HC+T Update: June 28, 2013

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

Subject: HC+T Update: June 28, 2013

Date: June 28th 2013

June 28, 2013
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I spent much of this week in New York for IABC's annual World Conference, where the a lot of sessions focused on digital and social media. I was happy to see a lot of sessions looking at communication strategies, and even one in which a dynamic culture change program for a coffee company with a lot of retail outlets (not Starbucks) focused on print, which makes perfect sense for retail employees who don't work on computers. (It was brilliant!) If you've never been to an IABC conference, consider joining me next year in Toronto. Let's get to the news.

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

High-powered panel of leaders shows we have a long, long way to go with social media

One of the general sessions at the IABC World Conference featured a panel of senior leaders, investment fund managers, journalists, outside directors and others who role-played a crisis that unfolded online for a fictional company. For all the insights their years of experience in the C-suite gave them, those playing company leaders ignored the role of the customer in social networks and the role of employees whose employer is listed in their social network profiles. The failure to understand the real-world media environment demonstrated (at least for me) the fact that someone still needs to be focused on social media, able to advise leadership. As for the failure to recognize the role employees should play, one would hope that the communications officer in a real organization would have a handle on it, as would the social media manager.

Introducing SME2, mapping your staff competencies to your company's social media goals

For the last six months or so, I've been working quietly with my colleagues Mark Dollins (formerly of PepsiCo) and Richard Binhammer (formerly of Dell) to develop the tools for a new venture we're calling SME² (for social media excellence x subject matter expertise). We have identified more than 30 social media competencies in four categories. The idea is to figure out which competencies your staff has -- and at what level (entry-level, intermediate or strategic), then map those against your social/digital strategy to identify gaps. From that, we can propose structural realignments of your staff resources, training, hiring and outsourcing solutions. We've conducted a couple media briefings, which have gone extremely well -- one analyst said this was the missing link in operationalizing social media. (You can imagine how gratified we were by that!) We've also been interviewed by PRWeek. (I'll let you know when the article is published.) In the meantime, this post covers the details.

This week on For Immediate Release

Have you listened to FIR yet? I was delighted at the number of people who approached me at the IABC World Conference to tell me how much they looked forward to and relied on FIR! I'd be honored to add you to the ranks of listeners. This week, my podcast partner Neville Hobson interviewed Nick James, founder of Fresh Business Thinking and organizer of the Digital Marketing Show in London, about the issues facing High Street. Neville also had solo duties on episode 709, since I was in New York. he did a great job covering the Dachis Social Business Summit and a tool that provides the background hum of a coffee shop to boost your creativity. Michael Netzley contributed his Asia report and Dan York covered his usual fascinating ar ray of technology topics.

You can peruse the entire collection of articles from which I selected these items on my link blog at LinksFromShel.tumblr.com.

Replay that Twitter stream

Twitter continues to experiment with new services and features as it positions itself to be profitable and continue attracting new users. The latest of these was telegraphed by CEO Dick Costolo on Wednesday: features to make it easier to follow tweets covering a live event. While he said it's still up to journalists to analyze and curate information distributed via Twitter during a live event, Costolo said, the company is experimenting with a live events tool that will separate the signal from the noise. "It would be nice to see things like a graphic of spikes in the conversation, what time they happened...and be able to scroll back to that time to see what happened at that particular moment," Costolo said, according to a TechCrunch report from Sarah Perez. He also noted that "Twitter would like to offer that same functionality to user s, even if they're watching the event on a delayed basis. He described this as being able to 'follow along with Twitter in a DVR mode.'" Costolo also talked about tools to filter out cyberbullying.

Brands waste no time posting Instagram videos

Instagram video was introduced less than two weeks ago but already brands from the world's of fashion and engineering have posted videos using the tool. General Electric has a 15-second video of a nightime test of an airplane turbine engine while Burberry has used the stop-and-start feature of the app to share highlights of its latest men's fashion show. Others to post videos including Red Vines (the red licorice whip candy) and fashion shops Diane Von Furstenberg, Michael Kors and Lululemon. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom insists the 15-second video length is simply a sweet spot, "the right balance between not too short, 'which constrains your creativity,' and not too long, writes AdAge's Cotton Delo. "'It's that Goldilocks moment -- it just feels right." There are other opinions about the length, nine seconds longer than Vine's six-second videos. Quartz's Christopher Mims points out that Instagram videos are the same length as television commercials. That means "advertisers can drop in their short television spots without even modifying them," he writes. "This is an important but overlooked feature of online video ads, when compared to other kinds like banner and search: the ability to re-use the same creative on which advertisers have already spent so much money. That's an extremely appealing advantage to ad buyers."

