder Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote, “New media appears to be maintaining old power dynamics,” but the data “means there are opportunities for members of almost any community to listen to more women, and for women to make more connections to their peers online, thus building influence.” Read more

 

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Marketers still failing to meet mobile expectations—There’s a gap between how well brands think they’re doing with mobile and what mobile users think. Brands appear to be focused more on things that matter to consumers less, like design and functionality, personalization, and social capabilities. Brands are confident they’re meeting mobile expectations, consumer respondents say they’re not. What’s more, one-third of those say they would never buy again from a brand that failed to meet their expectations. The takeaway: The research suggests that brands are developing mobile solutions in a vacuum based on internal beliefs rather than co-creating their mobile solutions with the customers who will use them. Read more

More data highlights need for brands to respond to social media inquiries—It’s not the first study to point out how important it is for brands to respond to customer inquiries via social media, but since most brands to a terrible job at it, the additional evidence might get some companies to up their game. According to a Sprout Social report, “While brands view Facebook, twitter and Instagram as broadcast outlets for pumping out promotional content, consumers recognize these social channels for what they truly are: powerful portals for two-way dialog.” 34.5% of respondents prefer social media for customer care compared to only 16.1% who like calling the company’s call center, 24.7% who like to use the company’s website or live chat options, and 19.4% who would rather use email. The takeaway: Brands respond to only 11% of people on social media and deliver 23 promotional messages for every person-to-person response. When they do respond, it takes 10 hours. These companies are losing customers and contributing to negative chatter. Read more

 

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Trends

Twitter users trust influencers almost as much as friends—At least, that’s what Twitter says, based on a study that showed 40% of respondents have purchased an item after an influencer shared it on Instagram, twitter, Vine, or YouTube. And 20% shared something they saw from an influencer. This rise of influencer impact is leading marketers to amp up their influencer marketing efforts. Companies like HP, Burt’s Bees, Miracle-Gro, and J.C. Penney have run campaigns in recent months that produced impressive ROI. The takeaway: I have seen other studies showing that influencer marketing produces considerably higher ROI than other types of campaigns at up to 70% less cost. While I recommend learning all you can about influencer marketing, I also wonder why so few internal communicators adopt the same mentality for employee communications. Read more

Apple is a podcast must, but it isn’t keeping up—If you have a podcast, you really have no choice but to list it in the iTunes podcast store. Apple was the first to create a robust podcast directory. Positive reviews for your show on iTunes can bring you scores of new listeners. But podcasters are voicing concerns that Apple isn’t giving podcasting the attention it deserves, particularly as it goes mainstream. The takeaway: Apple doesn’t make money from its podcast store, so it’ll be interesting to see if the company responds to producers’ concerns. At least they’re listening: They brought in seven top podcast pros to make their case, though they made no promises. In the meantime, podcasters should work to build their shows using other channels. Read more

JetBlue’s billboard-social mashup—It’s a first for JetBlue Airways, which is launching a campaign based on a digital billboard that interacts with mobile to push real-time data. The airline will share hashtags on the New York-based billboard and give away free flights to consumers who play along on their phones. The “Liveboard” will pull in multiple real-time data feeds, creating a data visualization of how quickly travelers can reach a destination. The prizes will be awarded to the first person to tweet a corresponding hashtag. The takeaway: Expect more real-time interaction between phones and other channels. Read more

Algorithms bolster conspiracy theories—You have no doubt heard of the kerfuffle over allegations that Facebook trending topics curators prevented conservative news from appearing on the list. True or not (and I suspect not), “the algorithms that drive social networks are shifting the reality of our political systems—and not for the better.” The algorithms that learn what we like and dish more of it up for us allow fringe theories to spread. As a result, they wind up have an effect on policy-making and public opinion. It’s called “the filter bubble.” The takeaway: Ultimately, what people wind up believing thanks to algorithms, network effects, and zero-cost publishing will present new challenges to the PR industry as we find it harder to inject accurate information into the conversation. Read more

Virtual and Augmented Reality

The Economist plans VR content—The Economist revealed a new set of video content that will take advantage of Virtual Reality via inexpensive headsets like Google Cardboard and Samsung’s Gear VR. The content will run the gamut from brief daily explainers to longer, documentary productions. The takeaway: The adoption of VR by media outlets will boost interest, leading more consumers to start using it, after which they’ll be hungry for more content. Companies should consider the potential for VR in their brand journalism efforts. Read more

