HC+T Update: January 24, 2014

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

Subject: HC+T Update: January 24, 2014

Date: January 24th 2014

January 24, 2014
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Is creating a video for just one customer a sound strategy?

Warby Parker sends videos by email to customers asking questions, and posts them to YouTube so they can provide a link to those asking questions via twitter. NatWest, a British bank, has created a pool of Vine videos that answer routine customer service questions; they send the link in response to queries on Twitter. Is it a viable content marketing strategy? Read more

This week on FIR

On episode 739 of the Hobson and Holtz Report, Neville and I talk about Edelman's 2014 Trust Barometer, the case that earned media is becoming "hacked media," opposition to native advertising even though it sometimes works well, social media guidance for pharmas from the FDA, how a fishmonger is using social media to try collecting on a debt, how customers react to irrelevant marketing messages, and a lot more. Listen here
In a "cut" from episode 739, Neville explores what happens when a publication labels an ad for its own product as news. Listen here
Episode 7 of Linked Conversations with Chuck Hester features an interview with Chris Muccio, author of 42 Rules for 24-Hour Success on LinkedIn. Listen here
We're pleased to announce FIR B2B, co-hosted by Paul Gillin and Allan Schoenberg. Read details here
Episode 361 of Inside PR focuses on the Justine Sacco saga. Listen here
As I was preparing the Wrap, the first appearance of Amp Up Your Social Media with Glenn Gaudet on the FIR Podcast Network was being prepared, as was the first episode of FIR B2B. Visit the FIR website to listen.

The Friday Wrap is my weekly collection of stories from the past week that you may have missed but that could influence the way you communicate. I collect stories to consider for the Wrap (as well as for the For Immediate Release podcast I co-host) at my link blog, which you're welcome to peruse at LinksFromShel.tumblr.com.

Above the fold

Why aren't small- and medium-sized businesses using Twitter?

A comparison of large businesses and SMBs reveals that small and medium businesses aren't using Twitter anywhere near as much as their bigger cousins. Simply Measured's analysis, reorted in Geekwire, reveals that the Interbrand 100 companies sent 111,819 tweets during the last quarter of 2013 at a pace of 12 per day, compared to 17,503 tweets at a rate of 3 daily for the 100 best small companies in America (as ranked by Forbes). Big companies dominated in every category: links shared, hashtags used, number of brand tweets (those that were sent by a company that weren't retweets or replies to individuals), brand tweets per day, and average monthly engagement (a whopping 43,100 compared to 671 for SMBs). SMBs have complained that they're not getting traction on social media. To get traction, though, you have to put your tires on the road. The article doesn't suggest why SMBs are failing to tap into Twitter, but I suspect the resource issue wo uld come up -- big companies have the staff or the deep pockets to contract externally for the work. Still, these are the 100 best SMBs in the country. You'd think they'd be able to knock out a dozen tweets a day, wouldn't you?

The death of print has been greatly exaggerated

The rush to digitize everything and consign print to the trash heap of history infuriates me. Every medium has its place, and print is no exception. Abandoning print in favor of putting everything on an intranet let to a massive setback for the practice of employee communications. There was never any proof that intranets were better; only that they were cheaper and faster. Collaboration and social software are one thing, but getting messages into employees' hands is much easier when you can push it at them than it is when you hope they'll pull it. Still, you'll hear pundits point to the rise of the e-reader as another nail in print's coffin. Don't get me wrong; I love my tablet and am reading a wonderful novel on it right now. But I also have a hardcover book on my bedside table that I read each night. (Glowing light is not conducive to sleep.) Now there's data to support my point of view. A study from The Pew Internet & American Life Pr oject reveals that few people have completely replaced printed books with electronic versions. Even as the percentage of Americans who have read an e-book has risen five points to 28%, seven in 10 reported reading a book in print in the last year.

Pinterest is changing the way we blog

Some time about, Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann, asked how he expected to compete with Facebook and Twitter, argued he wouldn't. His competition, he said, was Google. It has become clear since then that Pinterest's "priorities lie less with creating a robust social network and more with building a strong visual search engine," according to ReadWrite. For example, "Food blogs are almost certainly going to start changing how they present their images. Expect images to include even more metadata than before, labeling food by its dietary restrictions or included ingredients, with the better-tagged images to be featured prominently on Pinterest." Lifestyle, design, and art bloggers can be expected to alter their approach to blogging in order to accommodate Pinterest, as well.

Below the fold

Most companies have no social media education program

A report from The Altimeter Group that went largely unnoticed when it was released last month found that 62% of companies aren't educating their employees about social media, according to Technorati. Despite this, "developing social media education was the second most important priority for most organizations," trailing only developing metrics to demonstrate the value of social media. The study also found that someone in the marketing department handles social media in more than half of organizations, with PR in a distant second place at a little over 17%. An umbrella group, such as a Center of Excellence, didn't even make the list.

Facebook's teen exodus is leveling off

If reaching teens is your goal, you may have worries about the social network's much-discussed hemorrhaging of teen users. A recent report suggests the problem is real, with "a 29% fall in active users among U.S. teens from fourth quarter 2012, when 79% of all U.S. teens contributed to the site," according to Mashable. The report says the decline mostly happened early in 2013, with the exodus declining to 11% in the fourth quarter. There are still 58 million U.S. teens active on Facebook, and some (including me) believe they'll return after they leave school and enter the real world. GlobalWebIndex founder Tom Smith said, "The concept that [Facebook] is 'dead and buried' is obviously completely false."