As it turns 10, is there a second life for Second Life?

Among the social media channels getting a lot of buzz a few years back, Second Life stood out. It wasn't the only immersive 3D network, but it was the most popular in North America, and brands like Nissan and Colgate flocked to experiment with marketing in the Second Life's fantastical, user-created landscapes. It didn't work out for marketers -- the escape from reality was part of the appeal to users, who didn't appreciate the reality of product marketing intruding on the fantasy. Second Life just celebrated its 10th anniversary with a population of users who drop in to chat with friends, attend events (some companies still use it as a virtual training platform) or to play games, but not so much to explore the vibrant worlds others have created. According to GigaOm guest contributor Wagner James Au, who has been writing about Second Life since its' ince ption, the virtual world may be on the road to a comeback after years of social media irrelevance. Au details the flaws in Second Life's strategy up until now, but notes that owner Linden Lab "will soon introduce a version of SL that runs on Oculus Rift, the widely admired virtual reality headset (which just secured $15 million in funding). This move," Au suggests, "echoes a prediction made by original Second Life investor Mitch Kapor, who insisted to me back in 2009 -- after SL's major hype had cooled -- that it would still become a mass-market product."

The organic approach to social media could be hurting ROI

If you ask ZD|Net's Dion Hinchcliffe, social business (the application of social media to the enterprise) is mired in the trough of disillusionment, that unhappy stage in Gartner's hype cycle. That doesn't mean organization's aren't buying into the social enterprise. "In fact," writes Hinchcliffe, "nearly two-thirds of companies currently use social media to engage with customers and 49 percent to advertise, according to Stanford's 2012 Social Media Survey. What's more, internal social networks are on target to be key elements of the workplace experience in most enterprises by 2016." Commercial services like Facebook and LinkedIn brought with them "the return of the dreaded walled garden from the early Internet era." Studies from a variety of sources point to the same conclusion: "Only when the barriers between our social silos are torn down will we realize the full potential of social business." How might this happen? According to Hinchcliffe, the adoption of effective open standards could be the answer. "But will commercial services adopt them? Their executives and shareholders are likely not to agree. Are there other solutions? Possibly. Either way, if social media is to progress to the plateau of productivity, we must figure this out." Hinchcliffe's analysis is well worth the time for anyone investing time and resources in these walled-garden networks.

How to adjust guest blogging to accommodate Google's latest algorithm updates

Good updated to version 2.0 its Penguin algorithm, which could have an impact on your organization's blog, particularly if you've implemented guest blogging as a regular feature. The Penguin 2.0 updates is designed to address abuses in guest blogging. "Where guest posting goes wrong is by treating it like article marketing 2.0," writes Jayson DeMers for Forbes. "The main similarity is that it requires a solid tranche of original content. But the whole concept of guest posting -- finding active, quality communities and offering content that creates value for that blogger and their readers -- is different than just plastering your content across the web." Solid links are an important part of the equation. Penguin 2.0 made the criteria clear, DeMers says: it comes from high-quality, relevant sites "with an overall topic, content, and community that comes together around your particular issues. Finally, the site should have an active community thatâs generating fresh content through comments while also sending social signals by sharing good content on Facebook, Twitter, and other networks." Guest blogging, he says, puts all these factors into play. Proper guest posting, according to DeMers, focuses on quality articles, unique anchor text, links to other authoritative sources, author trails, strong social signals and quality sites. The article also offers advice on how to be ready for future Penguin updates that could punish inappropriate guest blogging tactics.

Media CEOs and readers alike remain firmly behind print

If you're in the "print is dead" camp, you should know that the leaders of the world's biggest media companies don't agree. At the recent meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, executives from several of the top U.S. media companies "reiterated their support for print newspapers, even as they emphasized that content quality matters more in satisfying readers than fretting over distribution platforms," Roger Yu writes for USA Today. "'We think the experience our readers have first thing in the morning with their cup of coffee is very important,' said Patrick Talamantes, CEO of McClatchy, owner of 30 newspapers, during a panel discussion." He added that there is a "zero percent" chance of cutting back or eliminating print anytime in the next five years. Nevertheless, media companies have transitioned away from a print-first mindset, with reporters now pressured "to file in real time online and update as the story develops." Gannett's Gracia Martore told the audience, "Print serves a role, but digital platforms are increasingly important. We've got to get off worrying about platforms." It's not just media bigwigs insisting print is viable. Writing for Good eReader, Mercy Pilkington reports that a new Pew Internet & American Life study revealed that digital natives "prefer to read print editions while reserving their devices for personal or social use." The same under-30 group likes libraries and the print materials they contain, with many arguing libraries should not "automate most library services, move most services online, or move print books out of public areas."