Marketers, publishers bemoan VR costs—When asked about the biggest challenges for Virtual Reality as a consumer medium, marketers, and publishers attending a VR conference were quick to point to the cost and complexity of creating VR experiences. “I’ve never heard of a piece of VR content that cost less than $150,000,” said one.  “It’s expensive, complicated and risky to produce professional VR experiences,” said another, who also distinguished between computer-generated VR and 360-degree video. “Agencies have lots of good ideas, but it could cost lots of time and millions of dollars to execute those ideas.” The takeaway: While computer-generated VR content is going to become standard consumer fare, marketers need to be sure it serves a purpose and isn’t just a leap onto the bandwagon. There is plenty of benefit to gain at this early stage from the less expensive production of 360-degree video, but even that should be approached strategically. Read more

Consumers are excited about VR—While some marketers worry that VR remains unknown among the consuming public, research from the Advanced Imaging Society shows 69% of adults between 18 and 60 are “excited about experiencing VR. They’re mostly interested in being able to “explore places” they are unable to visit in the real world (74%) and the ability to “experience entertainment more deeply” (68%). A large percentage is still put off by the cost, but as with most things, higher volumes will lead to lower costs. The takeaway: Companies introducing VR content should look at consumer expectations. Clearly, there are opportunities for the travel and entertainment industries, but other sectors should be able to connect the dots to find ways to take advantage of the technology. For example, companies doing business in remote parts of the world can take people there. Look at PepsiCo’s online sustainability report, for example; many of the videos on the site could be made even more compelling in 360 degrees. Read more

Agencies under pressure to provide VR services—Brands looking to exploit the VR craze are going straight to production companies, bypassing agencies because agencies haven’t acquired VR chops. That’s putting pressure on agencies to bolster those capabilities. For example, Saatchi & Saatchi’s Team One has added an on-site VRP Lab so it can stay on top of trends and technologies and train in-house staff. The takeaway: Don’t wait for your agency to bring the expertise in-house. Make yourself the expert. Read more

Chatbots

A cognitive leap is on the horizon—Matt Schlicht, who has a deep background in social experiences (he was product manager at Ustream and is CEO of ZapChain) believes chatbots are bound to be among our most intimate companions. “There are certain types of conversations people would rather have with a robot than with another person,” Schlicht says, because robots don’t judge. That one trait will lead to a proliferation of products and services: Schlicht suspects we’d be more comfortable talking to a robot about a strange rash on your leg, filing for bankruptcy, finding out about STDs, learning how to fix your credit, or talking about an emotional experience.  The takeaway: Schlicht is on to something. I’ve spoken with a lot of people who don’t want to call tech support because they’ll sound stupid, but bots won’t judge. It’s one more reason this technology is poised to explode. Read more

 

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Google is working on an Echo competitor—Amazon’s Echo is a chatbot, just as Siri and Cortana are. Now it appears Google wants to get into the game—at least, more than it already is with Google Now. Its entry is code-named Chirp. We could get our first look at it at next week’s Google I/O developer conference. The takeaway: The Echo is remarkably popular, and last week’s demonstration of the Viv vocal assistant turned a lot of heads. We’re getting closer to an era where we’ll rely less on a computer or phone to get information or assistance and more on normal human conversation. (Think the Enterprise’s computer on Star Trek.) Read more

Mobile and Wearables

Long-form content isn’t dead, even on mobile—Consumers spend more time with long-form news articles on their mobile form than with short-form content. The total engaged time with articles 1,000 words or more was about double that of short-form articles—123 seconds vs. 57, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. The takeaway: Of course, the content has to be interesting and relevant. That said, communicators shouldn’t shy away from longer content based on conventional wisdom that mobile readers won’t read it. Read more

Branded content gets more engagement on mobile than PCs—Consumers are more engaged with branded and sponsored content on smartphones than on computers (with their larger screens and more visual appeal). In fact, research says that “smartphone time spent (with sponsored content) is 63% higher than desktop. One reason: Fewer distractions, such as links to click away from the content. The takeaway: Sponsored content works on smartphones? Sounds like an opportunity for PR people to me. Read more

This week’s Wrap image—of a soldier wrapping up his parachute—is courtesy of the U.S. Army Europe’s Flickr account.

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