Hire a 16-year-old to build a brand on Snapchat

That's what fashion retailer Wet Seal did. They turned control of their Snapchat account over to a popular 16-year-old fashion vlogger. Meghan Hughes -- MissMeghanMakeup in the online world -- brought to the work her existing 200,000 YouTube subscribers, 49,000 Twitter followers and 101,000 Instagram followers. "Her efforts resulted in 9,000 new followers and 6,000 views of the story," according to AdAge.

U.S. bloggers have the same protections as journalists

A federal appeals court ordered a new trial for Crystal Cox, a blogger who lost a defamation lawsuit for accusing a bankruptcy trustee of fraud. In issuing the opinion, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that a blogger (and anybody else in the public) "has the same protections for free speech in the United State as a traditional journalist and can only lose a defamation lawsuit on an issue of public concern if plaintiffs manage to prove negligence," according to Slate.

NewsPeg is Pinterest for news

Twitter is the undisputed social champ for news sharing, but the folks at NewsPeg, whoever they may be, have a different idea. NewsPeg (the journalistic term for whatever it is that makes a story timely or newsworthy) looks a lot like Pinterest, with cards (or tiles) containing an image and some text, along with identifying who pegged (instead of pinned) it. The difference is that it's all news from news sites, categorized as news, sports, photography, fun, and the like. Want the latest on Chris Christie, the Yankees' off-season acquisitions or Branjelina? Search and see what others have pegged. A bookmarklet makes it easy to add content from your browser. I have found very little written about it other than this short item from Newsplexer, but I'm taking it out for a spin. If NewsPeg doesn't do it for you, try Trove, which The New York Times says "combines human curation and comptuer algorithms to presen t a mix of news and features to its users, organized by topic." Reporter Vindu Goel calls it "the most promising attempt Iâve yet seen to address the problem of data overload that plagues news junkies trying to manage the flow of information from Twitter, Facebook, news sites and blogs."

Nobody is immune from Google punishment

It doesn't matter how big or popular your site is. If you game the system and get caught, you'll suffer the consequences. Just ask Expedia, the massive travel booking site, where page rank has dropped 25% for travel searched, which most likely means that "Google is penalizing the company for so-called 'unnatural links' to Expedia.com that are posted on many travel blogs and other websites," Mashable.

BYOD may change your B2B marketing strategy

If you work in business-to-business communication, and you've embarked on mobile outreach, this CRM Buyer article is worth your time. As more companies embrace the idea of employees using their personal mobile devices for work, "Companies need to learn to track and target their customers in a more holistic fashion." According to Nate Barad, director of product strategy at Sitecore, "Systems have traditionally tracked their content by connecting to the device or IP, and now we can see how valuable it is to connect to the individual." That could mean delivering business content during the day when you know your target is at work.

Don't assume Millennials want to be online all the time

There's an assumption that Millennials -- generally defined as those born between 1977 and 1997 -- are so technologically sophisticated (often referred to as "digital natives") that they prefer digitally connected work. A study from Cornerstone, though, found 60% of Millennials prefer in-person collaboration, while only 34% prefer online work. OZY reports, "'Gen-Y workers, whom we have largely pigeonholed as having an insatiable appetite for technology, are expressing both a desire for more human, face-to-face interaction and frustration with information and technology overload,' said Jason Corsello of Cornerstone OnDemand, which released its survey of three generations' views of workplace technology in November."

Millennial purchase decisions driven by word of mouth

As long as we're talking Millennials, let's look at what influences their purchases. While Baby Boomers (which include the likes of me) tend to rely on advertising, Millennials are influenced by word of mouth. The study from Radius Global Marketing Services, reported by MarketingCharts, revealed that word of mouth is the top source of influence in every category covered in the research. Among Boomers, on the other hand, word of mouth was influencial only for financial services and big ticket items.

Everybody's talking about...Google's counsel against guest blogging

Hardly a day goes by that I'm not pitched a guest post for my blog. I have published exactly two, both written by friends who didn't have their own blogs. But some of my favorite blogs -- Spin Sucks leaps to mind -- routinely feature guest posts. According to Matt Cutts, who guides search for Google, that may not be such a great idea any more. In post to his personal blog, Cutts puts it bluntly: "If you're using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it's become a more and more spammy practice, and if you're doing a lot of guest blogging then you're hanging out with really bad company." Cutts apologizes for the situation, acknowledging that guest posts started out as a respectable and useful tactic, but the trend is contrary to Google's policies of linking to quality, original content. "This is why we can't have nice things in the SEO space," he laments. "So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it's just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn't recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn't recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a linkbuilding strategy." Cutts' post produced a flurry of commentary, including a PR Newser summary of eight PR experts sharing their views, most of whom agree that guest blogging isn't actually dead as long as the content meets Google's standards. FastCompany provides detail on how the bad kind of guest blogging works and how Google detects it. In one of several reports on the subject, Business2Community points to the end of Cutts' post, which reads (in part), "There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they'll continue into the future...I just want to highlight that a bunch of low-quality or spam sites have latched on to 'guest blogging' as their link-building strategy." Other B2C commentary are here and here

We're not done yet

I'm conducting a webinar on March 7 for PeopleFluent.
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'm speaking at the IABC/Prescient Digital intranet conference at USC on March 7-8.
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.
I return to Sao Paulo, Brazil, in August for three days of teaching at the national communications association, ABERJE.
In October, I'm off to Warsaw, Poland to speak at an internal communication conference.

Join Joe Thornley and me for our 8-week interactive online social media strategy course

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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