HC+T Update: May 8, 2015

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

Subject: HC+T Update: May 8, 2015

Date: May 8th 2015

May 8, 2015
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The HC+T Update is a weekly review of news, posts, reports, and other items appearing in the last week that will help you stay on top of the forces shaping communication in this fast-paced, ever-changing environment. These are stories that may have been lost in the flood of headline news stories. I collect all of the items from which I choose the Update stories in my link blog, which you're welcome to follow.

News

Twitter's CFO is now in charge of marketing -- It smells of desperation. It can't end well. Anthony Noto, Twitter's chief financial officer, has been handed the reins of the marketing department. One source calls it power consolidation. In the wake of a disastrous earnings call, it could also be a shakeup. But when was the last time a marketing department innovated and succeeded under the leadership of someone who doesn't know jack about marketing? Read more

Twitter takes a wrong turn with Promoted Tweets -- Another bad, desparate move from Twitter in the wake of its disappointing earnings. Hoping to make its Promoted Tweets more desirable for advertisers, the company is making it harder to tell a Promoted Tweet from one that wasn't paid for. The yellow badge that made Promoted Tweets stand out is gone, a truly dumb move considering the biggest criticism of native advertising is that it camouflages ads as real content. Read more

Brands take a ride on a new princess's back -- The arrival of Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana in the UK unsurprisingly prompted brands everywhere to deliver tweets and other content to take advantage of the trending news. Some of the best included a Disney-produced montage of baby princesses from its animated history. Read more

Reddit gets into original video content game -- Reddit has launched its own video division, enabling it to tap into the ultra-hot video advertising market while delivering compelling original content. The Ask Me Anything interviews will be the first project for the division. Read more

Another presidential hopeful fails to register domain -- It's like a presidential candidate disease: Carly Fiorina is the latest in a string of presidential hopefuls who failed to secure her own domain name. Instead of finding a campaign site at CarlyFiornia.org, visitors see criticism of her layoffs of 30,000 HP employees. Read more

Waffle House the latest to twuck up -- The weekly parade of brand Twitter fails continues with Waffle House. To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, the restaurant chain tweeted, "Oh bacon, you are the Juan for me. #CincoDeMayo" The response was laden with accusations of racism. The tweet was deleted before it drew too much attention, re-sent with "one" replacing "Juan." Read more

Can you tell Sky from Skype? -- Europeans are apparently too stupid to tell the difference between Sky, the TV network, and Skype, Microsoft's calling service. At least, that's what the General Court of the European Union ruled, determining the similarity between names is too confusing. The court banned Microsoft from registering a trademark for the Skype name and logo in Europe. One wonders how the James Bond movie Skyfall ever got its name past this dimwitted court. Read more

Facebook prepares to host other sites' content -- It could be this month that Facebook starts hosting content from publishers like The new York Times, Buzzfeed, and National Geographic. "Instant Articles" is the name of the program that will help publishers create content on Facebook that will load quickly on mobile devices. Publishers will earn 100% of ad revenue; in exchange, Facebook gets more customer eyeball time. Read more

Mobile and Wearables

Mobile tops computers for Google searches -- In 10 countries, including the U.S., people are searching Google more using mobile devices than computers. If you were wondering why Google insisted sites be mobile friendly in order to rank well when searched for on a mobile device, this data explains it. Among the other countries where users do most of their searching on mobile devices: Japan. Read more

Meerkat opens up to developers -- Twitter got big on the backs of developers of third-party tools, made possible by Twitter's release of APIs. Twitter withdrew that option, leaving app owners and users in a lurch (and signalling the start of Twitter's woes). Now, Meerkat -- the live video streaming app that was bounced from Twitter -- is opening its platform to let developers create apps that work with it. Some 37 developers have already developed apps that are Meerkat-enabled. One delivers analytics about your audience, another saves your streams and uploads them to YouTube. Twitter's Meerkat competitor, Periscope, has been proclaimed the winner in the race for adoption, but the availability of useful third-party apps could turn that tide. Read more

Meerkat now available for Android -- Periscope has been pounding Meerkat in the race for adoption, but that could change now that Meerkat has become the first of the apps to offer an Android version. The Android beta is now available to anyone while Periscope remains confined to the iOS world. Read more

Snapchat's role in 2016 presidential race could be huge -- Snapchat's hiring of CNN political reporter Peter Hamby suggests the ephemeral messaging app can have a role in the 2016 presidential contest to rival BuzzFeed's role in 2012 and the Huffington Post's in 2008. By adding more reporters and editors, Snapchat can create original content that delivers short updates similar to those media partners are delivering through its Discover platform. Says The New York Times, "Think of it as something akin to a cable TV bundle, only with content specifically meant, or at least edited, for Snapchat's users, with lots of bright colors and crisp images, plenty of videos and a minimum of test. It's snack food for your smartphone." Read more

Will wearables evolve in the halls of academia? -- A host of wearable tech innovations had their beginnings in the halls of academia. Even the Digital Touch feature of the Apple Watch started out as an academic project. Looking at some of the research underway today offers a glimpse of the consumer and enterprise tools we'll see in the future, including the ability to make finger gestures in the air in order to activate a device. (No, not that finger gesture.) Read more

