HC+T Update: February 21, 2014

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

Subject: HC+T Update: February 21, 2014

Date: February 21st 2014

February 21, 2014
Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here.

Where does the telephone belong in your organization?

Once again, bloggers are discussing which department should be responsible for social media, with the usual suspects trotted out, including PR and marketing. But these days, social media isn't just a tool for reaching markets. Every employee has a potential use for social media, even those in engineering, product design, accounts receivable and HR. It's a tool for communicating with individuals and groups, just like the phone and email. Oversight needs to come from a group with the right set of skills, not the right department title. Read more

Listen up! You may be producing audio sooner than you think

Video goes viral while audio languishes. The reasons have been analyzed and dissected and, despite the organic, incremental growth of audiences of podcasts, audio still isn't a standard tool in the content marketing toolkit. A number of moves could change that, including experiments by NPR to increase the virality of audio clips and Wikipedia's introduction of sound to accompany biographical entries. Read more

This week on FIR

On episode 743 of the Hobson and Holtz Report, you'll hear an update on native advertising and brandjournalism, get an inside look at ADAC's PR crisis, learn how Oracle is teaching its sales staff to use their own personal social media in pursuit of customers, and find out how many European chief communication officers have social media responsibility. We also cover the top crises of 2013 and review three social media developments in air travel. You'll also hear Dan York's weekly tech report. Listen here
On Higher Education, host Kevin Anselmo talks with Contagious author Jonah Berger about why things catch on. Listen here
Mike Agron, CEO of WebAttracts, discusses how webinars can promote thought leadership on episode 10 of Thought Leadership with Mitchell Levy and Michael Procopio. Listen here
The importance of identifying key influencers is the topic as Todd Van Hoosear joins host Glenn Gaudet for the latest episode of AMP Up Your Social Media. Listen here
In addition to a rundown of B2B news, Paul Gillin and Allan Schoenberg interview Gary Wicks, Boeing Commercial Aircraft's leader of the company's Web Strategy Team. Listen here

The Friday Wrap is a weekly compendium of articles of interest to communicators that may h ave flown by under your radar. I collect stories from which I cull the items that will appear in the Wrap on my link blog, LinksFromShel.tumblr.com; I also draw on this curated collection for items I report on my podcast, The Hobson and Holtz Report. Feel free to follow the link blog to stay on top of all kinds of interesting news, reports and analysis.

Above the fold

Anyone can now blog on LinkedIn

LinkedIn's Influencer Program -- which serves as the source for LinkedIn Daily content -- has been accessible only by some high-profile business figures. Until now, that is. The business-focused social network announced Wednesday that it will "algorithmically distribute career-related articles written by any users" of the proprietary blogging platform. A Reuters article notes the move will lead to greater interest in the site as users "generate a steady stream of shareable content, providing a white-collar twist on how Facebook supplies its users a continuous stream of pictures or links from their friends."

Sharing is not the same as reading

There is no correlation between how much a piece of content is shared and how many times it's read. That's the conclusion of Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat, which tracks real-time data. According to Upworthy, content from which is shared at mind-boggling rates, people most likely to share the site's content are those who skim through 25% of a story as well as those who have read the entire piece. The point, according to MediaBistro, "when we're talking sponsored content, sharing isn't enough -- because a headline alone can't convey your client's story to the average reader no matter how fun it sounds."

Companies still aren't dealing with online customer complaints

More than half of companies don't have a strategy for dealing with the growing number of customer complaints posted to social channels, according to a study from Social Media Marketing University. In a news release, the university's founder said, "So many brands are buying into the 'friending equals spending' mentality. They want the benefits of social media but aren't truly aware of the investment of effort that's required to see a return. As a result, this lack of effort rarely produces desired results and can lead to alienation of customers, fans and followers. It can even escalate to a backlash of negativity." The study found 26.1% of brands reputations have been tarnished as a result of negative social media posts; 15.2% lost customers and 11.4% lost revenue. The story's in Bulldog Reporter's Daily 'Dog.

Below the fold

Little Bird launches

Marshall Kirkpatric left ReadWrite Web, the online tech news source, because he thought he could apply what he had learned about identifying who is likely to break news to a venture to help others benefit from his experience. The result is Little Bird, which announced $1.7 million in seed financing last week. The company's web app offers tools to help kidentify social influencers within a given field, according to VentureBeat; along with a ranked list of leaders in their fields, the software aggregates trending conversations among key leaders and provides tools to engage with them. Early buzz suggests Little Bird may achieve what other influence tracking services like Klout have been aiming for.

