The 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 newsletter.

News

GEO CEO jumps into political fray with an op-ed—Later on in this update, you’ll read about SHIFT Communications CEO Todd Defren’s belief that brands and PR pros are best off sitting out the presidential elections. What does a company do, though, if a presidential candidate calls out the company by name? That’s what Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders did to GE, saying it’s “destroying the moral fabric” of America. CEO Jeffrey Immelt could have shrugged it off, but instead he took to the op-ed page of the Washington Post to take issue with Sanders’ assertion. The editorial produced a lot of conversation in social media, some siding with Immelt, others arguing that Sanders had it right. The takeaway: It remains an open question whether Immelt’s op-ed served his company well, poorly, or is a non-factor. Personally, I don’t believe he could have let Sanders’ attack go unanswered, if only for employees who would look for leadership in the face of the charges. Immelt struck the right tone, though, being factual and engaging rather than defensive. Read more

Medium adds incentives to publishers—Publishing site Medium has introduced new tools to entice publishers. Medium for Publishers offers a free content management system and a dedicated URL for publications. Among the sites on board at launch were The Awl, Pacific Standard, and Femsplain. Time Inc.‘s Money and Fortune will also start publishing on the platform that enables publishers to generate income. Publishers can also participate in a beta experiment that lets them host promoted posts and another that allows them to offer paid memberships. The takeaway: Medium is becoming a full-blown WordPress competitor as well as a platform for noteworthy people to express themselves to a wide audience. Several CEOs and other execs have used it, rather than their own websites, to respond to an issue or make an important point. Read more

The FTC’s crackdown on influence marketing gets real—It has been more than four months since the U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued an enforcement policy addressing influence marketing. Warning letters haven’t been unheard of, but not the FTC is actually reaching settlements on charges of misbehavior. Lord & Taylor, the department store chain, reached a settlement with the FTC after posts by influencers failed to disclose that they were sponsored. The takeaway: Disclose, disclose, disclose. And make sure the influencers you bring into a campaign do so as well. Read more

Trends

Business gets more visible with social issues—It’s a significant change. There was virtually no engagement by companies four years ago when voters in North Carolina decided on a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Now, though, with the same state passing a law legalizing discrimination based on sexual orientation, a host of companies made themselves heard, including Bank of America, PayPal, American Airlines, Lowe’s, Red Hat, Facebook, the NBA, the NCAA, and others. The takeaway: Some attribute the willingness of businesses to take a stand to the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the U.S., but I see a growing expectation among employees, consumers, and shareholders that companies use their pulpits and their resources to influence social issues and (as the Edelman Trust Barometer puts it) make the world a better place. Read more

Who should own the customer experience?—Chief marketing officers think they should own the customer experience. A report from Marketo found 90% of CMOs believe their departments “will exercise significant influence over business strategy by 2020…with almost 80% expecting to have the same influence over company technology decisions.” The takeaway: Only part of the customer experience happens in the parts of the customer journey traditionally overseen by marketing. Customer support and tech support, for example, often reside elsewhere in the org chart. I like the idea of a coordinated effort that breaks down silos between organizations that contribute to the customer experience. Whether Marketing is the best department to manage that coordination remains to be seen. Read more

Desktop 3D printer sales heat up—The market for 3D printers is exploding. Sub-$5,000 desktop printer sales surged almost 70% from 2014 to 2015, from about 160,000 to over 278,000. More expensive industrial printers are also in demand, with the number of manufacturers growing to 62 last year from 49 in 2014. The takeaway: Your customers could well start buying desktop 3D printers. HP is unveiling one later this year and Mattel has relaunched its old ThingMaker line as a $300 3D printer. It’s worth starting to think about how you can create a better customer experience with 3D printer files your customers can use. It’s also not too early to start thinking about employee uses. Read more

Facebook is going all-in with live-streaming—The prominence Facebook has given to its live-streaming tool in its Android and iOS apps is just one sign that Facebook is betting large on live-streaming. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been explicit in his belief that live-streaming is the future. Facebook bid on the rights to stream Thursday Night Football from NFL (Twitter ultimately won that contest). Facebook has given incentives to some media companies to produce regular programming via Facebook Live, and more live-streaming plays are in the works. The takeaway: It’s just more evidence that live-streaming is a thing—a big thing—that warrants attention. Read more

