Dan York

There’s a lot that communicators and marketers can take away from the 2016 U.S. presidential election — about data and data analytics, about traditional campaigning vs. bottom-up campaigns, about planning for one outcome and having to deal with another. This week’s FIR panel — Christine Perkett, Augie Ray, and Lynette Young — unpack it all, along with some (gasp!) non-election topics. Here’s the rundown:

Election stories

• The pollsters, along with the data analysts who used poll data to make projections, got the outcome wrong. Are you making the same mistakes in your data analysis? What can you do about it?
• Did fact-checking even matter to voters?
• And what about the media, which played a huge role but wielded little influence? Does that mean anything for your media relations efforts?
• Some company leaders reacted to Donald Trump’s unexpected victory by making statements about their own preferences, which didn’t work out too well for them regardless of which side they took.
• Other companies put their corporate social responsibility on display on election day without taking partisan positions.
• Public affairs professionals were planning for a Clinton administration. Now they’re scrambling to figure out what a Trump presidency means to them.

Other reports

• Representatives from independent PR firms said they hire for attitude and culture more than skills and knowledge while being ruthless about demanding older staff “upskill.” Is this ageism at work?
• Dan York’s tech report covers another massive data breach and the annual “Freedom on the Net” report from Freedom House (which isn’t pretty).
• Are communicators measuring the right things? Is ROI a reasonable measure for most PR efforts?
• Most executives don’t trust the data and analytics they get from their own customer insights, relying more on their gut instincts. What does this mean for PR as the industry because more data-driven?
• 30% of CEOs are considering firing their CMOs for not developing the competencies required for digital business transformation.
• The Economist has given up on Pinterest and Tumblr and scaled back on Twitter, concentrating its resources on LinkedIn.

Connect with our panelists on Twitter at @MissusP, @AugieRay, and @LynetteRadio.

Links to the source material for this episode are on Contentle.

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

About today’s panel:

Christine Perkett founded PerkettPR in 1998 and SeeDepth, a PR analytics platform, in 2013. She has been named one of the ‘Top 25 Authorities Moving PR Forward’ in a recent industry study, and is routinely recognized as one of the most social media-savvy CEOs – currently ranked as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women on Twitter (by Hubspot), a “Top Influential Woman in Tech on Twitter” (by Google’s Don Dodge, alongside such greats as Marissa Mayer, WSJ’s Kara Swisher, Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington, and others), and featured two consecutive years in BusinessWeek’s Social Media Special Report (keeping company of notable CEOs from Zappos, Virgin, Digg, HDNet, Mint and more). Christine was also awarded “Best Communications, IR or PR Executive” by the American Business Awards.

Augie Ray is a Research Director covering customer experience for marketing leaders at Gartner. He has had a diverse career, including leading a digital experiential agency, directing social business at USAA and managing a global customer experience team at American Express. In his present role, Augie researches and advises clients on topics such as Voice of Customer, customer journey mapping, customer experience strategy and virtual reality.

Lynette Young is co-founder and Director of Marketing ClaimWizard, a software-as-a-service workflow management system for the public adjuster industry. She is a marketing technology strategist and published author with focus on digital marketing and implementation services. With over 25 years in technology, 17 of those years in digital marketing, she is well positioned as a “full-stack marketer” giving her a distinct advantage in today’s fast-paced business and environment. Over her professional career, Lynette has worked with clients of all sizes ranging from Google, Twitter, Harlequin Publishing, and American Airlines to HVAC installers, an email marketing service provider, local appliance retailers, other agencies, corporate franchises, and public adjusting firms. Lynette heads up the ClaimWizard digital marketing products and team. She maintains her speaking, mind-mapping, and podcasting activities at Purple Stripe Productions.

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