HC+T Update: May 10, 2013

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

Subject: HC+T Update: May 10, 2013

Date: May 10th 2013

May 10, 2013
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The week went by in a blur, aided by two speaking engagements, one at the Healthcare Strategy Institute conference in Scottsdale on Sunday, where I co-presented a three-hour workshop on content marketing with The Cleveland Clinic's Scott Linabarger and Ed Bennett from the University of Maryland Medical Center. Then, on Wednesday, it was a talk on content marketing for a joint IABC/PRSA conference in Portland, along with a breakout session on employee ambassador programs.

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

Sophie Knutsson for Chief Funster: how Tourism Australia shines a light on its working holidays

Sophie Knutsson is a student in my graduate social media class at Academy of Art University -- and a finalist for the Chief Funster position in Sydney, Australia, one of several jobs that attracted hundreds of thousands of 30-second video resumes as part of Tourism Australia's "Greatest Jobs in the World" competition. In this post, I share the video Sophie produced that got her into the finals and her plans to become one of the elite six to be flown to Australia for face-to-face interviews. More important, I talk about how this competition can raise Australia's tourism profile and bring flocks of people to the country for working vacations. Read the post here.

The latest from For Immediate Release

In addition to episode 702 of the podcast I co-host with my podcast partner, Neville Hobson, Neville has uploaded the first of a series of keynote addresses from the B2B Huddle, held May 2 at Oracle's UK headquarters. This initial keynote, from Oracle's Kimberly Brind, "explains the "reach and power social is giving her company." In episode 702, Neville and I talk about social media policies, a tool for retracting a tweet, initial experiences with Google Glass, and how Lowe's is using Vine as part of a coordinated campaign. We also talk about the future of PR agencies and the rise of Massive Open Online Courses -- MOOCs -- and their potential impact on the world of professional development. Hear the episode here and Brind's keynote address here.

The big news items this week for marketers and communicators involved Coca-Cola's plans to rehabilitate its image as a key contributor to childhood obesity by reducing its advertising to kids. McDonalds' focus on the "hero" in the rescue of three captive women in Cleveland also has legs, given what we learned about the rescuer after the fast-food giant added him to the marketing mix. While these stories grabbed our attention, other, smaller items sneaked by unnoticed. The Friday Wrap aims to share some of those that you may wish you'd seen. As always, I collect items from which I select the Wrap's contents at LinksFromShel.tumblr.com.

Fleishman study predicts a coming corporate reputation crisis

Every brand Fleishman Hillard reviewed in its Authenticity Gap study "found a gap between people's expectations of the industry category and their actual experiences of the company or brand," according to an item in Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog. Three high-level characteristics contribute to a company's perceived authenticity, consumers in the study said: management behavior, customer benefits and society outcomes. For consumers, corporate behavior mattered as much as customer care. The categories that seem to be doing best at meeting consumer expectations include online shopping, major appliances, tablets and e-readers, and pharmaceuticals. The biggest gaps appear in the vacation and travel industry and among Internet service providers and wireless carriers. "When brand and reputation are not aligned, it creates a gap that damages an organization's credibility and authenticity," says Fleishman president and CEO Dave Senay.

We're spending more time online thanks to videos and social media

All those commentators who lament that all the time we're spending online is going to make us more distant and less social in the real world have new ammunition. We're spending more time online -- 3 hours and 7 minutes per day in 2012, up from 3 hours in 2011. "As more compelling content moves onto digital platforms -- including social networks that appeal to every iteration of hobby and personality, and an expanding selection of online video content -- old media continue to lose share to the internet. Radio and newspapers each lost minutes of daily time spent with media. And even daily TV time declined by a minute," according to eMarketer.

Remember when IR departments hesitated to use the Web for annual reports?

There was a day when investor relations departments were reluctant to publish annual reports to the Web. These days, just about anything goes, as the Calgary Zoo demonstrated with its decision to publish its report via Instagram. Using an account dedicated to the report, the company used 55 photos and captions that include statistics, financial numbers and the traditional welcome from the zoo's president and chief operating officer. Titled, "The Year of the Penguin," the report is a first for Instagram, according to Jessica Gioglio, writing for Convice & Convert.

