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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Friday Wrap #96: BBC pushes news via WhatsApp, the end of the strikethrough, Millennials trust UGC

Friday Wrap #96: BBC pushes news via WhatsApp, the end of the strikethrough, Millennials trust UGC

Friday Wrap #96The Friday Wrap is your weekly source of curated news, research, reports and posts that may have slipped by unnoticed, but that could prove useful to communicators and marketers. I collect items that I consider including in the Wrap (as well as my podcast) at my link blog, Links From Shel, which you’re welcome to follow.

News

BBC dishes Indian election news via OTT apps—If you’re still wondering why Facebook dug deep to buy WhatsApp, consider this: The BBC is sending news about the elections in India to readers via both WhatsApp and WeChat. The “BBC News India” account on both over-the-top messaging services were crafted to share election news in English and Hindi. The BBC planned to limit its updates to three per day, but that could change if the pilot attracts positive feedback. WhatsApp has more than 40 million monthly active users in India; WeChat has over 300 million. Read more

Celebrities suing brands for tweets—The pharmacy chain Duane Read tweeted a paparzzi’s photo of actress Katherine Heigle walking out of one of their stores. Now, she’s suing. Duane Read used Heigl’s name and image to enhance its brand value without her permission. Her attorneys argue the company’s distribution of the image suggests she’s endorsing the brand. The case raises a lot of interesting issues, many of which are covered here.

LinkedIn a source of internal candidates—LinkedIn has announced it will begin alerting users to jobs open at their own companies. The move is designed to help recruiters identify internal candidates, helping companies maintain the talent the already have. Read more

Lock-screen app acquisition could remake Twitter—Twitter has purchased Cover, which makes an app that takes over your Android lockscreen. Cover “senses your movements, watches your daily schedule, and then serves up shortcuts to a shortlist of apps you’re likely to want right now, according to a report in Wired, which speculates that Twitter could use the app to push tweets to the front of your phone while replacing other notification systems.

Blogger’s caper exposes problems with domain ownership—Jordan Reid weaves quite a tale of the sting he had to mount in order to retrieve a domain he owns that was stolen from him. The thief used the site host’s email confirmation system to authorize the transfer of the domain, which was then put up for auction. Reid’s complex scheme worked, but domain owners shouldn’t have to go to such lengths to retrieve what’s theirs. This is a giant gaping hole in the domain name system that needs to be addressed. Read more

Trends

Journalists are find uses for Whisper, other secret-sharing apps—Rumors of Gwyneth Paltrow’s separation from husband Chris martin were first circulated via Whisper, where an anonymous user (well, every user of Whisper is anonymous) accused Paltrow of infidelity. “It makes sense that anonymous apps, whose purported purpose is to give users a place to share their innermost feelings and frustrations, could have a second life in the news business,” reports the Nieman Journalism Lab.

Social media now a standard job-hunting tool—77% of employers used social networking sites to recruit employees last year, a 56% jump from 2011. 21% of those seeking work found their “favorite or best” position via social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Read more

Cosmo’s sponsored cover a sign of things to come—Overlaying the cover of Cosmopolitan’s May issue will be a pasted-on cover sponsored by L’Oreal Paris. Distributed to subscribers (not on newsstands), the cover—designed by Cosmopolitan’s editorial staff—features a tease for a L’Oreal contest. Some are decrying the move as a blurring of the lines and a possible violation of The American Society of Magazine Editors’ guidelines, but others see it as the kind of move—a form of native advertising—that can save the magazine industry. Read more

Is the strike-through correction on its way out?—Gawker’s new editor has instructed writers “for corrections, rather than strikethrough, change the wording and link from there to a comment noting the corrected text.” The strikethrough has been social media’s go-to method for corrections, used everywhere from individual blogs to the Washington Post. Editor Max Read’s rationale is that strikethroughs don’t always appear for readers or appear on all platforms. Read more

Legal matters

FTC investigation offers Pinterest contest insight—The U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigated a Pinterest contest run by Cole Haan. The investigation didn’t lead to any ruling, but did find the campaign was mishandled. The FTC issued what is tantamount to a warning letter to Cole Haan over its Wandering Sole campaign. The contest invited people to create a Pinterest board about “favorite places to wonder” and include five images of Cole Haan shoes using the #WanderingSole hashtag with each pin. The company failed to advise contest entrants to disclose that they were posting the pins in hopes of winning the $1,000 shopping spree prize. Read more

