HC+T Update: March 1, 2013

From: "HC+T Update" <shel@holtz.com>

Subject: HC+T Update: March 1, 2013

Date: March 1st 2013

March 1, 2013
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The big news this week was Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to end telecommuting for company employees. The decision produced a torrent of commentary, most of it negative, criticizing the decision as clueless in the current mobile era, where telecommuting has become far more practical from a technical standpoint. Although telecommuting is a potent option for organizations, I refuse to pile on, since I (no differently from all the critics) am not privy to the data or observations that led to the decision. Mayer was hired as a turnaround CEO; Yahoo! is a company in trouble. I trust Mayer saw something that led her to believe getting people to all work face-to-face would help. There is a lot to be said for face-to-face. Humans are hard-wired for it. If you doubt it, try brainstorming remotely. What I can criticize, however, is how Yahoo! communicated the decision. It wouldn't have taken a psychic to anticipate the backlash. The message should have been delivered based on t he knowledge that it would be unpopular. The need to anticipate reactions when crafting a communication should be the lesson organizations and communicators take away from the fiasco. Now, on to this week's news:

Items from the Holtz.com blog published during the last week:

A bumper episode of FIR

My schedule this week kept me from posting anything to the blog. I had great intentions, but reality dealt them a blow. I did, however, record episode #692 of my podcast, For Immediate Release. If you're not listening, I'd be honored if you gave me and my co-host, UK-based Neville Hobson, a try. This was a bumper episode, in which we covered Dartmouth's most recent analysis of social media use among the Inc. 500 (which represents the fastest-growing companies), the state of the public relations profession as reported by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, how Maker's Mark turned a social media disaster into an opportunity to enhance its reputation, and how some British websites that have sold links have been penalized by Google by sinking their search rankings. We also reported on how The New York Times introduced gamification to an article, why buffering and degraded video quality are likely to reduce the number of views you get, and how young Japanese girls are ren ting their thighs to advertisers. We always feature a technology report from The Internet Society's Dan York and a report on digital/social media in Asia from Singapore-based educator Michael Netzley. You can listen to the podcast and subscribe to get every episode here.

A summary of the items appearing in this week's Friday Wrap. (You can peruse the entire collection of articles from which I selected these items on my link blog at LinksFromShel.tumblr.com.)

Pinning with purpose

When a shiny object enraptures marketers, they tend to embrace it as quickly as a fish surges after a lure. Pinterest is a prime example, with a lot of brand pinboards bursting with whatever images they could find to share. A little thinking before pinning can go a long way. Steve Sherfy shares one such example on ClickZ. Sherfy's wife wanted to do some decorating with poster-sized photos of their children but the cost was prohibitive. Until, that is, she found the solution pinned to a Pinterest board. It turns out the solution was pinned by the owner of a small office supply company in order to drive traffic to the store. While Sherfy doesn't live near the company -- she bought the required supplies from a national office supply chain -- the lesson is a good one. As Sherfy writes, "Social media and brand managers, regardless of company size, should examine now only how their p roducts and services are supposed to be used, but also how they could be used and how consumers are utilizing them. For example, does Procter & gamble know that Downey is also used to strip wallpapeer? A pin explaining the steps to do so could be helpful for sales."

Instagram is driving brand engagement

While a lot of marketers throw their hands up in dismay at the idea of adding Instagram as yet another social account to manage, the brands that have embraced the photo-sharing service are experiencing hefty bumps in engagement. The 59 of the top 100 brands with accounts have seen 35% of the pictures they've shared get an average of 4,800 likes, comments, tweets and Facebook shares, according to Lisa Lacy writing for ClickZ. The results of Simply Measured's report comes as Instagram surpasses 100 million monthly active users. The Interbrand Top 100 brands using Instagram include the likes of Coca-Cola, Apple, IBM and Google, which added more than 1.6 million followers between November and January. Along with Pinterest, Instagram grew at the fastest rates among social networks, around 10%. Much of the improved engagement can be attributed to Facebook, since the vast majority of photos shared on Instagram are automatically also posted to the brands' Facebook pages. A Simply Measured spokesperson said that the Instagram-Facebook integration "has allowed users to have photos they 'like' appear in their Facebook feeds. The result has been a continued increase in per-post engagement and a greater share of brand photos posted to Facebook." On the other hand, engagement with photos shared to Twitter has dropped a bit, thanks to Instagram dropping integration with Twitter cards, which let brands "attach media experiences to tweets that link to their content."

