HC+T Update: December 20, 2013

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

Subject: HC+T Update: December 20, 2013

Date: December 20th 2013

December 20, 2013
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Every year, I'm amused by the torrent of posts and articles making predictions for 2014. They fall into a few categories: blinding flashes of the obvious (e.g., the visual web will continue to grow), misguided hopes based on personal bias (e.g., content marketing will finally start to fade), and extrapolation of current trends (e.g., PR will get more active in native advertising). I have resisted the temptation to write a predictions list, a streak I will maintain this year. In the meantime, here's the 81st consecutive summary of content that really does matter.

A celebrity insults a town that fails to rise to the occasion

When Julia Louis-Dreyfus cast aspersions on the town of Columbia, Maryland -- where her series "Veep" is filmed -- the town rose up in defiance. What they should have done was capitalize on the opportunity to showcase the town's virtues, either for tourists or for people considering a move there. They have a 2009 grass-roots campaign by Coos Bay to bring a pair of travelers to visit as an example. Read more.

Reddi-wip's Betterific campaign demonstrates that small social sites can produce big results

Betterific doesn't come up in day-to-day social media conversations the way Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Vine do. But for dessert topping Reddi-Wip, it was the perfect venue for getting people serious about ideas to share theirs for everything from product improvements to marketing suggestions, without all the snark and fluff that would have swamped genuinely good ideas if they had taken the campaign to one of the big social sites. Read more.

This week on FIR

On The Hobson & Holtz Report, Neville and I talked about new crisis communication rules, mobile recruiting strategies, Facebook's new algorithm and its impact on marketers, Instagram's new direct messaging feature, and more. Listen here.
The first episode of FIR on Thought Leadership debuted, featuring Mitchell Levy and Michael Procopio. Listen here.
Jill Rowly, who runs social selling and social business for Oracle, was the subject of an FIR interview. Listen here.
On episode 3 of Linked Conversations, Chuck Hester talks about the top 10 overused buzzwords in LinkedIn profiles and how to add a new position to your profile. He also interviews Scott Valentine how using LinkedIn for content marketing campaigns. Listen here.
Inside PR has been running since 2005, but now it has joined the FIR Podcast Network. In their first FIR show, Joe, Gini and Martin share their biggest fears and top trends for 2014. Listen here.
We're delighted to announce a new show premiering on December 26. Kevin Anselmo will host FIR on Higher Education. If you work in communications academics, you'll want to become a listener. Read about it here.

You would think the holiday season would mean a slowdown in news, research and reports, but the last week has seen plenty of useful and usable content cross my feeds. Here are some of the stories I found most interesting, even though they didn't bubble to the top of the trend lists. If you'd like to follow every story I peg for possible inclusion in the Friday Wrap, visit my link blog at LinksFromShel.tumblr.com.

Above the fold

Executives are finally figuring out social media

The last several years have produced a number of studies and reports showing that the C-suite thinks social media is someone else's job. Notably, a study from The Conference Board and Stanford University showed senior executives and board members paid little attention to social media as a business tool. But now, The Wall Street Journal's Melissa Korn writes, "Fearful their companies will fall behind because top bosses don't have a firm grasp of technology or digital media, senior managers are taking lessons on how the Internet works." The goal of the various efforts to bring execs up to speed is more strategic than tactical, helping "leaders make better decisions about what to invest in, as well as how to talk about it." For example, since mid-2012, senior leaders from companies like American express and PepsiCo have attended classes at General Assembly "to learn how to analyze data and think like a tech entrepreneur." Executives are also taking online training from sites like Mediabistro, while other companies are trying reverse-mentoring to help build literacy among leaders.

Despite government attention, publications continue to embrace native advertising

The Federal Trade Commission may have held a well-publicized workshop that heralded its entry into the native advertising debate, but that isn't stopping Vanity Fair from becoming the latest publication to sell editorial space to an advertiser. The first native ad to appear in Vanity Fair's online pages drops today, from Hennesy Cognac. The articles will carry by-lines, just like the articles that appear above and below it, but instead of a name, the by-line will read, "Vanity Fair Agenda" and make clear that the writing was handled by Vanity Fair's creative services department. The magazine's VP and publisher, Edward J. Menicheschi, said "total transparency" about the nature of the ads and providing "some value to the customer" like "subject matter that's compelling" are key to Vanity Fair's approach, according to The New York Times. The native ads support a traditional ad ca mpaign and give the advertiser "a chance to provide some content that enhances the explanation" of the ad campaign's concept, "an opportunity to tell a fuller story," according to a Hennessy exec. "We're not trying to confuse or engage in legerdemain. We want people to knwo where the enhanced content is from.

