October 2017 archive

Neville Hobson joined Shel Holtz for the October edition of the monthly Hobson & Holtz Report. This month’s topics:

• 

  Shel and Neville in November 2014, at Runnymede, site of the signing of the Magna Carta

  Three distinguished PhDs propose a Magna Carta for Artificial Intelligence. Too soon?

• Research establishes a connection between CEOs who mangle English during analyst calls and falling share prices.
• What can PR agencies and associations do to build a reputation of trust in the wake of the Bell Pottinger scandal?
• New data points reinforce the importance of companies taking positions on social and political issues. Most importantly, Edelman’s 2017 Earned Brand study found that 30% of consumers are “belief-driven” buyers.
• In the UK, political activists are using an app to influence party conference votes.
• Two crises — one from Facebook and one from Unilever’s Dove brand — were both completely avoidable.
• Dan York’s tech report covers a women’s boycott of Twitter pushed people to give the Twitter alternative, Mastodon, a try; podcast app Castbox has a new in-audio search function.

Connect with Neville on Twitter at @jangles.

Check out Neville’s Small Data Forum Podcast (available at a new website).

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

About Neville Hobson:

Neville Hobson was co-host of The Hobson & Holtz Report for over 10 years. For over 15 years, Neville has been a voice of experience and influence when it comes to speaking about digital technologies, disruptive change in workplaces and marketplaces, relevant trends to pay close attention to, and what it all means for your business. His experiences embrace deep understanding and subject-matter expertise in contemporary business issues that include social, digital and cognitive technologies, connecting that with a career in traditional public relations, marketing communication, employee compensation and benefits communication, and investor relations. Based in the Thames Valley some 30 miles west of London, Neville works either from his home office or from a client’s location; or from wherever he has a good network connection.

Links from this episode:

• There’s a link between CEOs who torture the English language and poor stock performance
• Post Bell Pottinger, public relations must focus on its own reputation
• Consumers say brands must take the lead in breaking gender stereotypes
• The 2017 Edelman Earned Brand Study
• Momentum’s new activism app could change politics forever
• App brings lets shareholders vote their proxies with a swipe
• Mark Zuckerberg apologies for tone-deaf virtual tour of hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico
• Unilver apology fails to quell outrage over Dove’s Facebook ad
• Castbox

The post FIR #109: CEOs Torturing English appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Kami Huyse and Lee Odden joined host Shel Holtz for conversations about these topics:

• The challenges of fake news and trolling during a crisis
• The financial firm behind the “Fearless Girl” Wall Street sculpture will pay $5 million for allegedly underpaying women and minorities
• Cause marketing is on advertisers’ minds as new research reveals the rise of the belief-driven buyer
• Research finds communicators are slow to adopt new technology (and still mostly rely on email to communicate)
• Business blogging leads to more website visitors (and other good outcomes)
• Dan York reports on another data breach (this time it’s Disqus); Yahoo’s data breach, which affects all 3 billion accounts; AOL’s decision to shut down AIM; and Tim O’Reilly’s new book, “WTF: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us.”

Connect with our guests via Twitter at @KamiChat and @LeeOdden.

Kami’s new podcast, which she co-hosts with Madalyn Sklar, is Communities That Convert.

Open positions at Lee’s company, TopRank Marketing, are listed on TopRank’s website.

Links to content addressed during the show appear at the end of this post.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

About today’s guest co-hosts:

Kami Huyse is the founder of Zoetica Media. She writes an award-winning blog, Zoetica Talks, on the topic of public relations and social media strategy. Kami is a national leader in the use of social media for public relations. She speaks at social media events and conferences all over the country and her work in social media has earned her the SNCR’s 2008 Reputation Management award and IABC’s 2009 Gold Quill of Excellence Award. Kami was a 2010 fellow of the Society for New Communications Research where she pursued a study on how cause marketing in social communities can benefit companies. She is also the co-founder and organizer of the Social Media Breakfast Houston and serves on the board of CiviliNation.

Cited by the Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Forbes for his marketing expertise, Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing, an internationally respected digital marketing agency that provides consulting for some of the most successful companies in the world. Lee’s evangelism for an integrated approach to search, social media, influencer and content marketing has extended over 100 events in 12 different countries. He blogs at marketingblog.com and is the author of Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing. Lee is least known for founding “Marketers with Beards” the most infamous Facebook group dedicated to marketers with beards.

