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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Friday Wrap #172: Facebook videos inspire chatter, Millennials alter company comms, and more

Friday Wrap #172: Facebook videos inspire chatter, Millennials alter company comms, and more

Friday Wrap #172The 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.

News

Meerkat launches group video app—Meerkat has reportedly launched a video chat app called Houseparty for iOS and Android. Introduced without fanfare, it has already been downloaded 100,000 times. Users can start a chat by sending the link in a message via text, WhatsApp, or social networks. Meerkat hasn’t confirmed it’s behind the app. Meerkat kicked off the live video-streaming craze when it introduced its livestreaming app at this year’s South by Southwest, but got out of the business when Twitter’s Periscope and Facebook Live dominated the space. CEO Ben Rubin said at the time the company would pivo to group video chat. The takeaway: While livestreaming may be locked up by Facebook and Twitter, small players can still win with group video chat, which has been available via Skype and Google+ for some time. Read more

Live means live—The staff of a U.S. congressman broadcast a private conversation about his Senate campaign when a staff member activated Facebook Live on a mobile phone. The takeaway: If you’re using Facebook Live, you are broadcasting to the world. Make sure your team knows that! Read more

Chatter about videos soars on Facebook—The 100 million hours of Facebook video viewed daily are generated 13.2 times the amount of conversation on Facebook over the year before. The conversations sparked by videos tend to include mentions of cameras, smartphones, and watching TV (suggesting that a lot of the video views occur when the smartphone is being used as a second screen. Younger men dominate the conversations. The takeaway: What, you’re still not producing videos for Facebook? Check the item in the “Trends” section of this update: Facebook thinks text is dying. Read more

Periscope button is now prominent on Twitter—The Periscope button Twitter began testing last month is now available to everyone on its iOS and Android apps. Creating a new tweet gives you the option of adding an image, a video, or to go live with Periscope. The takeaway: Twitter is all-in with Periscope. The company also recently added a feature that will let you archive your video rather than seeing it vanish after 24 hours. Read more

Twitter makes it easier to deal with trolls—Twitter has introduced three new tools to help improve the experience of users whose activities are disrupted by trolls. You can now invoke “mute” to hide another person’s tweets (they won’t be notified that you have muted them), “block” to rid your feed of another person’s tweets, and “report” to notify Twitter of egregious behavior. The takeaway: Twitter is doing all it can to make the experience better in hopes of adding more users as its base stagnates at 300 million. Read more

Australian political debate to be hosted on Facebook Live—Events once destined for broadcast television are finding a new home on live streaming video apps. News.com.au announced it will host Australia’s first online leader’s debate in partnership with Facebook. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull—also head of the Liberal Party—will debate Labor Party leader Bill Shorten, making the debate accessible over the channel that has become Australians’ channel of choice for getting their news. The takeaway: Social media is also how Americans get their news, according to Pew Research, and live streaming video is getting bigger every day. Consider a Facebook Live event as a concurrent activity for a product launch, a corporate announcement, or other company news. Give your stakeholders plenty of notice. Read more

Twitter introduces emoji-based targeting—Thanks to a new feature, advertisers can target consumers who have tweeted or engaged with tweets containing emoji. For example, “someone in Chicago who tweets a pizza emoji can now be targeted by a local restaurant to come in for a delicious slice of deep dish.” The takeaway: Two big points to make here: First, emoji (part of the visual communication revolution) are playing an increasing part in marketing efforts and second, targeted advertising is quickly becoming the norm. The idea of mashing up these trends is worth exploring. What popular trend can you employ in your marketing, advertising, or earned media efforts? Read more

Retweet yourself—It has been a chore up until now to retweet or quote-tweet yourself. Twitter has fixed that. The takeaway: While this sounds somewhat narcissistic, it could be of huge value to brands who want to make sure their tweets get out more than once in order to reach the largest possible number of followers. Read more

Twitter invests $70 million in SoundCloud—As video’s star rises in social networks and messaging apps, audio is making some noise, too. Twitter tried to buy SoundCloud a few years ago, but has opted now to invest $70 million in the audio-streaming company. The takeaway: Watch for the ability to easily embed SoundCloud audio in tweets, which will give you the ability to engage audiences way beyond the 140-character limit. My first use once it becomes available: Sharing brief clips from my podcast to spark interest from people who aren’t currently listening. Read more

How not to newsjack—In the wake of the horrific massacre of 49 people in Orlando, Ascot Media Group pitched influencers using the tragedy to push a client’s two-year-old novel about a domestic terrorist. The agency has (correctly) been vilified online. The takeaway: Before newsjacking an event, stop and think about how people will react to your proposed tweet or post. This is just the latest misstep. Clueless and insensitive newsjacking has happened around everything from the uprising in Egypt to the Boston Marathon bombing. Just…don’t. Read more

Twitter introduces a research panel—Twitter Insiders is a group of 12,000 users advertisers can use to recruit, design, and collect live research. The Insiders are anonymous, 16 years old or more, and live in the U.S. or the U.K. The takeaway: Research panels have been around a long time and can be expensive to take advantage of. The ability to target the Insiders based on their interests, income, education, and gender could be valuable, as long as you’re a Twitter advertiser. Read more

