Cross-posted from the FIR Podcast Network.

In the first conversation on this week’s episode, Redphlag CEO and former PRSA President Gerard Corbett joined FIR host Shel Holtz to discuss Nielsen’s recent Total Audience data, which revealed some counterintuitive trends. Later, Shel chats with Thornley Fallis CEO and Inside PR co-host Joe Thornley about Pandora’s podcast genome project. Also in this week’s episode, pundits are suddenly talking about “peak social” (it’s surprising that nobody has yet called it the “socialpocalypse”) and three stellar examples of experience marketing that don’t leverage social media. Dan York is also here with his Tech Report.

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

You can find the stories from which FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

About our conversation partners

Gerard Corbett is Chair and CEO of strategic communications consulting firm Redphlag LLC., Founder and Partner of Wise Counsel, and CMO of real estate tech startup Producers Forum, Inc. in Palo Alto. He also is an award-winning career coach, blogger and Past Chair & CEO of the 32,000 member Public Relations Society of America, having served as Chair and CEO in 2012. Gerry is a versatile branding, marketing, public relations and communications executive and coach having served four decades in senior marketing and communications roles at Global Fortune 100 firms and earlier in his career in aerospace engineering and information technology with Silicon Valley firms and NASA.

Joseph Thornley Joseph Thornley is CEO of Thornley Fallis Communications, which comprises several well-known brands:

• Thornley Fallis Communications, a digital engagement and communications consultancy,
• 76design, a digital design and software development studio
• 76engage, an online public participation platform,
• 76insights, an analytics tool focusing on the resonance of social objects and gestures, and
• 76BrandFilms, a video studio.

Joe recognized early the power of social media to change extend and transform our relationships to one another and the institutions in our society. He actively uses social media to explore the evolution of those relationships. Since 2005, he has blogged a ProPr.ca, and is co-host with Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman of the Inside PR podcast, which, since its launch in March 2006, is now the second longest continuously running public relations podcast. (Shel Holtz’s FIR For Immediate Release podcast is the longest continuously running PR podcast.). He is @thornley on Twitter, thornley10 on YouTube and Joseph Thornley on Google+ and Facebook.

Links from this week’s episode:

• Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak
• PEAK SOCIAL? The major social platforms are showing a significant slowdown in users
• Has Snapchat already stopped growing?
• Snapchat loses 3 million users despite Q2 revenue growth
• Millennials Consumed By Media, But Boomers Even More
• Time Flies: U.S. Adults Now Spend Nearly Half a Day Interacting with Media
• Stella offers 20-minute audio guide to beer sipping narrated by Luke Evans
• Burrow finds unique media space for Harry Potter-inspired ads
• Rice Krispies Treats Giv Lunch Notes an Overhaul for Visually-Impaired Kids
• Pandora’s podcast genome project could launch by the end of the year

Links from Dan York’s Report

• Automatically respond to news topics on Techmeme with our new contextual ads
• Facebook, Instagram tools to manage time
• Facebook Revamped Pages On Its Mobile Apps With an Eye Toward Local Businesses
• Facebook redesigns biz Pages for utility as feed reach declines
• Helping People Connect with Local Businesses
• Logitech to Acquire Blue
• Snapchat’s new Lenses respond to your voice not your face
• The State of ACF in a Gutenberg World