News

Insurance company mired in controversy after Super Bowl ad -- Nationwide Insurance threw a wet towel into the Super Bowl. Amidst all the upbeat advertising, the company opted to feature a young boy explaining he would never experience the usual milestones in life because he had died. The ad was designed to start a discussion about preventable childhood deaths, and a company executive defended the spot, arguing that "if it saved on child, it's worth it." But Citi social media head Frank Eliason -- one of many parents who suffered the loss of a child -- writes that he has heard from hundreds of grieving parents sharing the pain the commercial caused them. He notes the company's response to complaints has angered him and others. "It's really sad that no one saw these issues before this ad was aired," he writes. "Companies need to make sure they are listening, and truly understand where people are coming from." Read more

Indiana governor pulls plug on news site -- Indiana Governor Mike Pence has shut down Just IN, a state-run news source that was criticized for being a propaganda source designed to compete with the press. Read more

Instagram hiring editors -- Photo sharing app Instagram is looking for at least five people to join a daily editorial production team that already has 12 staffers tasked with finding interesting users and writing features about them on the Instagram blog, driving interest in their photos and sparking greater use of the app. One recent hire is former Esquire, New York Magazine, and Sports Illustrated writer Alex Suskind. Read more

Twitter

New Twitter users see an "instant timeline" -- Twitter newcomers are no longer faced with an empty timeline, vacant until they begin finding people to follow. The company will introduce an "instant timeline" feature that will populate the timeline with content based on an analysis of your contacts to show tweets from a variety of users about topics you're interested in. Read more

Twitter ads to appear in third-party sites -- Promoted tweets are destined for sites outside of Twitter, including Flipboard and Yahoo Japan, with the same appearance that is native to the experiences on those sites. Based on the MoPub ad network Twitter bought two years ago, the company can hit more than 1 billion users on mobile devices across a number of Web properties. Read more

An Apple bug cost Twitter 4 million users -- Twitter's failure to impress with user numbers during its fourth-quarter earnings report, and the company is placing the blame on Apple. A change to iOS 8 included a bug that affected the way the platform integrates Twitter, resulting in the loss of 4 million users. Read more

Data Points

Race, ethnicity drive social media preferences -- The use of many social media sites varies based on race and ethnicity, according to a new Pew Research Center report. Latinos, blacks, and whites use social networks about the same, with about 80% of Latino, black, and white adults who are online using at least one of five major social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter), but site choices can be different. Instagram is more popular with Latinos while Pinterest resonates with whites. Blacks also prefer Instagram to Pinterest. Facebook is the preferred network for all three ethic/racial categories. Read more

Employees want the company to communicate about politics and public policy -- If you're wondering what kind of content to focus on in your internal communications effort -- content employees will actually consume -- consider talking about politics and public policy issues that have an impact on the organization. A poll found employers to be the most credible source for that kind of information, and delivering it can encourage civic engagement as employees understand why their companies have taken a particular stand and then become advocates for those issues. The Business-Industry Political Action Committee poll found 31% of respondents ranked their companies as the most credible source, while 53% said management should actively promote public policies that serve the company's interests and 63% said information sharing such information increases the likelihood that they will vote. Read more

Value of a Facebook fan varies by country -- The more desirable a demographic on Facebook, the more you'll spend to target an ad to it. According to an advertising software company that tracks what it costs to advertise via Facebook to different markets, there can be two or three orders of magnitude difference in cost. The cost per click for someone in Venezuela is 8 cents compared to $1.28 for someone in Norway, for example. Read more

Consumers are learning to ignore branded content -- A study of consumer responses to branded content found only 20% of branded content posts appearing on Facebook produced any kind of emotional response, suggesting the other 80% were completely ignored. Study authors labeled the phenomenon "content blindness" and said it's not unlike consumer ability to tune out TV or radio ads. The solution is more intense content, the authors say. Read more

Edison Share of Ear study expands to quarterly measurement -- Industry demand has led Edison research to double the releases of its Share of Ear data from twice yearly to quarterly. The report, introduced in May 2014, measures the share of time Americans spend listening to all audio sources. In the most recent study, podcasting saw sharp rises in its share of ear. Read more

Trends

Five apps to rule them all -- Consumers spend the vast majority of their app time with just five apps, according to a Forrester report. Consumers in the US and UK use 24 apps per month but spend more than 80% of the time using their five most time-consuming apps. In the US, these include Facebook, YouTube, Google Maps, Pandora, and Gmail. Read more

The rise of the mobile strategist -- Three-quarters of companies have established roles designed to put someone in charge of unifying, managing, and deploying a mobile strategy across the organization, according to a study from Backend as a Service provider Kinvey. Read more

Making the case of internal communications

This week on FIR

• On episode 793 of The Hobson & Holtz Report, Neville and I talk about whether microchipping employees is a good idea, scientific reasons to use emoticons in your business writing and social media, why online reputation is growing more important than money or power, and whether it's time to start thinking about a mobile-only strategy. We also report on Facebook's leadership in content sharing, the British Army's brigade for winning in the information age, Uber's pricing model's appearance in the workplace, and a new WhatsApp information service from a PR agency. Dan York also has his usual Tech Report. Listen
• Dan York shares the lowdown on markdown on episode 3 of FIR on Technology. Listen
• I interviewed Edison Research's Tom Webster about the company's Share of Ear research and its data pointing to a surge in podcast listening. Listen
• Joe, Gini, and Martin wonder how agencies should handle staff when they decide to close their doors and move on to greener pastures on Inside PR 397. Listen
• I spoke with Edelman's Steve Rubel for an FIR interview on an Edelman study addressing the characteristics of news items that people share online. Listen
• On Young PR Pros #79, Kristine and Julia riff on a Financial Post piece about PR professionals stepping out of the shadows cast by advertising and marketing departments. Listen
• Gareth Goh, content marketing manager for Insight Squared, is Glenn Gaudet's guest on AMP Up Your Social Media. Listen
• Is blogging dead or just evolving? That's the question tackled by Joe and Martin on episode 398 of Inside PR. Listen

• In February, I'll join Ann Wylie in Santa Fe, NM, for a two-day writing workshop.
• I'm speaking at a forum of the Health Department for the Confederacy of Treaty Six in Edmonton later this month.
• In March, I'll speak at Ragan's Digital Employee Communications Conference in Las Vegas.
• I'll speak at a Ragan conference devoted to visual communications and infographics in Chicago on March 2 and in Portland, Oregon on April 23.
• Ann Wylie and I are bringing our two-day writing workshop to Thrivent Financial in Minnesota in April.
• I'm speaking twice at the IABC World Conference in San Francisco in June.

Spend two days in Santa Fe with Ann Wylie and me

Visit us at Holtz.com.