For Immediate Release

Futurum Research analyst (and frequent FIR contributor) Olivier Blanchard joins FIR host Shel Holtz to talk about Facebook’s role in the ongoing unrest in France. Also in this week’s episode:

* Google will introduce Stories to its search engine results pages, which could have an impact on the future of content marketing

* Any employee who goes above and beyond for a customer could wind up being the subject of a post that goes viral

* The news on Google Assistant will be like having a personal news radio station in your pocket or on your counter

* Americans still prefer to get their news on an old-fashioned TV screen

* The digital divide in America is far bigger than the FCC led us to believe

* There are algorithms that help journalists fact-check what people say, sometimes even before they say it

* “Brand purpose” is the marketing word of the year

* Pandora’s podcast genome is now open to everyone

* Facebook test seeks to improve the quality of comments

* Admins now have a lot of control over Stories for Facebook Groups

* Dan York reports on WordPress 5

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 Olivier Blanchard

Olivier Blanchard is a French-born, American-based Brand Management and Digital Marketing consultant, the author of two best-selling books, and an acclaimed keynote speaker. As a Senior Analyst with Futurum Research, Olivier helps organizations better understand the crucial role that emerging technologies like Cloud computing, Big Data, Virtualization, Augmented Reality, Smart Automation, IoT and AI will play their industries and markets over the next 10 to 20 years. Though based in the US, his geographic range extends beyond North America to Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia. Olivier is the author of the best-selling #1 social business desk reference for digital managers and business executives: Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts In Your Organization (Que/Pearson). Olivier is also a sought-after subject-matter expert and corporate trainer.

Links from this episode:

* 12 Ways The ‘Stories’ Format Could Shape The Future Of Content

* Police find man who lost engagement ring over a Times Square grate after proposing

* Google is launching a voice-driven version of Google News for smart speakers and phones

* Collaborating on the future of audio news for the Assistant

* The new Google News: AI meets human intelligence

* Americans Still Prefer Watching to Reading the News – and Mostly Still Through Television

* Digital Divide is Wider Than We Think, Study Says

* An algorithmic nose for news

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Deirdre Breakenridge joins host Shel Holtz to explore how brands can benefit from starting and managing a Facebook Group. Also in this week’s episode:

* Amazon Web Services has come up with the coolest way ever to teach people a new technology

* The PR industry must condemn Definers Public Affairs

* A model for managing the non-content part of internal communications

* The “intelligent edge” may be the next hot technology trend

* Survey sheds light on the reviews people leave online about services

* How people worldwide think about online misinformation and disinformation

* Facebook launches a curated local-news feature in 400 American cities

* Illustrations are cropping up on some big-name website homepages

* A tool that’s way better than bookmarks

* Dan York reports on the Marriott data breach, WPML 4.1, running WordPress in a Docker container, and an update on the WikiTribune pilot

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 Deirdre Breakenridge

Deirdre Breakenridge is the CEO of Pure Performance Communications. A 25+ year veteran in PR and marketing, she is the author of six business books Deirdre speaks nationally and internationally on the topics of PR, marketing, branding, and social media. She is an adjunct professor at UMASS at Amherst and an online instructor at Rutgers University. She is also a LinkedIn video instructor. Deirdre hosts the podcast show, Women Worldwide and is a blogger at PR Expanded. She was named by Traackr as one of the top Social Media Engagers in 2014, awarded the Best 50 Women in Business by NJBIZ in 2015, and recognized on the Richtopia 250 Most Influential Women Leaders in the World List in 2016 and 2017.

Links from this week’s episode:

* SNCR Survey: 2018 Measuring Risks to Brand Equity — How Has It Changed in the Digital Era?

* SNCR Survey: 2018 Measuring the Impact of Data Privacy Compliance on Innovation

* AWS just launched a four-wheel drive mini-race car

* PRSA Forum: Statement on Definers Public Affairs

* The four layers of communication in a functional team

* How needs, narratives and networks can deradicalize extremists and build vibrant work cultures

* Intelligent Edge: A Definition

* The Intelligent Edge: What It Is, What It’s Not,

In the November episode of “The Hobson & Holtz Report,” Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz reviewed these stories:

* British Airways management was as unprepared for the iPhone’s AirDrop creating an onboard kerfuffle as flight attendants were

* With the influencer and micro influencer market saturated, marketers now look to nanoinfluencers

* By 2022, most of the skills required for employability will be soft skills

* The length of YouTube videos people will watch on their phones continues to increase

* Gen Z uses text and chat more than any other generation, but how do they feel about new technologies?

