HC+T Update: January 18, 2013

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

Subject: HC+T Update: January 18, 2013

Date: January 18th 2013

January 18, 2013
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Welcome to the first issue of the completely revamped HC+T Update. The changes to the email newsletter -- which hasn't gone out in some time -- are substantial. To begin with, it'll be weekly instead of the original monthly bulletin. Second, I've adopted an HTML format (although you should be able to read it just fine if you use email that doesn't parse HTML). I've also changed the material I include, starting with a summary of my "Friday Wrap" blog post that summarizes some of the most interesting or relevant posts I've read in the last week. FYI, the stories I tag to consider for the Wrap (as well as my podcast) are available for your perusal at LinksFromShel.tumblr.com, my link blog. And you can read the Friday Wrap items in more detail on the blog post. I'm looking forward to your feedback on the new- look bulletin. My goal is to provide you with a weekly summary that will help you stay right on top of communications news and trends with a focus on digital and social media. Let me know how I'm doing!

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

Facebook strategies are misguided. You need a content strategy.

When facebook changed the algorithm that determines which updates make their way into users' news feeds, marketers cried foul. Many of them complained that the change undermined the time and money they had invested in their Facebook strategies. That's their key mistake. Facebook is a tactic you employ as part of your content strategy. Read more

Five great posts for communicators about Facebook's Graph Search

Thanks to Storify's slideshow embed capability, I was able to share five great posts from the likes of Christopher S. Penn and David Jones on what thei ntroduction of the Graph Search on Facebook means to communicators. Read more

A summary of the items appearing in this week's Friday Wrap

CEOs of world's biggest companies have gotten more sociable online

A Weber Shandwick study released this week shows that 66% of the CEOs in the world's 50 biggest companies engaged online, a 20% increase from 2011. The study -- Socializing Your CEO: From (Un)Social to Social -- that "chief executives are decidedly testing the social waters," according to Leslie Gaines-Ross, Weber Shandwick's chief reputation officer. "By increasing their communications online, CEOs are showing they are listening to customers, are curious about how their products are being received, care about attracting the best talent, understand the need to better humanize themselves and are more in-tune with where their stakeholders are. Read the report

People remember social media posts better than book passages or people's faces

That's what psychology researchers at the U.K.'s University of Warwick found. Study participants were 1-1/2 times as likely to remember a Facebook post as a linie from a book, and 2-1/2 times more likely to remember a social media post than somebody's face. Read more

SoLoMo gains steam with national brands

BIA/Kelley's mobile ad revenue forecast points to significant growth in the category, from $664 million in $2011 to $5.8 billion in 2016. That's annual compound growth of 54.2%. "National brands have begun to see a clear increase in performance for location-based targeted mobile ads," according to MediaPost's Laurie Sullivan. Read more.

Meanwhile, Starbucks Chairman and President Howard Schultz called mobile "a seismic change in consumer behavior." During a talk at a conference, he added, "The level of investment capability in these new platforms, especially mobile, is mission-critical to our companies. It can't be an after-thought -- that capability needs a front seat at the table." Read more

Tesco horses around to defuse social media crisis

When it was revealed that horsemeat was an ingredient in the U.K. grocery chain's beef burger patties, the company apologized seriously via newspaper ads but used its Twitter account to more self-effacing effect. Did it work? Read more

PR professionals stand tall when pressured to behave unethically

When faced with pressure to behave unethically -- like including false information in a press release -- PR professionals resist, according to a study from Baylor University. Read more

Details matter when hosting a webinar

When Dataversity opened for business in April 2011, the company used free webinars to drive awareness. Over time, they found four factors that needed attention in order to generate more attendance and leads: timing, content, promotion and partnerships/sponsorships. Read more

FGSEO debuts with introduction of Facebook Social Graph

Facebook announced that users will be able to dig deep into the social network's goldmine of data through a new search utility. It took only moments before the posts started appearing about how brands can optimize their Pages for Facebook's new search engine. Read more

LinkedIn bomb lands agency a new client

It was risky when an agency had every one of its staff send a LinkedIn request to two of A&W's top leaders. Each message was personal and authentic, though, and the firm is now A&W's agency of record. Read more

I'm presenting two sessions at Ragan's 6th Annual Social Media for PR and Corporate Communications Conference, set for February 6-8 at the Walt Disney World Resort. On February 6, I'll present a three-hour pre-conference session on content marketing. Then, on February 7, I'm co-presenting with Sprint's Sara Folkerts on how to build a brand ambassador program that trains employees to represent the company online. The conference line-up looks stellar, including speakers from Disney Parks, Google, Southwest Airlines, ESPN, Whole Foods, Marvel, Microsoft, and the Phoenix Suns.Conference details
I'm conducting a webinar for Vocus on February 20. The theme: PR's opportunities in the shift to mobile content access. I'll have details when they're available from Vocus.
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

Stay current with the new News feature on Holtz.com

A story published on ProBlogger led me to a nifty service called ROCKZi, a social news service, where I found existing news grids on PR and Social Media. It only took me a minute to create one on Employee Communications. A quick visit to my new News Page will help you stay current on what's going on in these communication disciplines. Let me know what other categories you'd like to see here!

Social Media Training

It has become clear that companies enjoy better success with social media when their employees have been trained. Off-the-shelf training won't cut it. I can help you do the right groundwork and then work with you to develop training programs for all employees, leaders, subject matter experts, ambassadors and other levels of employees. Contact me for a discussion about how training staff can improve your online results

Call me Professor Holtz

I'll be teaching a graduate-level course on social media beginning in mid-February at San Francisco's Academy of Art University. It's exciting! I've taught extension classes at U.C. Berkeley and San Jose State University, and I've been a guest lecturer at a number of colleges, but this is my first full-blown university-level class.

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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