The year of the visual web

If you still aren't factoring the visual web into your communication strategy, consider that 65% of the world's top brands are now active on Instagram -- and that doesn't even begin to account for their activity on Pinterest, Vine and other social/visual platforms. In addition to the 65% with active accounts, 57% post at least one photo per week, 44% have more than 10,000 followers while 35% have more than 20,000 followers and nearly 20% have attracted more than 100,000 followers to their accounts. These numbers all represent steep increases over year-earlier numbers, according to Mashable. In fact, 2013 has been "the year of the iamge," according to ReadWrite's Lauren Orsini. "Prior to 2013, many folks considered the Visual Web a fleeting trend that wouldn't stick around," she says. But then Facebook paid $1 billion for Instagram, Yahoo! paid $1 .1 billion for Tumblr and "successive funding rounds took Pinterest's valuation from $2.5 to $3.8 billion." Among the factors driving the trend are easy mobile access an image-hungry demographic (of young adults and women). Snapchat is also a player, according to CNN Money, which notes, "Far from being a fad, the service has grown in just two years from zero to tens of millions of devotees, who send as many as 400 million photos a day -- and that number is growing. Investors have taken notice and poured $123 million into Snapchat, valuing the revenue-less company at an eye-popping $2 billion." Further evidence of the staying power of the visual web: The Next Web reports that 54% of American internet users post photos or videos they have taken, and Twitter has enhanced its stream to show images so you don't have to click a link to see them, according to Mashable.

Below the fold

An edit feature for tweets?

For a while, the web was all aflutter over word that Twitter was working on a new feature that would let users edit tweets after they had been sent. The Desk reported three sources close to the project had confirmed it. It would be a handy utility -- after all, you can edit Google+ and Facebook posts after you've published them. C|Net, however, reports that Twitter is not actively exploring the feature. Who's right? Time will tell.

Everyone can now stream live on YouTube

Remember the days when conducting a live streaming feed was a big deal? Those days are getting farther and farther behind us, as evidenced by YouTube opening live streaming to all its users provided they can "verify their account and are in good standing." According to a YouTube blog post, reported in TubeFilter, the service is an expansion of a campaign to get some key users to broadcast content live.

Best Buy experiments with Google+ Hangout for last-minute shoppers

Google+ Hangouts may be the best, most innovative feature Google+ has to offer, and Best Buy took it out for a spin this week with a panel of "tech pundits with relatively large YouTube followings." During the Hangout, the right-hand side of the page featured a menu that would link to items the panel was talking about. It was one of the few shoppable Hangouts Google has offered, according to Mashable, but expect more.

Email feature lets users include non-Yammer members in discussions

Microsoft-owned Yammer, the enterprise tool that produces activity streams for workers, has "updated its collaboration service to allow users to include non-Yammer members in discussions via an email tool within the application," according to BtoB. Now, Yammer users can engage non-users "by typing their email addresses into the CC bar of any message," and replies will appear in the stream.

Airlines embrace social media for customer relations

Airlines are increasingly monitoring and employing social media in an effort to amp up customer service, according to CNN. Qantas, for example, is experimenting with social media monitoring, allowing them to "pinpoint customer feedback to a specific location," according to the airline's head of digital communication, Jo Boundy. "If someone raises an issue, it gives our lounge staff the ability to step in and resolve the problem." What kind of problem? A long line at the coffee counter or a broken printer in the business lounge are examples cited in the article. KLM employs 130 people to conduct monitoring and has "introduced an estimated service response time to their Twitter account." Delta was an early player with its DeltaAssist account on Twitter, designed as a customer service channel for in-transit customers.

Uber in the hot seat

Uber is one of the darlings of the collaborative economy, but some see them as more of a villain after a snowstorm in the Northeast led to "the worst price gouging we've ever seen -- it would cost over a hundred bucks just to drive down the block," according to ValleyWag. CEO Travis Kalnick defended the gouging, asserting the practice incentivizes drivers to work "during horrendous winter hellstorms, popular Saturday nights, or any other time when people really want to use Uber." Yet pricing eight times normal rates disgusted people: "What's the point of increasing supply to meet demand if the supply is unusable?"

But wait! There's more!

I speak to a group of communicators from Toyota North America at company headquarters in Torrance, California, on January 23.
I'm conducting a webinar on January 28 for PeopleFluent. Details to come.
Next February 6, I'll speak at an industry conference for manufacturers of Omega 3 products on crisis communications. The session is in Salt Lake City.
I'll be speaking at the global intranet conference from IntraTeam in Denmark on February 26-28.
I'm speaking at a meeting of communicators from The Walt Disney Company in California on March 5.
On April 2 next year, I'll do two sessions at the Ragan Communications conference at Walt Disney World.

Joe Thornley and I are hosting an eight-week course on social media strategy

Thornley Fallis Public Relations CEO Joe Thornley and I are bringing our strategic social media course to IABC for the third time. We're completely revamping the interactive, online course using a new learning software tool that makes the presentations even more compelling. We're also adding interviews with industry thought leaders to the mix. There's nothing else like this course, which includes the interactive training modules, a closed Facebook group for discussions, and a weekly live conference call for real-time engagement and more information on the week's topic. Learn more and register here.

Since 1996, HC+T has helped organizations communicate effectively in the emerging online space using intranets to reach employees and various dimensions of the Internet to communicate with other stakeholder audiences.

HC+T provides a full range of services for large organizations, from speaking and training to communication audits and strategic plan development.

Visit us at Holtz.com.

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