HC+T Update: April 19, 2013

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

Subject: HC+T Update: April 19, 2013

Date: April 19th 2013

April 19, 2013
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As I prepare the Update today, I'm sitting in Franklin Hall at Kent State University. Kevin Duggan is speaking about visual communication and other new realities of online communication. In the hotel, I was glued to the TV as news reports updated me about the death of one of the Boston bombing terrorist suspect and the hunt for the other. It can be difficult to remember that other news was share during the week -- and for communicators, some of it is worth knowing.

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

List publishers beware: Wizard of Oz song makes bum-rushing the charts a new activist tactic

Anti-Thatcher activists in the UK used social channels to get like-minded Brits to buy a copy of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" in an attempt to push it into the number one spot so the BBC would have to play it on its weekly chart show. While exhorting fans and followers to buy your book on a given day in order to influence Amazon's charts, for example, is not new, the UK experience could lead activists to employ it as a tactic. Read more here.

Hourly workers on social network stay longer, sell more and complete customer transactions faster

It may conradict conventional wisdom, but a new study shows that hourly workers who participate in five or more social networks are more productive than their peers. They complete more transactions and customers perceive them as more helpful. They also tend to stay with the organization longer than those who have avoided social networks. Read more here.

The conundrum of being a non-U.S. company when tragedy strikes the U.S.

A wave of criticism struck companies who continued tweeting and updating Facebook pages with mundane marketing as news emerged about the Boston Marathon bombing. Among those who continued their marketing efforts were non-U.S. companies. Were they wrong? Should they have suspended their social marketing efforts? Read more 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.)

Boston PD praised for use of social media after bombing

There has been no shortage of reporting about multiple dimensions of the terrorist bombing in Boston on Monday, including coverage of the role social media played. But little has been said about the Boston Police Department, which employed social media to get information to the public in the wake of the bombing. PRWeek's Lindsay Stein reports that former Boston PD communications director Elaine Driscoll is leading the applause, noting that "social media helped authorities quickly give information while cell-phone service was down on Monday. Early Tuesday, the department used Twitter to tell broadcast media where to park their trucks for interviews and coverage."

American Airlines also relies on social media

American Airlines, not unlike Boston PD, relied on social media to help address the airlines' day of no flying in the face of catastrophic systems failures. Writing for Ragan's PR Daily, Michael Sebastien says, "social media became the go-to source for information on the carrierâs progress. The company tweeted updates about the outage, and responded to voluminous tweets from customers, resolving issues and wishing passengers safe travels. It also posted frequent updates on its Facebook page during the ordeal, including an apology once the matter was resolved later in the afternoon.

Vine comes of age as a news platform

For many people, the first look they got at the Boston Marathon Bombing was just a six-second video loop. The video of the first explosion at the finish line, shot by Doug Lorman, spread across Twitter first (Twitter does own Vine, after all), but transcended Twitter to find its way out onto the Internet proper. It was unquestionably the first time Vine filledsuch a newsmaking role. Originally dismissed as basically useless by some, Vine has found a following and a place in news coverage, but not without posing new questions. AdAge's John McDerrmott writes that "The viral spread of Mr. Lorman's video, for example, will likely raise copyright issues for Vine. His video was not original footage, after all -- it was a Vine recording of an ABC affiliate's broadcast."

State Department plans Google+ Hangouts

Everybody loves to argue about politics but few understand the subtleties and intricacies of issues that drive international relations. More people would rather get their views from a cable news show than from reading Foreign Affairs, after all. The U.S. State Department aims to fix that by hosting monthly Google+ Hangouts on Air to address foreign policy issues. The first one is set for today, April 19, according to Ken Yeung, writing for The Next Web. Newly-minted Secretary of State John Kerry will host the first Hangout, titled "The U.S. in the World: Whatâs In It for Us," to be hosted by Andrea Mitchell, NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent. It's not the first time the State Department has turned to Hangouts. A session on arms control and international security was was hosted by an acting under-secretary last mont h. The regular monthly nature of the series is what drew my attention (and made me wonder why more organizations aren't following Dell's lead, using Hangouts to address a host of issues).

Don't trust USA Today's small business social media report

Some 61% of small businesses aren't seeing a return in their social media efforts, according to a study small business network Manta and reported by USA Today. The survey asked how much SMBs were spending (50% have increased their spend) and what their goals are (new business, new leads and raising awareness). Nothing I saw in the study indicated how they were going about it. There are scores of case studies of successful SMB use of social media. I can only conclude that a lot of those reporting failure are simply not executing well. What do you think?