Trends

Is text dead?—Absolutely not, says I, but when it comes to Facebook, the company’s EMEA vice president, Nicola Mendelsohn, told a London audience that the social network could be nothing but video as soon as 2021. There has been a steady decline in text posts while photos and videos have surged. The takeaway: Despite the rise of GIFs, live streaming video, captioned video (that works with the audio disabled), data visualization, and other types of visual assets, there will always be room for text. However, if you are not investing time and resources in visuals as a primary means of getting your message out, you’re already behind the curve. Read more

Sky News breaks news on Snapchat—Europe-based cable news network Sky News has had a presence in Snapchat Discover for a year and a half and is using it to break news. The Snapchat presence is addressed along with TV news in production and editorial meetings. “When we look at the big stories, we’re looking at how they’ll look on Snapchat. It’s embeded in the newsroom,” according to Output Editor Alan Strange. Sky News develops widescreen and vertical versions for nearly all of the video it creates, delivering 10 stories for each of its daily Snapchat editions, in addition to special editions when news breaks. The takeaway: Mobile messaging apps are fast becoming a critical channel for communication and Snapchat is getting more attention from news organization and brands. Read more

Companies employ data visualization in social marketing—A growing number of brands (including Netflix and Spotify) are using data visualization creatively as part of their social campaigns. The takeaway: There’s no longer any question about whether data is boring or can be creative. As more companies use data in marketing, it’s incumbent upon communicators to explore ways to up the ante with their own data visualization efforts. Some journalism schools are even teaching data journalism these days. Read more

Brand publications find an audience—Brands like Harry’s (the shaving company) are launching brand publications that are driving loyalty. Harry’s competitor Dollar Shave Club also has launched a general interest magazine, and Casper (a mattress company) distributes Van Winkle’s, a journalistic magazine focused on the science and culture of sleep. The takeaway: Brand publications do best when they know the niche they’re trying to fill and focus on a single journalistic approach. Be strategic with a brand publication, which means knowing how to measure its effectiveness. Read more

Is the period (as we know it) dying?—Ending a sentence in a text message without a period has become common practice as people speed through their texting, but that doesn’t mean the period is dead. Its use has changed, with the addition of a period signaling an emotional context to the message. The period as a means of simply ending a sentence has been replaced by the border of the word bubble. Using a period now carries a finality with it. Ending a message “Fine.” rather than “Fine” tells the recipient, “Don’t ask me to elaborate.” The takeaway: It’s important to know the culture of messaging as your company jumps into it as a way of reaching customers who use texting dozens or even hundreds of times a day. An inadvertent period can send a message to a lot of your followers that you didn’t intend to send. Read more

Threats to your brand abound on social media—Social media fraud has reached such a high level that the security professionals at RSA have labeled it a “global epidemic.” One of the key threats is fake accounts that are “a gold mine for cybercriminals.” Up to 2% of Facebook’s users are fake accounts—that’s 31 million of them. Five percent of Facebook’s monthly active users are fake, along with 8% of Instagram accounts. Most networks don’t have a means of identifying these accounts. Brands need to continuously monitor for threats, tighten personal relationships with social networks, and seek out your counterparts in security and risk teams within your organization. The takeaway: Address these risks rather than letting yourself be deterred by them. Social media has clearly evolved into a critical marketing and communication channel so, as with other channels, your strategy needs to address the risks while also assessing the risk vs. reward. Read more

Research

Corporate communications evolves to accommodate Millennials—The dominance of Millennials in the workplace has driven changes in business communication. The 2016 Digital Workplace Communications Survey from the PRSA Employee Communications Section and APPrise Mobile found that business isn’t keeping base with a demographic group of workers accustomed to instantaneous communication, usually on mobile devices. Millennials are frustrated with intranets and other older technologies that lack speed and “a modern touch.” There’s more to addressing employees’ communication needs than introducing messaging, though. A Microsoft/SurveyMonkey poll found that modern, up-to-date technology was cited by 93% of respondents when asked what helped them “thrive in the workplace.”  The takeaway: We have reached a tipping point. It is no longer adequate to redesign or relaunch an intranet. In fact, the time has come to blow up your internal communications and reinvent it based on speedy mobile access, and strategize how you can stay on top of the emerging technologies your employees are embracing for non-work communication. Waiting years for a technology to become a standard communication tool is no longer acceptable. Read more

Company structures evolve to address societal investment—Before our very eyes we are seeing the slow but steady erosion of the idea that every dollar invested by a company needs to support that quarter’s earnings. Instead, business is finding that investing in societal issues delivers a competitive advantage, and they are reorganizing to capitalize on it. According to the Conference Board study, “Giving in Numbers,” the number of employees dedicated full-time to corporate giving rose 3% from 2013 to 2015, despite an overall decline in the total number of all employees by 2%. Companies committed to societal commitments also saw increased trust build with customers and other stakeholders. And measuring the outcomes of societal engagement has become a more common practice. The takeaway: The public’s insistence that companies do more than make money—that they contribute to solving societal woes—can actually lead to solid business results. There’s a heavy communication component involved if stakeholders are going to know what your company is up to. Read more