Termination transparency

As a corporate communicator, I have grinned and borne it when instructed to write one of those grimace-inducing press releases announcing that a senior executive has left the company to "pursue other interests" or "spend more time with his family." Everyone knows these are code phrases for "he was canned," but nobody seems to have the courage to say so. Until yesterday, that is, when Groupon CEO Andrew Mason sent a memo to employees that was refreshingly transparent and honest. "I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family," he wrote, but immediately added, "Just kidding -- I was fired today. If you're wondering why...you haven't been paying attention." He goes on to detail the performance metrics that led to his firing, explaining, "As CEO, I am accountable." The entire memo appears in a Nicholas Carlson recap on Business Insider. If yo u write those mealy-mouthed "pursue other interest" releases, keep a copy of Mason's heartfelt memo handy to share with your bosses just to prove that honesty can actually work in a corporate communication.

Facebook Graph Search SEO

As soon as Facebook unveiled its Graph Search (to which I still don't have access; how about you?), a flood of posts appeared talking about search engine optimization for the new social search utility. Graph Search will let you make connections between people, places and things that haven't been possible before on Facebook (or on Google or any other search engine, for that matter). Using data that contains vast amounts of information about members, the utility will let you find, for example, PR agency employees who live in Chicago and like Chinese food. So it makes sense that brands will want their pages to appear in relevant search results, especially since Facebook has made it harder for brand page status updates to find their way into users' news feeds. This week, Social Media Examiner has done what it does so well: Publish a comprehensive guide to Graph Search SEO. If y ou maintain a brand page on Facebook, this is the step-by-step guide to bookmark.

Podcasting: the marketing tool you're probably not using (but should)

I'll disclose right up front that I'm biased. When my colleague Neville Hobson and I began our podcast, there were about 400 podcasts available. It was January 2005 and podcasting had only been introduced a few short months earlier. Next Monday, we'll release our 693rd episode of the flagship Hobson and Holtz Report; that doesn't include the interviews, book reviews and other special content we've produced under our "For Immediate Release" label. So I was delighted when Reputation Capital shared its belief that podcasting is a valuable marketing tool. "Podcasting is about positioning yourself as an expert in the field while bringing in the ideas that others are using and sharing," according to Deb Evans, part of a panel at the International Franchise Association's recent conference. The article points out that podcasting can be easier than blogging (not the case for me, but I love the post-production process), they usually don't need editing and they create content that's easy to reuse. I've often felt that business woefully underuses podcasting.

Naming storms helps the Weather Channel spread the word through social channels

When The Weather Channel named the superblizzard that hit the east coast last month, critics pounced on it as a lame effort to draw attention to the channel. "Nemo" wasn't the first storm the channel had named, but it was the first to be shared with the public. The result: nearly 800 million photos and tweets that included the Nemo name or hashtagover a five-day period, which "worked to raise awareness and served to consolidate the torrent of storm-related social media data," writes Adweek's Charlie Warzel. Warzel quotes TWC Chairman/CEO David Kenny speaking at the IAB leadership meeting, "We did it because we understood social media saves lives. When you name something people are more likely to tweet about it." How could corporate communicators or marketers take advantage of the phenomenon? Brands and products already have names, but what about corporate initiati ves?

On March 5 and 6, I'll be presenting at Ragan's 2013 Best Practices in Internal Communications Summit at the Gleacher Center in downtown Chicago. The preconference session on March 6 will cover ambassador programs. Then, on March 7, I'll present a session on the internal communications role during a crisis. Conference details
I'm off to Bristol, Connecticut, on March 10 for a consulting engagement with ESPN. I'm hoping their offices look just the way they do on their commercials.
I'm speaking at the PRSSA conference at Kent State University in Ohio on April 19.

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