This week we discuss a few different items, all revolving around one kind of disaster or another. First, we note the news about the Benioffs buying Time magazine. With a fire-sale price, perhaps they can keep the weekly news magazine afloat and fund journalism that the publishers couldn’t do on their own. But will either of us read it in the future? Doubtful.

Next up, Paul wrote this fascinating article about a Talend GDPR survey. It shows that marketers can avail themselves of numerous after-the-fact opportunities. Who is talking about GDPR since the May deadline? We’ve heard crickets. Clearly, there is still much to be said about compliance, and the punishments ahead, such as the recent breach of British Airways’ customer data. Lawyers are standing by, to be sure. 

Given the situation in the Carolinas with Florence, it’s timely to discuss some caveats and suggestions for natural disaster marketing. The thoughts covered in this blog post about how to tread carefully during these times are worth reviewing.

Next, Paul has a beef with a “new” product announcement for a product that was announced on a company blog three weeks ago. This means to us that it wasn’t actually new. If it is in the public, that is the news moment. After all, we can look this stuff up. Don’t pass off your news when it isn’t; you won’t engender any trust.

We also mention this post, about how patients are desperate to resemble their doctored selfies. Plastic surgeons alarmed by ‘Snapchat dysmorphia. While it had its beginnings with Instagram and Facebook, the elective surgery is frightening and depressing. David suggested reading Alicia Eler’s Selfie Generation book. When we asked her about this trend, she said “I see this as part of the same trend of selfie dysmorphia found on Instagram. Snapchat is used most by people under 23, so this is just another facet of the same selfie psychology stuff.” 

 

As marketing professionals, it is crucial that we stay on top of new trends inside and outside the industry.  But knowing when to get on board with the trends and when not to is also an important part of marketing success, especially over time.  On this week’s episode of AMPUP, host Glenn Gaudet sits down with Ted Page.  Ted is the co-founder of Captains of Industry, a creative marketing consultancy based in Boston.  He has over 25 years of experience guiding the creation of brands and content marketing campaigns that have helped clients thrive and reinvent their industries. Ted won a Telly award for “The Institute for Backup Trauma,” starring John Cleese, featured by the Content Marketing Institute as the first successful B2B “viral” campaign. Ted is also the author of the top-ranked eBook, Branding and Marketing for Renewable Energy Companies.  Glenn dives deep with Ted exploring what has worked and not worked over his 25 years of industry experience and more importantly what has remained crucial to any successful marketing campaign despite industry changes.

What You’ll Learn About:

* How Ted’s company has survived and thrived through the many technology and market driven changes over two decades

* How to get buy in from a client when you are ahead of the game and presenting ideas outside their comfort zone

* Why you need to speak the same language as your client and how to do that

* Why you have to meet your customers where they are RIGHT NOW and how going with older methods of marketing can be risky

* How the story you are telling is crucial to your success

* Which methods to consider and use to engage people and share your story most effectively

* Why you need to create a content road map

* Why you need to challenge your own incumbency by asking why you are where you are

To connect with Ted @teddypage or [email protected]

Neville Hobson handles FIR hosting duties this week, covering these stories:

* Skype has finally enabled audio recording of both ends of a conversation

* The top 10 emerging technologies of 2018

* How The Weather Channel made that insane storm surge animation

* RIP Slideshare; it was good while it lasted

* 17 ideas for using machine learning in communication

In his Tech Report, Dan York reports on Gutenberg 3.8, Yost SEO 8.2, the third anniversary of Let’s Encrypt, and the EU’s misguided copyright directive.

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 Neville Hobson

Neville Hobson was co-host of The Hobson & Holtz Report for over 10 years. For over 15 years, Neville has been a voice of experience and influence when it comes to speaking about digital technologies, disruptive change in workplaces and marketplaces, relevant trends to pay close attention to, and what it all means for your business. His experiences embrace deep understanding and subject-matter expertise in contemporary business issues that include social, digital and cognitive technologies, connecting that with a career in traditional public relations, marketing communication, employee compensation and benefits communication, and investor relations. Based in the Thames Valley some 30 miles west of London, Neville works either from his home office or from a client’s location; or from wherever he has a good network connection.

