✅ Monday briefing #9: NHS comms, Twitter transparency, tackling Qanon, PR hiring, women forward, RIP Sir Ken, AI generated media, accessibility primer...

Research and reports, social media, industry, must read, tools, best practice, and business of influence

Good morning. My name is Stephen Waddington. I’m a professional advisor to agencies and communication teams.

This is a mix of articles from my own blog and content discussed in the marketing, media and PR community. My thanks to all the contributors.

Research and reports

🏥 NHS COMMS: A new report evaluates the COVID-19 comms response by the NHS. It finds a greater appreciation for communicators who, like other NHS staff, typically worked 25% longer hours. The crisis galvanised professional relationships and drove comms innovation. Source: Stuart Bruce.

🆘 SUPPORT INDUSTRY ANALYSIS: #FuturePRoof is investigating the ongoing impact of #COVID19 on comms. We'd appreciate 10 minutes of your time to complete this survey. We’ll share the data and our analysis in due course. Source: Sarah and Stephen Waddington.

Social media

👐 TWITTER TRANSPARENCY: The platform has replaced its biannual transparency reports with a website that aggregates disclosure data. It consists of historical data, trends, country comparisons and information about the enforcement of community rules. Source: Alan Morrison.

⛔ TACKLING QANON: Facebook has taken action against Qanon, the right-wing group that believes there is a deep state effort to undermine President Trump in the upcoming US elections. It has removed more than 790 groups, 100 pages and 1,500 ads related to the cause. Source: Stephen Waddington.

Industry

💼 PR HIRING: It’s brilliant to see agencies recruiting and hiring again: Don't Cry Wolf, Lynn PR, Hard Numbers, MHP, and Radioactive. Guild has started a group supporting people looking for work. Michelle Goodall hosts the group. Source: Stephen Waddington.

👩 WOMEN FORWARD: The international Women in Marketing has introduced a PR Communicator of the Year category. It has been created to recognise the role of communications highlighted by COVID-19. The deadline for entries is 30 September. Source: Maja Pawinska-Sims.

Must listen, read and watch

🚮 WHY DISINFORMATION STICKS: Nieman Labs’ Joshua Benton says we respond emotionally to disinformation and like folk stories pass it on. Meanwhile Laura Hazard Owen says that repetition fixes disinformation in our conscious making it seemingly true. Source: Andrew Smith.

👨‍🎓️ RIP SIR KEN: We said goodbye to Sir Ken Robinson, the Liverpudlian academic who lamented the modern education system for its industrialised approach. His thesis was that personal fulfilment lies in finding and nurturing talent. Source: Stephen Waddington.

💷 Q2 RESULTS: Advertising: Amazon, Facebook (nine million advertisers, what boycott?), Pinterest, and Snapchat strong; Google and Twitter down. Content: streaming up; print, radio, and TV down. Growth is benefiting self-service and programmatic advertising, and not agencies. Source: Stephen Waddington.

Tools

😆 AI GENERATED MEDIA: Rosebud AI has opened private beta for its Tokking Heads tool. It enables text, photos and video to be used to create photorealistic avatars and talking heads. Source Kerry Sheehan.

🔧 BRUCEY BONUS: Stuart Bruce has created a whopping list of free and low-cost PR tools. It is aimed at start-up or small PR agencies and freelance PR consultants. Source: Stuart Bruce.

Best practice

🔍 ACCESSIBILITY PRIMER: This is a useful blog post by media and PR platform PRgloo on the practical steps required to make public service web content accessible and compliant with the WCAG 2.1 web standard. The UK Government has set a deadline of 23 September. Source: Stephen Waddington.

📱 SOCIAL TO EARNED: PR agency 10Yetis wound Twitter users up with WorkOffYourDinner.com. A day later it landed coverage and links across UK tabloid-land. It's a neat tactic. The cheeky tool is also useful for fighting flab. Source: Andy Barr.

Business of influence

🤨 TEPID ON INFLUENCE: Media analyst WARC is lukewarm on the use of influencers in marketing. Its research suggests that 15% of followers would make a consumer purchasing decision based on a influencer. Source: Andrew Smith.

💪 HOT ON INFLUENCE: New investment in Gymshark values the nine-year-old company at £1bn. The firm shuns traditional advertising and high street shops for promotion, in favour of support from a network of athletes and Facebook and Instagram influencers. Source: Stephen Waddington

I’m taking a break next week and will be back as usual in your inbox at 8am on Monday, 7 September.