The other acquisition is almost as interesting as Facebook buying WhatsApp

It doesn't have the dizzying dollar amount that set headline writers reeling, but Lithium Technology's acquisition of Klout is still worthy of comment. Valued at $100 million, the deal brings together a provider of white-label social networks (used by organizations ranging from Home Depot to the American Diabetes Association) and the much maligned service that claims to measure your social media influence. Since Lithium's software relies heavily on gamification and ranking of users, it's easy to see how Klout could be integrated. (Disclaimer: I'm a certified Lithium community manager.) According to Danny Brown's post, the acquisition signals Klout's ultimate failure, but he speculates Lithium's interest might be "to identify influential customers (since Lithium serves the social customer industry), so that their issues can be resolved before they become an online crisis" or "perhaps it's access to the data that Klout has."

Etiquette for Glassholes

Not that many people are wearing Google Glass yet, and among those who do some have reportedly exhibited less-than-sterling behavior. As Google prepares to make the product available to everyone, the company has released a light-hearted guide to Glass etiquette. Among the tips, according to PR Week: Get permission before recording them and don't wear Glass while playing high-impact sports.

So it turns out HLN wasn't kidding around

Headline News announced a week or so ago that it was planning to become the television hub for social media users. We weren't quite sure what that meant until the network -- which once broadcast a half-hour news package every 30 minutes -- announced some of the shows coming in its lineup. They include a gameshow called "Keywords;" "I Can Haz NewsToons," featuring cartoons drawn from online sources; a show presenting stories from online classifieds called "One. Click. Away;" and "Videocracy," a countdown of trending entertainment news stories. If the new format takes off, watch for more networks to add their own social media-centric programming. Advertising Age has the story.

Sprinklr acquires Dachis

Dachis Group, which grew to become the largest social media-focused agency in the world with some 250 employees -- has been acquired by Sprinklr, the social media management software company. On his blog, Neville Hobson quotes a statement from the companies that says the merger "will meet the requirements for large brands and agencies who want a complete social relationship infrastructure that helps them manage social experiences at every touch point."

The problem with third-party content

Content a company publishes from an independent third party is valuable for B2B companies, since buyers find it highly credible. But according to a study by Oracle Eloqua and LookBookHQ -- reported on the Eloqua blog -- marketers are finding it difficult to "coherently integrate it within their own stories and narratives." Among the results pointing to problems with third-party content, only 12% of marketers are using content curation services, opting instead just to share links through their various social networks, blogs, websites, and email.

Chrome plugin said to produce stunning cold email response rates

Autopilot, a marketing automation company, has released a sales and marketing prospecting tool that has produced up to 42% reply rates on email, according to VentureBeat. Called Prospect Ace, the tool "helps marketers "get live, current email for people they find on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Quora, and other popular sites online." The plugin will set you back $199 a month.

Curator of social media policies publishes guide to employee advocacy software

Chris Boudreaux, who maintains the Social Media Governance website -- known for its database of social media policies -- has introduced a listing of venors offering employee advocacy software. " I found 24 vendors in this space today," Boudreaux wrote. "More will enter in 2014. As the space becomes more crowded, I want to help people make informed choices about the software they select to support these kinds of programs."

People swear a hell of a lot on Twitter

Last week a study revealed the disturbing frequency of racially insensitive -- or outright racist -- comments posted to Twitter. Now comes a study from Ohio's Wright State University that reveals Twitter users curse almost twice as much as previous studies have found -- 1.15% of their messages contain one or more of "a carefully selected list of 788 swear words." Time reports that the f-bomb accounts for 35% of all swearing on Twitter. Interestingly, the volume of cursing declines precipitously after Wednesdays.

Not enough for you? Here's more

I'm conducting a webinar in April for PeopleFluent. Details to come.
I'll be speaking at the global intranet conference from IntraTeam in Denmark on February 26-28.
I'll be on the program at IABC's Global Intranet Forum on March 6 and 7 in Los Angeles. Get details and register here.
On April 2, I'll do two sessions at the Ragan Communications conference at Walt Disney World.
I return to Sao Paulo, Brazil, in August for three days of teaching at the national communications association, ABERJE.
In October, I'm off to Warsaw, Poland to speak at an internal communication conference.

It's time to audit your internal communications

Holtz Communication + Technology delivers the most comprehensive and practical internal communications audit in the business. Let's talk.

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.

To unsubscribe from: [list_settings.list_name], just follow this link:

http://mail.holtz.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/hct/example/example.com/

Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.