✅ Media Briefing #23: Words matter, PR planning, agency metrics, sludge vs nudge, TikTok tiers, sock puppet PR, and more…
Must read and watch, industry, practice, tools, social media and platforms, and events
Good morning. My name is Stephen Waddington. This is a weekly summary of news from my blog and topics discussed in a community of practice that I run on Facebook. You’d be welcome to join us. My thanks to all the contributors.
PREZLY OFFER: I’ve teamed up with all-in-one PR software tool Prezly to offer readers 20% off their first 12 months subscription. There’s also a free two-week trial. Prezly produces some great industry content such as this interview with TV and podcast host Christina Nicholson about pitching podcasts.
Must read and watch
📝 WORDS MATTER: A group of leading economists has written to BBC Director General Tim Davie criticising BBC reporting of the spending review. They claim that an analogy comparing credit card debt and household spending to government spending was misrepresentative. Spotted by Sarah Waddington.
🚨 FAKE NEWS PRIMER: A paper in Scientific American sets out how fake news spreads on Facebook and other social media. Google acts as both an amplifier and form of verification. Spotted by Andrew Smith.
🎬 NETFLIX RECOMMENDATION: Don't F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer is a dark Netflix documentary that explores the motivation and mental health of a social media troll. It’s a dark but fascinating Netflix original. Spotted by Shayoni Lynn.
Industry
📊 PR PLANNING: Gemma Moroney, co-founder of SHOOK, shares her favourite open source, low cost and paid for data sources for PR planning. She explains how she uses data and insights to improve the development of communication strategy. Source Gemma Moroney.
📏 AGENCY METRICS: These metrics help understand the health of an agency business and can be used as an aide to planning. They include key performance indicators such as staff/cost ratio that helps raise standards and profit. Source Stephen Waddington.
😤 SLUDGE VS NUDGE: Sludge describes a tactic that adds friction to a customer journey. Free sign-ups that lead to recurring subscription fees are a common example. Lynn PR’s newsletter explores the application of behavioural science in PR. Sign-up for more. (Disclosure I’m on the board of Lynn PR). Source Shayoni Lynn.
Practice
💻 ACTIVIST DOMAIN REDIRECT: Nigel Farage’s website NigelFarageMEP has been redirected to Michel Barnier’s website. Canny Glasgow SEO Craig Campbell bought the domain name after it recently expired a few weeks ago. Spotted by Craig McGill.
📱 TIKTOK TIERS: Citizens Advice has taken to TikTok to explain the tier system to young people in England as the nation comes out of the second lockdown. It's a good example of a tactic to level up audiences. Spotted by Stuart Bruce.
❌ SOCK PUPPET PR: A report casting doubt on the green credentials of electric vehicles is at the centre of a lobbying controversy. It was produced by Clarendon Communications, a PR company registered to the wife of a director at Aston Martin, and funded by Aston Martin, Bosch, Honda and McLaren. Spotted by Kath Middleditch.
📰 CORPORATE REPORTING: CEOs are being coached on words to avoid on investor calls, annual reports and other corporate disclosures, in a bid to avoid algorithms automatically downgrading stock. Words to avoid include "but". Spotted by Nigel Sarbutts.
Tools
🐤 TWITTER TOOL: Hoaxy tracks how articles spread across Twitter. It presents the data in a visualisation showing how retweets, quotes, mentions and replies propagate content from account to account. Spotted Andrew Smith.
🚫 SPOTTING MISINFORMATION: Fakey helps users learn how to spot misinformation. The game simulates a social media news feed, showing actual articles from low- and high-credibility sources. Spotted Andrew Smith.
Social media and platforms
SPOTIFY STORIES: Spotify has added Snapchat-style stories. Stories have been added to the majority of social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Just stop it. Spotted by Kristian Hoareau Foged.
🗞️ FACEBOOK NEWS: Facebook will launch a new tab on the platform in January. The platform has agreed a deal with mainstream outlets. Spotted by Mark Dye, Keith Lewis and Sarah Waddington.
💬 CUSTOMER SERVICE TOOLS: Facebook has acquired Kustomer for $1bn as its builds out services for businesses. Kustomer is a omni channel CRM platform used to manage customer conversations. Applications include sales and customer service. Spotted by Andrew Smith.
Events
📅 MENTAL HEALTH HALF HOUR: Join us on Wednesday 9 December at 4pm GMT as Chatelle Jeram leads the Mental Health Half Hour. It's a series of four practical, drop-in half-hour sessions to explore how you can get to your ideal state of mental wellness. The topic of this week’s discussion is ‘You know what to do...what stops you from doing it?’. Source Rod Cartwright.