Links from this episode:

• Las Vegas shooting: Hoaxes spread on social media, amplified by Facebook, Google
• In wake of Las Vegas shooting, fake news on social media takes personal toll
• Financial Firm Behind ‘Fearless Girl’ Will Pay $5 Million for Allegedly Underpaying Women and Minorities
• Company behind ‘Fearless Girl’ statue owes $5 million for underpaying black and female execs
• Bowing to the Inevitable, Advertisers Embrace Advocate Role
• This college dropout turned a class project into a $20 million company to help kids with cancer
• We Can Control Our Communications Technology Destiny
• Study Shows Business Blogging Leads to 55% More Website Visitors
• Disqus Blog: Security Alert: User Info Breach
• Every single Yahoo account was hacked – 3 billion in all
• AOL Instant Messenger is shutting down after 20 years
• Tim O’Reilly: Algorithms Have Already Gone Rogue
• What’s the Future and Why it’s Up to Us, the new book by Tim O’Reilly

The post FIR #108: Communicators’ Steep Technology Adoption Curve appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Deirdre Breakenridge and Elizabeth Sosnow joined host Shel Holtz for conversations about these topics:

• Twitter is doubling the character count for a tweet from 140 to 280. Not surprisingly, opinions vary on whether this is a good idea.
• Rather than touting the benefits Artificial Intelligence can bring to their products and services, companies are simply saying, “We’ve got AI!” The AI-washing needs to stop.
• Citibank has a music strategy for its latest ad campaign. Does the focus on music mean words are on the wane?
• Most communicators still haven’t heard of blockchain, but there are those who are already having to navigate its complicated world.
• A study finds that publishers who pivoted to video have suffered massive declines in page views. Wasn’t everything supposed to be pivoting to video?
• Dan York reports on developments in the world of live streaming video along with an update on the WordPress editor, Gutenberg.

Connect with our guests via Twitter at @debreakenridge and @ElizabethSosnow.

Beginning with this episode, we will post links to content addressed during the show directly in the show notes. They appear at the end of the post.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

FIR is recorded with Zencastr.

About today’s guest co-hosts:

Deirdre Breakenridge is the CEO of Pure Performance Communications. A 25+ year veteran in PR and marketing, she is the author of six business books with her newest book, Answers for Modern Communicators to be published by Routledge in the fall 2017. Her other recent titles include, Social Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional,” “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations,” and “PR 2.0, New Media, New Tools, New Audiences.” Breakenridge speaks nationally and internationally on the topics of PR, marketing, branding and social media. She is an adjunct professor at UMASS at Amherst, and an online instructor for Rutgers University. She is also a LinkedIn video instructor with three PR courses published in 2015 and 2016 and two more marketing courses to be published in 2017. Breakenridge hosts the podcast show, Women Worldwide and is a blogger at PR Expanded. She was named by Traackr as one of the top Social Media Engagers in 2014, awarded the Best 50 Women in Business by NJBIZ in 2015, and recognized on the Richtopia 250 Most Influential Women Leaders in the World List in 2016 and 2017.

Since 1996, Elizabeth Sosnow has been part of the management team responsible for the Bliss Integrated Communication‘s overall operations and strategic direction. As Managing Partner and co-owner, she creates and oversees integrated marketing strategy and execution for large professional and financial services accounts. Elizabeth directs the firm’s digital activities, helping major clients and colleagues assess and maximize audience engagement via evolving communications tools. She oversees the firm’s award-winning company blog, The Blend, and has her own vlog, Marketing Espresso Shots. Elizabeth is the past Chair of the Digital Practice for Worldcom’s Global Board of Directors and previously held that position for the Americas region Board of Directors. Her own guest blog posts have appeared in Convince and Convert, PR Daily, Content Marketing Institute, and Communications Conversations, among many others. She was recently named one of “50 Game Changers of PR” by PR News.

Links for this episode:

• Twitter trials an expansion beyond 140 characters
• Twitter testing 280-character tweets
• 140-characters, the defining quirk of Twitter, becomes a relic of the past
• Twitter gives brands space to run, brands run badly
• Twitter users respond to 280-character limit – mostly in 140 characters
• Of course brands are already joking about Twitter’s new 280-character limit
• Twitter’s 280-character tweets are fine
• Companies need to stop AI-washing their products
• AI will turn PR people into superheroes within one year
• PR firms start using AI for mundane tasks
• Why you’ll recognize the tunes in Citi’s new campaign
• Comms pros navigate the complex world of blockchain
• The secret cost of pivoting to video

Links from Dan York’s report:

• Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js
• Vimeo Live is here
• Big news: Vimeo goes life
• Vimeo acquires Livestream, launches its own live video product
• Introducing Cloudflare Stream: Fixing the Streaming Video Market
• How Cloudflare Streams
• Cloudflare Stream

The post FIR #107: Words and Music appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.