Links from this episode:

* Skype’s latest version now has call recording built in

* Digital Download: Emerging Technologies in Communications (with guest Neville Hobson)

* These are the top 10 emerging technologies of 2018

* How The Weather Channel Made That Insane Storm Surge Animation

* The Weather Channel’s storm surge tweet (with video)

* The Weather Channel created a tornado that tore down their walls

* RIP SlideShare, It Was Good While It Lasted

* 17 Ideas For Using Machine Learning In Communications

* The Small Data Forum Podcast

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report:

* Gutenberg 3.8 released

* Yost SEO 8.2: Automatically add structured data with Gutenberg content blocks

* Schema.org

* Let’s Encrypt

* EU approves controversial Copyright Directive, including internet ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’

This week on Inside PR, we discuss Nike’s recent endorsement of Colin Kaepernick as an example of corporate activism and corporate social responsibility. Gini and Martin see Nike’s Colin Kaepernick endorsement as a laudable example of corporate activism. Joe is not so sure.

Also, we share some things we’ve created elsewhere that we hope you will find useful.

* Martin Waxman’s new LinkedIn Learning course has just been released. Check out Martin’s advice for using Blogging for Your Business.

* The latest episode of the SpinSucks podcast provides a good refresher on the PESO model. If you are looking for a good overview, check it out.

* Joe has started a series of interviews with leaders of the public engagement community from around the world. He published the first of these on the current edition of Inside P2, an interview with the President of IAP2 Canada, Bruce Gilbert.

Public engagement is a fast growing practice that is in many ways adjacent to marketing and communications. On the last afternoon of the North American Conference of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), Joseph Thornley sat down for an interview with outgoing IAP2 Canada President Bruce Gilbert.

Topics covered include:

* The growth of IAP2 Canada’s membership at a time that many organizations are seeing declining growth;

* The reasons that the growth in IAP2 Canada’s membership has been greatest in Western Canada while the east has lagged – and what can be done to promote growth in the east;

* The first Canadian skill symposium as a harbinger of an increasing emphasis at the region level to skills and expertise transference;

* The importance of IAP2 Canada providing a training program that is provided in both English and French;

* The importance of the new certification program and the challenge of promoting it to practitioners and employers;

* And his next challenge? Bruce is staying active in IAP2 as Canada’s rep on the IAP2 Federation, where he will continue to participate in the change exercise. And beyond that, as a former senior official in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Bruce wants to reach out other senior government officials to prozelityze the merits and benefits of senior participation.

Jeff Herrington and FIR host Shel Holtz discuss whether content marketers can encourage people to read rather than skim. Cyrus Malvalwala joins Shel to talk about whether Facebook can encourage people to view Watch videos together. Also in this week’s episode:

* Was Nike’s controversial new “Just Do It” campaign an example of corporate activism or just a cynical ploy to boost sales?

* The four biggest multinational tobacco companies are paying influencers to convince young people outside North America to take up smoking.

* Pizza Hut and 7-Eleven have launched new Augmented Reality games.

* KFC is using a Virtual Reality game to train employees.

* A $1 billion real estate company does all its face-to-face via VR.

* Pew reports not many people understand how the newsfeed works and those who do are more likely to abandon the platform.

* After 7 years, Sweden takes back control of its amazing Twitter account.

* Dan York reports on developments at Mozilla and live audio streaming via Twitter.

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 this week’s conversation partners

Jeff Herrington is a dynamic, internationally renowned presenter, instructor, and corporate writer. He is an award-winning communications professional with superior web, news, feature-writing, and social media skills.  Jeff is well-known in corporate circles as a top writing coach and corporate writing workshop facilitator. He is expert in how to express one’s brand through professionally crafted marketing and employee communication programs, akilled in helping corporate communication teams infuse storytelling in all of their communication vehicles. Connect with Jeff at his website.

Living at the intersection of business and communication, Cyrus Mavalwala, ABC, is an award-winning communication strategist, trainer and speaker who has been helping organizations achieve their business objectives for 20 years. After leading teams at global agencies, Cyrus founded Advantis Communications, a B2B PR and content marketing agency that delivers measureable value by integrating traditional, video and social strategies. He also co-founded Act Like An Agency to train communicators on how to evolve from tacticians to strategists within their organization. At the University of Toronto School for Continuing Studies, Cyrus develops curriculum and teaches social media strategy and communications management.

Links from this episode:

* CEO Activism in 2018

* Assessing the Fallout — Good and Bad — from Nike’s Kaepernick Ad

* Shoe Burners Flameout: Nike’s Kaepernick Ad led to Sales Uptick

* A Lesson in Listening: What can be learned from the NFL’s response to Colin Kaepernick and #TakeAKnee

* Colin Kaepernick, Nike, and the Myth of Good and Bad Companies

* Nike sees 1,400% surge in social buzz after Kaepernick ad

* Nike Unve...