The current presidential election is not a real-time marketing opportunity—SHIFT Communications CEO Todd Defren thinks brands and PR practitioners should avoid the current presidential election as a platform for real-time (or even more traditional) marketing. If asked whether sponsoring the Republican or Democratic national conventions would be worthwhile, his answer would be a resounding no. “Political interests that publicly intersect with corporate branding represent an increasingly bad idea,” he writes. “America has achieved historic levels of partisanship.” The takeaway: Defren’s point is entirely different from corporations taking sides in issues like North Carolina’s new law that legalizes discrimination. He’s right, though: Associating your brand with a political party is likely to alienate half your customer base. Read more

Journalism schools aren’t teaching data journalism—With all the data available, and all the examples of how that data is being used to tell stories, it’s shocking to find out that only a little more than half of journalism schools regularly offer at least one data journalism course. The takeaway: If journalism schools aren’t teaching data journalism, it’s a safe bet to assume university programs in organizational communication are even farther behind. Reporting with data—either as part of a report or as the basis of a report—will be an essential skill in PR and communications. Read more

Marketers increasingly use acoustic fingerprinting—Wait…what, now? You read that right: acoustic fingerprinting. It’s the ability for a device to absorb a few seconds of audio, translate it into a code, then match it to code in a database. The app Shazam uses acoustic fingerprinting to help users figure out what they’re listening to. It’s being used more and more with television, and even some stores are using it to detect who visits the store and then deliver sales offers. The takeaway: If nothing else, this signifies the growing importance of audio in communication. Read more

Mobile and Wearables

Nearly 80% of social media time is spent on mobile devices—With about 20% of all time people spend with digital media devoted to social sites, it’s worth noting that 80% of that engagement happens on mobile devices. The takeaway: Isn’t it obvious? Read more

Choose your chatbot on Kik—Kik, the mobile messaging app popular with American teens, has introduced a Bot Shop marketplace where users can choose the bot they’d like to interact with. Among the initial set of 16 bots available in the Bot Shop are fashion retailer H&M and beauty retailer Sephora. Sephora’s bot lets you chat about beauty advice and product tips while H&M’s offers fashion advice and lets customers make purchases directly through the bot. Kik is also offering a platform for developers to build their own bots in an effort to expand the offerings in the shop. According to Kik’s Mike Roberts, head of messenger services, “Messengers are the new browser and bots are the new websites.” The takeaway: I’m bullish on bots and I think Roberts is exactly right. Bots today are where the World Wide Web was in 1992: programmers and platform experts were all over it, brands were starting to jump on board, and PR and corporate communicators were scratching their heads wondering what the big deal was. If there’s one technology communicators need to take seriously right now, it’s chatbots. Read more

Ever so slowly, brands start embracing messaging apps—The top four messaging apps get more use than the top four social networks, so it’s inevitable that brands figure out a way to reach customers through these apps. Marketers have been wary of pissing off messaging users, since it’s a more personal tool than social media, but some brands are figuring it out. Shoemaker Clarks created virtual characters to promote one of its products, through which users could connect with the company to get messages, videos, and music playlists. Others have opted to use branded emojis. And, as noted earlier, some brands are experimenting with chatbots. NBCUniversal, for example, introduced a chatbot that let Kik users chat with a character in an upcoming movie. The takeaway: I’ll refer you back to a quote from an earlier item: Messengers are the new browser. Believe it. Read more

Burberry prints Snapcode on its products—You’ve seen Snapcodes everywhere, those Snapchat images you scan in order to connect with another user. Burberry has become the first brand to imprint its Snapcode on its products, leading users to exclusive content when they’re in the stores where they found the products. The takeaway: If Snapcodes remind you of QR codes, that’s no surprise. Given the popularity of Snapchat and the ease of scanning Snapcodes from within the app, though, they may find greater uptake in the consumer space than QR codes did. Read more