Word of Eye: visual communication is a key to branding success

Sharing content is a critical element of any content marketing or social media plan, and images are easier to share than just about anything else. Consequently, brands should be turning their attention to images as a primary content unit in order to tap into what marketing consultant Julie Cottineau calls "word of eye." In a Forbes piece, Allen Adamson notes, "We live in a culture whose technological advances have made images so simple to capture and disseminate -- and in which images are fast becoming the currency of news and information -- that this visual currency has become the currency of choice." The article includes compelling examples from Disney, Apple and Virgin America.

Don't forget the lowly webinar in your content marketing mix

A Marketing Sherpa case study reminds us that webinars can be an effective form of content marketing. It made particular sense for Adobe, since the product they wanted to introduce with a demo was the company's Adobe Connect webinar platform. By presenting a webinar on the software, the company earned "a 500% increase in conversion to sale within the webinar funnel and placed webinars as the second largest generator of sales behind only product trials." The full case study provides details on the process that led to this stellar outcome.

As brands adopt Klout, you may have no choice but to boost your score

It's easy and fashionable to dismiss Klout, the service that purports to rank your social media influence. But as more and more brands use Klout scores to determine which customers get preferential treatment, having a high score may become an imperative whether you believe in Klout's methodology or not. Influential marketing consultant Danny Brown is so anti-Klout that he has worked to wipe his own identity from any hint of a Klout score, which means he won't find himself in an Admirals Club -- the upscale lounges American Airlines offers in airports -- unless he buys a regular old membership. The perk gets those with high scores into American Airlines lounges in 40 airports, even if they're booked on a competitor's airline. It's far from the first such perk; the Klout Kolub at the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas was introduced in 2010, providing special amenities to guests with high rankings, according to Cotton Delo, writing for AdAge.

BuzzFeed to train agencies in the Buzzfeed Way

BuzzFeed is a native-advertising leader, hosting sponsored content from a number of organizations like Virgin Mobile. This content will work better if it fits the BuzzFeed style and, to that end, the company has introduced the Social Storytelling Creator Program, "meant to seed the market with agencies and people that will do great work in the social storytelling space," writes Michael Sebastian in AdAge. Buzzfeed's president and COO, Jon Steinberg, says, "We want more people doing it in a high quality way." Participating agencies earn "accreditation," which includes a badge to add to their sites. Earning that badge requires extensive three-to-six-week training from BuzzFeed's branded content creative team. "Instead of relying on capturing attention in Instagram's busy photo stream, having each photo contain important information made their Instagram profile page a destination."

Must...post...something...clever...to...Pinterest...

Nearly half of U.S. moms occasionally suffer from Pinterest stress, "the worry that they're not crafty or creative enough," according to a USA Today study, reported by Rebecca Dube. The 42% of mothers admitting to Pinterest stress say they stay up late to sort through photos or "sob quietly into a burnt mess of expensive ingredients that were supposed to be adorable bunny cookies for the school bake sale," Dube writes. The article features Jenna Andersen, the blogger behind Pinterest Fail, "which chronicles Pinterest-inspired crafts and recipes gone oh-so-wrong." Andersen notes that it has become common to hear moms say things like, "It was just a little party, nothing I'd put up on Pinterest."

Saudi prince speaks out for open access to the Net

The Saudi Telecommunciation Authority plans to block social media platforms in order to give the government tighter control over what its citizens see. That doesn't set well with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who has called on the Authority to drop those plans, calling such censorship a "losing war," according to CNN writers Laura Smith-Spark and Samya Ayish. In his tweet, the prince wrote, "Social media is a tool for the people to make the government hear their voices. Just thinking of blocking them is a losing war, and a way to put more pressure on the citizens." Bin Talal and his investment firm hold a $300 million stake in Twitter, which might have something to do with his desire to keep the tweets flowing in his native country. but the article notes that the prominent businessman has more progressive views than the rest of the ruling elite.

Barnes Jewish Hospital has hired me as a keynote speaker at a conference set for July 23.
I'm the keynote speaker at Salt Lake City PRSA's conference on May 23.
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.

Have HC+T audit your internal communications

I'm in the midst of an internal communications audit for ESPN, just the latest client for which I've conducted in-depth research to assess the state of employee communications in order to make recommendations to produce measurable outcomes. If your internal communications could use a good going-over, 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.

Visit us at Holtz.com.

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