Research

Employee activists on the rise—One of every five employees take to social media to draw visibility to their companies, defend their employers from criticism, and act as brand advocates, according to new research from Weber Shandwick. Another 33% are on the edge and could easily be shifted into the activist category. Companies focusing on engagement can raise the number of activists—but they also need to have policies that let employees use social media to the cvompany’s benefit. Read more

Teens still losing interest in Facebook—Instagram is on the rise as a teen channel of choice as interest declines in Facebook, according to Piper Jaffray’s semi-annual survey of U.S. teenagers. Instagram is the most important social network for 30% of those surveyed, the first time it has topped the survey chart. Interest in Facebook fell from 27% to 23%. Twitter also fell, from 31% to 27%. Facebook was the top social network a year ago. None of this means teens are abandoning Facebook. As previous studies note, that’s just too hard, given the features Instagram doesn’t offer. Read more

Millennials trust peers over professionals—User-generated content—media created by your peers—is 20% more influential among Millennials and 35% more memorable than other types of media. According to an infographic reflecting the results of Ipsos research, 59% of Millennials say they use UGC to inform their electronics purchase decisions, 54% use it to decide which car to buy, 53% for major appliance acquisitions, 46% for mobile phones, 45% for choice of hotel, and 40% for travel plans. Read more

Video improves engagement and reach for CPG brands—Marketers at consumer packaged goods companies are ramping up video budgets; the number of videos marketers serve up could exceed the current industry-leading 19%, according to eMarketer. The automotive and financial services industries are in second place, each responsible for 12% of videos served daily. Advertisers, media companies and ad agencies agree that video is ideal for targeting customers and reaching consumers who aren’t exposed to TV ads. Read more

The sharing economy is poised to double in a year—Consumers plan to double the amount they take advantage of sharing services in the next year, according to a new study from Crowd Companies. Much of the growth will come from what the company calls Neo-Sharers, someone who already shares much of their life across goods, services, transportation, space and money. Most of the growth will come in the marketplace for pre-owned goods, but there will also be more sharing of professional services, personal services, transportation, places to stay, and crowdfunding, among other categories. Read more

Great ideas

If you’re going to take a stand, be prepared for the haters—Marketers increasingly are including diverse families in their campaigns, and not everyone likes it. But you’ll love the way Honey Maid (the graham cracker company) responded to negative feedback to its “This is Wholesome campaign that featured same-sex couples; some speculate they even had the response in mind before they launched the first commercial. They printed all the negative comments and commissioned two artists to turn them into something beautiful. Read more

Social networks at center of Game of Thrones tribute—HootSuite, using mostly internal resources, has created a stunning video that pays homage to the opening credits of HBO’s original series, Game of Thrones. Instead of the kingdoms of Westeros, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other networks represent the entities vying for supremacy. Watch the video

Zippo engages youth with hashtag campaign—Zippo, the iconic cigarette lighter brand, isn’t on the top of most Millennials’ gift list. With smoking on the decline, it’s not the popular item it once was. To ignite (sorry about that) interest, Zippo is launching a campaign housed at ShareThePain.com and is introducing the related hashtag, #ShareThePain. The focus is on sharing stories of beloved lighters people have lost. The campaign is based on research that found 68% of Zippo owners have misplaced one. The site will host images people share, accompanied by the tales of their lost lighters. Read more

Clorox hosts a Twitter party—For the evening of April 9, Clorox hosted a four-hour twitter party in which parents submitted everyday messes they had to deal with and Clorox re-enacted them. The Ick Awards party featured SNL alum Rachel Dratch and members of The Second City Communications improv troupe. The reenactments were available on Clorox’s YouTube channel. Read more

Think Spring campaign lets digital gardeners share images and chat—Troy-Bilt, the gardening and yard care equipment maker, has launched its Think Spring program that lets gardeners share 60-to-90-second partially animated videos offering gardening tips and showing off their own gardens. By uploading pictures and text to the site, users see their content transformed into a video, which they can then share via Facebook and twitter; the content is also collected in a public gallery for consumer voting. Eight finalists will be eligible for product prizes. Read more

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