Reddit launches official apps—They’re late to the game, but at least they’re here. Reddit—often referred to as “the front page of the Internet,” has introduced Android and iOS apps. The takeaway: With half its user base browsing Reddit via mobile, having its own app became essential. There may be a lesson here for other brands based on the platform behaviors of their audiences. Read more

Research

Targeted ads affect consumer self-perception—A study by Ohio State University researchers found that participants were more interested in purchasing an item touted as “sophisticated” when they believed the ad targeted them based on the websites they had visited than when they thought the targeting was demographic-based. As a result, researchers belief behavioral targeting rather than targeting based on group level attributes increases interest in a product. That’s because users see themselves as more sophisticated when they get an ad they believe was targeted to them because of they are sophisticated buyers. In fact, if users are targeted with ads for an environmentally-friendly product, they wind up seeing themselves as more green and, consequently, more willing to buy the product. The takeaway: Targeting ads based on user behaviors can actually impact the way users feel about themselves, leading to a purchase. Read more

Influencers drive more purchases than celebrities—Influencers have 22.2 times more conversations each week than the average consumer about purchasing recommendations, and 82% of consumers say they are inclined to follow a recommendation made by a “micro influencer.” Nearly three-quarters of influencers encourage people to buy a product compared to 66% of the general population; influencers are seen as more credible, believable, knowledgeable, and better at explaining a product than the average person. The takeaway: Influencer marketing pays off. Full stop. If you’re not using it, why not? Keep reading for another study that reinforces this one (and many others). Read more

A third of employees don’t trust their employers—Edelman has dug into its 2016 Trust Barometer to focus on employee perceptions of their companies. The results are discouraging. One in three doesn’t trust their employer and more than two-thirds believe their CEOs are too focused on short-term performance. This leaves employees disinclined to say good things about their employers. The takeaway: If anything will elevate employee communications, it’s learning that the lack of employee trust has a bottom-line impact. As Edelman’s Andy Brown notes, “Consumers trust companies that treat their employees well. Companies that have ethical business practices. Are transparent and open. And respond well to problems and crises. Equally clear is that these are the topics that employees are most trusted to talk about.” Read more

Influencer marketing pays off—A study of one brand’s influencer marketing efforts found the tactic drove 11 times more ROI than more traditional advertising. The influencer outreach effort also grew incremental sales by 10%, generating 1.1 million impressions on the blog posts of the influencers to whom the company reached out. Because the blog posts are evergreen, the cost per engagement declines over time. The takeaway: This study reinforces others that demonstrate influencer marketing works—in particular, it is far more effective than celebrity spokespersons. Read more

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Samsung patents Augmented Reality contact lenses—I once read a scifi series by Peter F. Hamilton in which everyone had Augmented Reality bionically implanted in their eyes, kinda like intraocular lenses used in cataract surgery. Samsung has filed patents to get us part of the way to Hamilton’s vision with AR functionality baked into contact lenses wearers would control with eye movements and blinking. Reports indicate Google is working on similar technology. The takeaway: Both VR and AR are barreling toward us quickly. While they seem like novelties now, they’ll be commonplace in the blink of an eye. (See what I just did there?) Read more

IKEA’s VR shopping experience—A pilot from furniture retailer IKEA lets customers try new kitchen solutions via Virtual Reality before making a purchase decision. Viewers can change the color of furnishings and shrink themselves to get an insect-eye view of furnishings. The pilot was released on Valve’s game distribution platform, Steam. The takeaway: The more common VR gets, the more practical applications companies will find. In another case, a ticket seller is making it possible to see how the stage or playing field will look from the seat for which you’re considering buying a ticket. Read more

Golf fans get VR experience at Masters—An up-to-date Samsung Gear VR (and the required smartphone to snap into it) is all you need to get an unprecedented inside view of the Masters PGA golf tournament. NextVR is live-streaming from the sixth and 16th holes, and the future could hold live-streaming of immersive video from the entire course. “This transports you to the event,” explains a NextVR spokesperson. The takeaway: Expect live-streaming of 360-degree immersive video from all kinds of live events where the ability to feel like you’re actually there is a distinctly desirable feature. Read more

This week’s wrap image comes courtesy of Angie Garrett’s Flickr account