Clammr hopes to be the Instagram of audio -- People share images from Instagram, but people don't share audio. That could change with Clammr, for now an iOS-only app, that lets users quickly share audio snippets. Read more

Trends

Journalism could suffer with move to third-party platforms -- Soundcloud has grown in popularity as a platform for delivering audio and recently opened up to podcasters. That could include journalism. However, a recent student-produced report was pulled from Soundcloud in response to a DMCA takedown notice, even though the offending audio fell squarely within the Fair Use doctrine. Soundcloud said it's a global platform and, since Fair Use doesn't apply everywhere, it "won't recognize it anywhere." Read more

BBC takes to Viber to share information in quake-ravaged Nepal -- The BBC opened a Viber account to publish news, information, and safety tips in Nepal. Viber was selected based on its ease of use for publishers; it's also a popular app in Nepal. Read more

The rise of the emoji -- Emojis appeared in almost half of all text on Instagram, including comments, captions, and the new emoji-capable hashtags.A study from Thomas Dimson found a sharp increase in the use of emojis, with Finland accounting for the greatest use: 63% of text from Finns contained them. Read more

Tablet sales continue to slide -- Tablet shipments globally declined for the second straight quarter, with shipments of tablets and 2-in-1 devices dropping nearly 6% from the same quarter a year earlier. Let's face it: If you like your tablet, you're probably in no hurry to upgrade to the next generation -- unlike your smartphone. Read more

Live mobile video streaming apps win the big fight -- It cost $99 to buy into the pay-per-view of the Mayweather-Packquiao bout, but many of those who did shared the broadcast with friends by streaming it over Meerkat or Periscope, prompting HBO and Showtime to get in touch with the companies behind the apps demanding the feeds be shut down. Conversation is amping up about copyright and privacy as they relate to these popular new tools. Read more

Research

Broken brand promises -- A brand promise is the agreement between a company and its customers, based on the company's publicly stated values. They matter to customers, but companies routinely break those promises, according to research from Gallup. While the highest-performing companies deliver on their promise 75% of the time (still not great), only 27% of employees strongly agree that they always deliver on the promises they make to customers, despite good intentions. Clearly, aligning employees with the brand promise can help transform mediocre-performing companies into high-performing ones. Read more

Room for social media growth in small business -- Only about half of small businesses are using social media and 25% have no plans to start, according to a survey from Clutch, a research company. Nearly 40% of small businesses using social media plan to have staff spend more time on it and 30% will spend more on social advertising. Read more

Popularity of mainstream media podcasts will lift independent boats

Some independent podcasters fret that the surging popularity of podcasts from mainstream media companies like NPR will reelgate them to a dark corner of the podcasting space. It's important to remember a few things, though. First, most of these shows have broad appeal, unlike the niche focus of most independent podcasts. And podcast listeners don't replace one podcast with another; they add to the list of shows they consume, listening to more podcasts than any other form of audio. Read more

This week on FIR

Neville wasn't available to record episode #806 of The Hobson & Holtz Report, so Arment Dietrich CEO Gini Dietrich joined me as guest co-host to talk about Bud Light's inadvertent promotion of misogyny, the inevitability of Virtual Reality as a journalism tool, Walmart's questionabale communication of health advice to employees it had laid off, the need for PR to incorporate more SEO into its work, Converse's affinity with its fans, how the City of Cleveland and the Houston Rockets handled misguided tweets, a semantic approach to keeping Chik-Fil-A off the Johns Hopkins campus, and Twitter's decision to make its Promoted Tweets less clearly labeled. Dan York has his Tech Report, too. Listen
Gini's back -- with Martin and Joseph -- for the 408th installment of Inside PR, where the topics include Twitter's move of non-American account holders to Ireland, LinkedIn's utility as a publishing platform, and Buzzfeed's deletion of content at advertisers' requests. Listen
On Thought Leader Life, Mitchell Levy talks with his guest co-host, Chris Kenton, founder and CEO of Social Rep, a sales provider of social media marketing and marketing intelligence tools. Listen

I'll be in Nebraska in May to present a two-day workshop on social media to the leadership of a national financial services institution.
I'll speak on June 9 and 10 at the Global Intranet Forum in Los Angeles.
I'm speaking twice at the IABC World Conference in San Francisco in June. (Information and registration are here)
In June, I make my annual trek to Sao Paulo, Brazil, for three days of instruction for senior communicators, part of the ABERJE/Syracuse Univesity certificate course in executive communications.
Also in June, I'll deliver another precon at another Ragan Visual Communications Summit, this time in Denver.
In July, Ann Wylie and I co-present our writing workshop for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, and to PRSA Puget Sound.
On August 6 (my birthday), I'm presenting a pre-conference session in Chicago at Ragan Communications' Visual Communications Summit.
In September, I travel to the U.K. to teach a two-day social/digital media workshop for the International School of Communication.
In October, I'll speak to the Association of Public Relations Professionals of Puerto Rico at their conference in San Juan.

Bring your executive team up to digital speed

Later this month, I'll spend two days on an off-site with the executive leadership team of a financial services organization. They've come to terms with the idea that social media has to be a core part of its operations, and they not only want to understand it better, but figure out their role in strategy and execution. They've hired me to guide them through the process. I could do the same for your leadership team. Let's talk.