Facebook is working to make it easier for you to avoid those annoying spoilers about the program you’re half way through binging with a new keyword topic filter. The keyword filter has been available to some lucky users in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Let’s hope that it becomes available to us all soon. I know I’ll be using it to hide anything to do with cats and kittens.

Facebook and Google’s role as gatekeepers of what we see is under scrutiny again. Farhad Manjou directed our attention to the built in biases that Google’s algorithms and AI can display. We’ve talked about this before. And the platforms have acknowledged that they do have problems that they are trying to fix. But when they do, their solutions are opaque to end users and citizens. Can we trust the platforms to self regulate? Can communications professionals play a more active role in calling for more transparency? Can government establish a legal or regulatory regime that will achieve a better balance between the public interest and the interest of the platforms’ shareholders?

It seemed like a good idea at the time – invite Steve Bannon for a featured interview with David Remnick onstage at the New Yorker Festival. And then the reaction started. Other speakers pulled out. People weighed in on social media (of course!) And before you could turn around, Steve Bannon was uninvited. Some said this was the right thing to do. Others suggested that it was another example of an institution caving to the Twitter mob. So, what does the New Yorker do now? How do they avoid a permanent reputation hit?

Mark Story and Chuck Gose join host Shel Holtz for conversations on this week’s episode. Mark and Shel explore how social media has doubled the price companies pay for crises while Chuck and Shel chat about right-leaning Facebook employees who aren’t going to take it anymore. Also in this week’s show…

* A beer company is going to try to sell subscriptions to a streaming TV service

* PRSA apologizes (sort of) for a questionable social media quiz

* More Americans trust the news media than last year (including Republicans)

* The Associated Press is going to track IP violations with blockchain technology

* Phil Gomes leaves Edelman to become CCO of a blockchain company

* Employee engagement in the U.S. is on the rise

* Forty percent of U.S. employees think they’re underpaid; most are still happy with their jobs

* Facebook is the top social network for every demographic except teens

* Amazon does everything wrong in its launch of an employee advocacy program

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 this week’s conversation partners

Chuck Gose is the founder of ICology, a resource dedicated to “interesting people doing interesting things in the world of internal communications.” As part of iCology, Chuck hosts the ICology podcast, which features practitioners and experts sharing their advice and insights. Chuck is a strategic advisor to SocialChorus and is co-creator of The Very Hungry Communicator. He previously worked as vice president of business development and partnerships at StaffConnect and corporate communication practice leader at BroadSign.

Mark Story is a one-time contributor to FIR. Mark currently works director of strategic communications at American University. He has also served as communication counsel and social media lead for the National Cancer Institute, and he was director of International Corporate Affairs for the Alibaba Group in Hong Kong and the first-ever director of New Media for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mark also put in time on the agency side as a senior VP for Fleishman-Hillard and a vice president at APCO Worldwide. Mark is also the author of the book, “Starting Your Career as a Social Media Manager,” which was published in 2012. Mark also teaches at Johns Hopkins University.

Links from this week’s episode

* Craft-Beer Company Taps Streaming Service for Growth

* PRSA apologizes for quiz asking “What PR princess are you?”

* Podcasting continues its meteoric rise, creating more opportunities for marketers

* Crisis impact—reputation events twice as costly for brands since rise of social media

* More Americans trust media than they did last year—and most trust local news

* The Associated Press signs on with journalism...

This week our guest is Adam Jones, who is the head of marketing insights at Springer Nature, a public of many well-respected periodicals that include Nature and Scientific American. Jones is probably one of the few digital marketers that doesn’t hate click-through rates and page view numbers. Rather, he things we have to reinterpret them in new contexts to better understand what readers do after they click or view a page. “We get tons of data from every click, and create stronger calls to action as a result,” he told us during our interview.

Jones talks about why marketers are scared of data and analytics, but says you have to build a solid foundation in these techniques if you are going to be successful in marketing these days. He also discusses the unique challenges Springer faces catering to a highly educated and technical audience. Loyalty and longevity of readership are two of the company’s greatest assets. 

Also on the podcast, David recounts his recent trip to the Bletchley Park museums where modern digital computing was born during WWII. He blogged about it here.

EngagePhase Weekly is the only newsletter that covers the public participation industry in North America and around the world.  And today, EngagePhase Editor-in-Chief Tim Bonneman joins Joseph Thornley to talk about what it took to get EngagePhase going, how he covers the industry and what to expect from EngagePhase in the future.