For Immediate Release #24: Crowdcultures are the new marketing target

Today’s panel includes Profitechture’s Paul Gillin, Ike Pigott of Alabama Power, and the National Cancer Institute’s Mark Story. Our topics included…

* The Mayo Clinic will broadcast a colonoscopy using Periscope

* Brands need to spend more time understanding (and adopting) messaging apps

* Branded content can’t win when subcultures drive the conversation; we need to look at “crowdcultures”

* Dan York reports on Facebook Live coming to Android, Instant Articles coming to Facebook everybody and Facebook reactions has launched (and Dan has questions)

* Can Facebook Reactions produce better sentiment analysis for brands?

* Virtual Reality Update: Mobile VR will hit $861 million in revenue; VR for B2B; and the US Soccer Federation’s use of VR to promote its new crest with fans

* Richard Edelman says CEOs should have active Facebook pages for engaging with stakeholders, but a CEO.com study says few Fortune 500 CEOs are active on social media at all

Connect with our panelists on Twitter at @paulgillin, @ikepigott, and @mstory123

Links to the source material for this episode are on Delicious.

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

About today’s panel:

Paul Gillin writes, speaks, and trains marketers and corporate executives to think like publishers as part of Profitecture. He specializes in social media for B2B companies – in fact, he co-wrote Social Marketing to the Business Customer with Eric Schwartzman (who was an FIR panelist last week) and currently co-hostsFIR B2B with Eric. Paul has written four other books, including Attack of the Customers, his most recent book. He co-authored The Joy of Geocaching with his wife, Dana. Before striking out on his own, Paul worked for TechTarget and, before that, was editor-in-chief and executive editor of Computerworld Magazine.

After more than 16 years in television news, Emmy-winner Ike Pigott left to feed his passion for crisis communication. While building his consultancy, he started working with the American Red Cross – first as a local communicator in Alabama, and finally as the Director of Communications and Government Relations for a five-state region. It was during his time at the Red Cross that he pioneered the use of social media, developed the first disaster-response blogs, as well as the non-profit’s Twitter account all the way back in 2007. For the last seven years, Ike has worked as a communication strategist and spokesman for Alabama Power, an electric utility that serves more than 1.4-million customers. He helped shape the Social Media Guidelines for Alabama Power’s parent, Southern Company, and serves on the system-wide Social Media Advisory Council. In addition to media relations duties and serving as editor of the corporate NewsCenter site, Ike works across the company to help individuals and departments get the most out of social media tools. Ike has been a featured speaker at dozens of communication conferences in the United States and Europe, and is considered a thought leader in the integration of social media in utilities and other regulated industries.

Mark Story is a one-time contributor to FIR. Mark currently works 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.