* Fake videos have entered the political space; can business be far behind? But new apps can help identify fakes

* Dan York reports on Facebook’s new Lasso app, a Google outage, and “signed exchange”

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 week’s episode

* ‘Unacceptable’: Women Cyberflashed On British Airways Flight Criticise Airline Response

* BA’s lack of cyberflashing policy

* British Airway’s Twitter response to cyberflashing incident

* Are you ready for nanoinfluencers?

* These are the skills to learn for the future of work, according to the World Economic Forum

* The Future of Jobs: World Economic Forum Report (PDF)

* Employers’ top training priority for 2018? Soft skills

* Welcome to the age of the hour-long YouTube video

* Tik Tok App: Google Play | App Store

* Gen Zs use text and chat more than any other generation surveyed” –- Is the future of work here?

* Gen Z moves forecast the future of voice technology

On this week’s episode of “For Immediate Release,” host Shel Holtz reports on the following stories:

* A lot is changing at Google in the wake of 20,000 employees walking out, but not enough to satisfy the walkout organizers

* Social media is putting CEOs under increased scrutiny

* Helping you create better Stories is a million-dollar industry

* In China, an Artifical Intelligence news anchor is standing by to read news 24/7

* A chain of newsletters in the U.S. Southeast is showing how to attract younger readers

* Voice texting has become a thing, but some people absolutely hate it

* Amazon introduces variable “slots” for Alexa skill-building

* Social media growth in the US is over

* A New York Times Insights Group study explores the psychology of social sharing

* Smartphone cameras are the next marketing battlefield

* Holograms are coming to Vimeo

* Pew explores the most popular categories of YouTube content

* Vine is returning as Byte

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.

Links from this week’s episode:

* Google updates sexual harassment policies following protest

* Google walkout organizers vow to ‘not let up’ following CEO’s response

* Microsoft Will Keep Pursuing Military Deals Amid Employee Concerns

* In the Age of Social Media, CEOs Are Under Intense Scrutiny

* Designing people’s Instagram Stories is now a million-dollar business

* China’s state-run press agency has created an ‘AI anchor’ to read the news

* White House Spreads Doctored Video to Justify Temper Tantrum Against CNN Reporter

* ‘They Do It All The Time In Sports,’ Kellyanne Conway Defends ‘Doctored” Jim Acosta Video

* Can this network of lit-to-be-local newsletters unlock younger civic engagement?

* Is the Era of Voice Texting Upon Us?

* Voice Assistants Like Alexa And Google Assistant Have A Trust Problem

* Amazon improves Alexa responses with 4 new variable types: foods, sports, video games, and creative works

* Social media growth is over in the U.S. — which is its most valuable market

All Things IC’s Rachel Miller shares her perspectives on a damning Wall Street Journal report that contradicts years of glowing reviews for Netflix’s corporate culture. Also in this week’s episode:

* Can marketing maintain human connections while scaling up in social media?

* Mark Zuckerberg told analysts sharing is shifting away from the Facebook news feed to messaging apps and Stories

* A year after doubling its character count, Twitter finds tweets are getting shorter

* Fewer and fewer CEOs are maintaining a social media presence

* Google.org is looking to nonprofits to innovate ideas for using AI for social good

* You can now share your IGTV videos to Instagram Stories

* American men are ignorant of women’s workplace struggles

* 20,000 Google employees walked out over gender inequality

* Dan York reports on WordPress’s 5.0 beta, the Gutenberg editor and accessibility, a new “Activity” feature in Jetpack, and Flickr’s impending deletion of all but your 1,000 most recent photos.

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 Rachel Miller

Rachel Miller, founder of All Things IC, began her career as a journalist in 1999 and also worked in-house for a decade. She’s a regular keynote speaker and awards judge and has contributed to a number of best-selling books. She specializes in helping internal communicators succeed. As an experienced communicator, Rachel is a Fellow of both the Institute of Internal Communication and Chartered Institute of Public Relations; she’s also a Chartered PR Practitioner. Her in-house career included roles at London Overground, Novartis, Visa, Tube Lines, and Visteon. She also worked agency side for Sky, GSK and L’Oréal. CIPR named Rachel Outstanding Independent Practitioner in 2017 and she received the inaugural Best Individual Contribution to Internal Communication award.

