✅ Monday briefing: Comms communities, WaddsCon returns, European comms survey, Spotify crisis, native news ads, ethnic pay gap, in demand skills, project management tools, Twitter articles, and more…

Media, industry. best and bad practice, research and insight, social media and platforms

This newsletter is crowdsourced each week from my blog and community of practice for people studying and working in marketing, media and public relations. It’s a hive mind, newsroom and source of information, help and support. You’d be welcome to join us.

The initial enthusiasm that I had for my PhD research studies quickly subsided this week after I completed a skills audit. There are three areas in which my knowledge and expertise fall short for academic research: critical thinking, debate and argument, and reflective learning.

These skills may be why academia and practice have such an uneasy relationship in public relations. In practice we celebrate new and shiny things. We rarely apply critical thinking. In academia every question starts with a systematic review of the profession’s body of knowledge. You don’t need to be a scholar to spot the tension.

Media

📺 BBC THREE BACK: BBC Three has returned to TV screens for the first time in six years after Ofcom approved its relaunch as a broadcast channel. The new channel is running news bulletins mimicking the style of social media to bring back 16 to 24-year-old viewers. Spotted Alan Morrison.

Industry

🫂 COMMS COMMUNITIES: Accessible Social, Comms Creatives, CommsHero, Third Sector PR and Comms, NHSComms, and our own House of Marketing & PR provide a free platform for discussion and peer-to-peer support. They are important safe spaces for contributors. Source Helen Reynolds.

✅ WADDSCON RETURNS: We’ll announce the schedule for WaddsCon this week. We’re adding an additional session but we’ve still room for proposals for innovation in media relations practice, newsjacking, and the amplification of earned media results. Early pitches would be appreciated if these are your bag. Source Stephen Waddington.

ℹ️ EUROPEAN COMMS SURVEY: The European Communication Monitor (#ECM22) is the largest annual survey in strategic communication and PR worldwide and in 2022 is in its 16th year. It needs you input to get strong geographical representation. Source Ralph Tench.

Best and bad practice

🃏 THE JESTER: The Blackpool Tower Dungeon has erected a billboard in the centre of Manchester in a bid to find love for its character The Jester. Billboards in search of love may yet prove to be the new float-it-down-the-Thames creative campaign. Spotted Julian Christopher.

📋 LEVELLING-UP ERRORS: Parts of the UK Government’s Levelling Up White Paper appear to have been copied and pasted from Wikipedia. The policy paper also contains several errors including entire paragraphs that are repeated. Spotted Nigel Sarbutts.

📻 SPOTIFY CRISIS: The music streaming platform continues to standby podcaster Joe Rogan despite being called out for promoting his anti-vaccine rhetoric. Traffic to its subscription cancellation page almost doubled week on week according to SimilarWeb. Spotted Stephen Waddington.

Research and insight

📰 NATIVE NEWS ADS: Declining advertising revenue has led to news outlets relying on native advertising as a source of income according to a study by Nieman Lab. It says that the native ads are deceptive in their content and how they are shared on social media. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith. 

💷 ETHNIC PAY GAP: Marketing professionals from ethnically diverse backgrounds earn less than their white peers at every level of seniority according to Marketing Week. The analysis finds marketers from ethnic minorities are paid almost a quarter less than white counterparts. Spotted Karan Chadda.

👨‍🏫️ IN DEMAND SKILLS: Social media marketing, paid search strategy, and social media are the skills most likely to generate interest in your LinkedIn profile according to analysis by the platform. High performance, online marketing foundations, Google Analytics, and unconscious bias are among the top 10 LinkedIn learning courses. Spotted Alan Morrison.

Social media and platforms

👎 SOCIAL SHUT DOWN: Meta has threatened to shut down Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp in the European Union if it is not able to transfer, store and process data on US-based servers because of GDPR legislation. The company earns $6.8 billion per year from this market so the threat seems highly unlikely. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith.

🪛 PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS: Asana, Monday.com, and Trello are recommended as multi-team and multi-project management tools. Google Tasks and Outlook Tasks are useful personal tools for a personal to do list. Source Rebecca Taylor.

📰 TWITTER ARTICLES: Twitter is rumoured to be planning the launch of a long-form feature that will allow users to publish full-blown articles on the platform. It’s another sign of social networks becoming homogeneous. Source David Edmundson-Bird.