Yammer adds Klout to showcase employee influence

Yammer continues to infiltrate the enterprise as some observers (myself among them) come to believe that the activity stream represents a key tool in the effort to reduce employees' information overload. With the integration of Klout -- the controversial tool for ranking the influence of social media participants -- Yammer users will be able to add their Klout scores to their profiles, notes Vignesh Ramachandran, writing for Mashable. "Companies can also set up employees' profiles so they receive Yammer-specific Klout scores, which are determined by engagement with the company's Yammer network," he writes. This could be useful, as employees are quickly able to see which of their co-workers have influence within the organization, enabling them to better focus on high-value content and to build the most relevant relationships. Microsoft, which owns Yammer, says the internal social networking tool has 8 milli on users and that user activity has doubled since last year.

Anonymous social network launched in shadow of NSA snooping revelations

A new social network dubbed Duvamis launched last week with little fanfare; in fact, the founders (whoever they were) were mute as Duvamis opened its doors to completely anonymous participation that "lets people be who they really are," according to Michael del Castillo in an article for Upstart Business Journal. He explains that Duvamis "lets its users create their own persona -- whether it be animal, object, human or anything else -- and embody as many of those 'virtual visions,' as the company calls them, as they want." In an interview, the founders (who remain anonymous) insist that the revelations of big social networks turning over user data to the National Security Agency are coincidental, "We are now seen as an alternative to other platforms that openly collect data and monitor user activity."

If Duvamis doesn't do it for you, maybe Potluck will

Fortune reports that another alternative social network is arriving. This one, Potluck, is "organized around virtual rooms, each with a different discussion topic; there's also a greater emphasis on what a user's friends are talking about and also the friends." The network is designed to those who resist the pressure to post pithy updates and therefore stay away from the mainstream social networks. Reporter JP Mangalindan explains, "Potluck tries to ease the pain by emphasizing the discussion topics, not individual users. Case in point: The Friend Activity feed doesn't initially show who shared an item, only the topic or link and the number of friends talking about it. In that way, Potluck could become another way for Internet users to share -- only this time, stress-free."

Content sharing surging on Google+

Google+ users will share more content than Facebook users by February 2016, a new study from Searchmatics asserts. Writing in The Drum, Jennifer Faull says monthly growth of Facebook shares stands at around 10% while it's nearly 20% on Google+. "By May 2016 Google+ would be predicted to achieve around 1096 billion shares per month while Facebook would be generating approximately 849 billion shares per month," she writes.

Facebook wants to become your default mobile news reader

For more than a year, Facebook's coders have been working on a project called Reader, which culls content from Facebook users and publishers -- particularly news content -- and displays them in a format designed for mobile devices. In fact, recent iterations bear a resemblance to Flipboard, according to Evelyn M. Rusli in a Wall Street Journal article. "While it's unclear when Facebook will be ready to unveil the product, if it ever is, the Reader project is a sign the company is trying to get users to spend more time with it on mobile devices -- and to see more ads," Rusli writes.

On July 10 and 11, I'm conducting social media training for the communications staff at the International Monetary Fund. The training is the result of a substantive research effort to ensure the training is relevant to the Fund's communication strategies.
Barnes Jewish Hospital has hired me as a keynote speaker at a conference set for July 23.
I'm presenting three sessions at the World Council of Credit Union's annual meeting in Ottawa, Canada July 14-17.
I'm speaking on employee audience segmentation at an Expedia conference on June 19 in Seattle.
In August, I'm off to Sao Paulo, Brazil, to teach an executive communications certificate program for ABERJE.
On August 12, I'm speaking to Goodwill staff in San Jose, California.
On August 15, I'm speaking at a Ragan Communications conference at PG&E headquarters in San Francisco.
On September 25, I'm speaking at an Intuit conference for its company communicators and writers on the writer's role in the social visual communication world.
I'm speaking about gamification to IABC/Orange County on October 8.
I'll have a speaking slot at Ragan's Intranet Summit in Chicago on October 16.
I have three speaking gigs the week of October 20: one at the Canada regional IABC conference, one at The Mayo Clinic, and one at IABC's intranet conference in New York, held in conjunction with Prescient Digital Media.

Strategic Planning

HC+T works with your organization in a collaborative fashion to develop strategic plans that are aligned with business objectives, measurable and actionable. Whether you're updating an existing plan or developing one from scratch, we can help. HC+T is experienced in strategic planning for social and digital media, employee communications and a host of other communication disciplines. Give us 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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