Flipboard to produce revenue for NBC News

For up-to-date news, some people turn to an NBC News magazine on the popular news app, Flipboard. Did I say, "some people?" More like 1.3 million, according to Adweek. That's enough to prompt NBC News to run third-party ads in the magazine, turning it from an awareness vehicle into a source of revenue. So far, it's NBC's former owner, General Electric, buying the ads but the organization is talking to prospective other advertisers. "When viewers click through GE's ads, they are driven to the multinational conglomerate's so-called magazine on the appâspecifically to a section dedicated to innovation. These ads will effectively highlight the newest content from the GE magazine, using feeds from the brand's blogs, such as Txchnologist," writes Christopher Heine.

Social media occupies a quarter of Americans' online time

Twenty-seven percent of the time Americans spend online is devoted to social media, according to an Experian Hitwise survey, as reported by Poynter. All that porn they're supposed to be consuming? That accounts for 4% of their time...and they shared that time with news.The study didn't include mobile, the source of much news gathering. One-third of adults under 30 obtain their news from social networks.

Oregon would make it illegal to demand employees like their bosses

It has become increasingly common for businesses to require employees to provide logins to their social media accounts. Equally common but less frequently reported are bosses who insist their employees like them or friend them on networks. Several states have used legislation to address the former, but Oregon's new law would ban employers from both. AP reports (via The Huffington Post) that the bill passed the Oregon House 56-3 and awaits Senate action. Under the bill, employers investigating employees could still ask the employee to share content. "Employers would not be liable information inadvertently gathered when employees use the employer's equipment," according to the article.

Messaging app has more active monthly users than Twitter

We keep hearing that young people are abandoning Facebook. While I question whether they're actually leaving Facebook altogether, they are engaging with friends and colleagues through other channels, mainly a new breed of messaging apps. Top of the heap appears to be WhatsApp, which boasts some 200 million active monthly users who see 12 billion outbound and 8 billion inbound messages. That's roughly the same number of active monthly users as Twitter. What's more, usage hasn't dropped since the service began charging users $.99 per year, writes Mike Stenger on Android Authority. Businesses anxious to reach this demographic that haven't figured out the shift to messaging apps like WhatsApp, Kik and other had better start paying attention. FastCompany argues that messagin g may well be mobile's killer app. Kik is adding 100,000 new users per day, according to FC, and a Pew Internet study found more teenagers were texting (63%) than any other form of communication, including calling (39%). One possible explanation: "Messaging apps cater to interactions between a core group of connections. So, the theory goes, users are likely to interact with them frequently." The fact that no one platform currently owns this category of information makes it an untapped opportunity. FC's Sarah Kessler says, "Some of the most feasible business models for mobile messaging depend on developing applications that run inside of them. Messaging apps have experimented with advertising, e-commerce, virtual goods such as stickers and, in the case of WhattsApp, charging for downloads. Inserting third-party experiences helps all of these efforts."

Charities could find success in text messaging

While businesses invest increasingly in social media, smaller charitable organizations increasingly find text messaging is more effective at achieving specific, measurable objectives. That was the case with Creation Trust, which Mandeep Hothi and Andrew Wilson of The Guardian describe as " a charity that aims to transform the Aylesbury Estate into a thriving neighbourhood through delivering social and economic change." Using a service called Activist SMS, the organization sent a text message to more than 300 residents of the housing project notifying them of job opportunities. More than 200 attended the showcase. In another example, Lifeline -- which provides drug and alocohol services -- has been sending a weekly inspirational quote to its clients via text message, a practice that has become a resounding success in maintaining regular contact. It's often overlooked as quaint or outdated, but SMS remains an important (if unsexy) communication channel.

I'm the keynote speaker at Salt Lake City PRSA's conference on May 23.
I'm joining two outstanding healthcare marketers for a pre-conference workshop at the Healthcare Strategy Institute's meeting on May 5 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
On May 8, I'm presenting to IABC's Portland, Oregon chapter.
I head to Amsterdam in The Netherlands on May 15 to speak at Ragan's International Social Media and PR conference. Details are here.
I head to Wisconsin on May 21 to conduct a social media planning workshop for the World Council of Credit Unions.

Book Shel Holtz as your next speaker

In a couple hours, I'll speak to 150 students and professionals about the drawbacks of the new culture-jacking approach to real-time marketing. I can speak at your next event on current, relevant communications-focused topics. Take a look at the "speaking" page on the HC+T site, then give me a call at +1.415.881.7435.

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.

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