Links from this week’s episode

* Doctor Death podcast

* Bear Brook podcast

* The Survivors podcast

* In a digital tech world, comms pros face challenge of scaling human engagement

* Chris Penn’s mid-term hashtag data analysis on Facebook

* Zuckerberg says the future is sharing via 100B messages & 1B Stories/day

* Despite 280-character expansion, short Tweets are still the norm

* The CEO’s Social Media Challenge

* Working together to apply AI for social good

* You can now share IGTV videos to your Instagram Story

* Google Walkout protest included 20,000 participants Friday

* US Survey: What Pay Gap?

In this week’s episode, Trust Insights co-founder Christopher S. Penn joins host Shel Holtz to talk about Dark Social and how communicators can take advantage of it. Also in this week’s show:

* IABC is missing in action in a coalition of 43 organizations calling for an investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi

* It’s possible (and necessary) to build and maintain customer trust when using Artificial Intelligence

* Podcasting is evolving into a different way to tell a journalistic story — and journalists are figuring out how to do it

* SoundCloud lets you share audio in your Instagram Story

* Alexa for Business works with third-party devices

* The children of Millennials are called Generation Alpha and they’re very, very different

* Visual search is going mainstream

* Dan York reports on IBM’s impending acquisition of Red Hat (the company that distributes a version of Linux), Google’s .new links, Snap’s desktop camera tool, and more.

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 Christopher S. Penn

Christopher S. Penn is an authority on analytics, digital marketing, and marketing technology. A recognized thought leader, best-selling author, and keynote speaker, he has shaped four key fields in the marketing industry: Google Analytics adoption, data-driven marketing, modern email marketing, and artificial intelligence/machine learning in marketing. As Chief Innovator of Trust Insights, he is responsible for the creation of products and services, creation and maintenance of all code and intellectual property, technology and marketing strategy, brand awareness, and research & development.

Chris is an IBM Champion in IBM Business Analytics, co-founder of the groundbreaking PodCamp Conference, and co-host of the Marketing Over Coffee marketing podcast. Prior to cofounding Trust Insights, he built the marketing for a series of startups with a 100% successful exit rate in the financial services, SaaS software, and public relations industries.

He’s also a Google Analytics Certified Professional, a Google AdWords Certified Professional, a Google Digital Sales Certified Professional, and a Hubspot Inbound Certified Professional. He is the author of over two dozen marketing books including bestsellers such as AI for Marketers: A Primer and Introduction, Marketing White Belt: Basics for the Digital Marketer, Marketing Red Belt: Connecting With Your Creative Mind, and Marketing Blue Belt: From Data Zero to Marketing Hero, and Leading Innovation.

Links from this week’s episode

* SPJ, coalition of 43 other groups, call for full investigation into Saudi Arabian journalist’s whereabouts

* AI: What It Will Take To Build Trust For Brands

* How 5 Companies Successfully Introduced AI Into the Customer Experience<...

Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz got together for the monthly “Hobson & Holtz Report” to talk about…

* The change management implications of Artificial Intelligence

* The content management tactics being employed by critics of organizations

* The rise of drone journalism

* A study that found social sentiment analysis doesn’t line up with what your customers really think

* What to expect from Facebook’s new head of communications, former UK Deputy Minister Nick Clegg

* The wariness consumers have of social media chatbots

Dan York’s Tech Report covers what’s new in Gutenberg, Twitter Moments, the Pinterest API, and the unintended consequences of regulating the Internet.

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

* AI will impact 100% of jobs, professions, and industries, says IBM’s Ginni Rometty

* Third Point Stirs Up Its Fight for Campbell Soup Board Seats with Video

* Anonymous Microsoft and Amazon employees speak out on Medium

* Drone journalism’s battle for airspace

* Brands Shouldn’t Believe Everything They Read About Themselves Online

* Nick Clegg Appointed Facebook Head of Global Affairs and Communications

* Facebook hires Nick Clegg as head of global affairs

* Why Facebook Hired Nick Clegg

* Nick Clegg’s Facebook Post

* Users Wary Of Bots, But Businesses Utilize Them In Customer Communications

* Social Media Bots Draw Public’s Attention and Concern

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report

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