Calculating the value of a social media follower—The marketing funnel has generated a lot of research, but “the value of sharing content before a consumer enters the consideration stage of the purchase funnel has not been quantified,” according to research from two Boston College professors and the operations manager at a digital marketing startup. Reporting in the MIT Sloan Management Review, their research focuses on the long-term value of social media Those following a brand before considering a purchase are “aspirational customers,” and they can become brand advocates before thinking about a purchase. A survey of 401 Instagram users (ages 18-33) found that 66% followed at least one brand; the median number of brands followed was six. Fifty-six percent follow at least one brand from which they have not yet made a purchase, but the data suggests they plan to. “Today’s followers are very likely to be tomorrow’s customers,” according to the study. “Cultivating loyalty among those who follow your brand but have not yet purchased can add near-term benefit of expanding your reach through word-of-mouth and long-term value by adding to your sales pipeline.” The takeaway: Don’t think of pre-purchasing consumers as just followers. As the researchers note, “Followers who indicate that the primary benefit of following the brand on Instagram is learning about the brand, (showing) a greater intent to purchase. Our data also suggests that brands that can effectively communicate to these followers that they care about their customers also increased purchase likelihood.” Craft your social media content with aspirational customers in mind, but be sure you’re also producing content for customers at other stages of the funnel. Read more

Consumers are on to misleading social media content—Twenty-one percent of consumers responding to a UK survey say they have seen a brand pay or incentivize customers to write positive reviews or comments without adequate disclosure, up from 14% two years ago. The study, “Keeping Social Honest” from Censuswide, found that 52% of marketers have little or no understanding of the regulations affecting their social media activities. The takeaway: It is inexcusable to work in social media for a company without knowing—and abiding by—laws and regulations. With consumers getting savvier about these practices, you risk your brand’s reputation by not following the rules. Read more

The newspaper outlook gets gloomier—Average weekday print and digital newspaper circulation dropped 7% in 2015. That’s the worst decline in five years. Newspapers account for 32% of daily reporters based in Washington, D.C. and 38% of those covering state legislatures, but reduced budgets are driving reductions in newsroom staff—20,000 fewer than in 1995. Digital video developments have driven consumers to TV news, and cable, network, and local TV news have seen growth in the last year. This year’s State of the News Media report from the Pew Research Center is rich with data and is required reading if your job includes earning coverage from these channels. The takeaway: The decline of newspapers doesn’t mean their death, and alternative channels are emerging that warrant the attention of PR and media relations practitioners. The report also points to the rise of chatbots employed by news organizations like the Washington Post and Quartz. Read more

Employers fret over employee smartphone use—Some 20% of employers believe productivity in their organization suffers because employees are distracted by their smartphones, according to research from CareerBuilder. These employers believe their staff are productive less than five of the hours they put in on the job each day. Seventy-six percent of employers have taken at least one step to address the issue, with 26% banning the use of personal phones at work. The takeaway: We’ve been here before. First it was the web, then it was social media (and Facebook in particular). Yet I’d be willing to bet none of these employers have actually measured whether employees are getting their work done on time and are meeting requirements. They also are not assessing whether employees are making up the time they spend on personal activities at work with work-related activities away from the company. Don’t let your leaders succumb to dodgy data. Read more

Mobile and Wearables

Facebook adds SMS to Messenger—If you use Messenger for some of your texting and SMS for others (with people who don’t have Messenger, for instance), your days of app-switching are over. Messenger now features SMS, allowing you to do all your messaging in one place. The takeaway: Facebook wants its Messenger app to be the one messaging app that rules them all. That speaks volumes about the massive adoption of messaging, with the top apps attracting hundreds of millions of monthly active users. Watch for new features to appear on all the popular platform as users shift their attention away from social networks. Read more

Unboxing videos now a Snapchat staple—Unboxing videos have been a big hit for years on YouTube. Now they’re finding their way to Snapchat. It’s not just individual users, either. GQ and Benefit Cosmetics are among brands “seeing if they can parlay the popularity of unboxing videos from YouTube to Snapchat.” The takeaway: Behaviors that were once limited to computer-based activities are transitioning not just to smartphones, but to messaging apps. Inventory your marketing efforts and determine which ones will lend themselves to messaging apps and start experimenting. Read more

Mobile accounts for 71% of Internet usage—Just on the off chance that you’re still on the fence about mobile, consider that 71% of Internet consumption took place on mobile devices in 2015, with Asia Pacific the most mobile-friendly (73%) followed by the U.S. (72%). Mobile Internet consumption will grow more than 25% worldwide this year. The takeaway: Mobile. Mobile. Mobile. Read more

This week’s Wrap image comes from Flickr account of Alexander Baxevanis.

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