✅ Monday briefing: Dasgupta review, ASA filters ruling, Reddit monitoring, Twitter calendar, Kollaboraoke, AMEC mentors, lockdown unconference and more

Best practice, media, insight, social media and platforms, tools, ]support and events

This newsletter is crowdsourced each week from my blog and Lockdown Facebook community.

Lockdown is a community of practice, created nine months ago, for people studying and working in marketing, media and PR. It’s a hive mind, newsroom and source of information, help and support.

You’d be welcome to join if you haven’t already.

Best practice

👥 SOCIAL SHARERS: Birmingham’s Director of Public Health has asked for volunteers to help share the city’s public health content in the fight against COVID-19 misinformation. Two-thirds of people are concerned about disinformation and two in five find it difficult to spot the difference between true and false content. Source Dan Slee.

💬 TWITTER CONVERSATIONS: The UK Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has used Wordnerds to gain insights from conversation on Twitter in a bid to improve its services. It helped secure investment for digital services for the Child Maintenance Service. Since launch its digital application process has reduced from 45 to 15 minutes. Spotted Stephen Waddington.

Media

🗞️ MAGAZINE COMMUNITIES: Magazine publishers are launching membership programmes to shore up falling ad revenue and build on the growing subscription numbers many have seen during COVID-19. Film magazine, Empire, has launched a VIP subscriber club that combines subscriptions to the print title and its Spoiler Special podcast. Spotted Alan Morrison.

📊 MEDIA RATINGS: AllSides has released the fourth version of its Media Bias Chart. It has updated ratings to account for fake news, media manipulation and misinformation. Notable movements include CNN’s online news which moved further left and Newsweek which moved from left to centre. Spotted Mark Stouse and Kristian Hoareau Foged.

Insight

📈 DASGUPTA REVIEW: The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review by Sir Partha Sarathi Dasgupta describes how free markets driven by financial metrics are damaging the natural environment by failing to place a value on natural assets. It’s been largely ignored by the advocates of ESG and corporate purpose. It should be a must read. Source Stephen Waddington.

🛒 LINKEDIN B2B SURVEY: The Age of Agilty, LinkedIn’s latest B2B Technology Buying Survey sets out five trends for growth: empowering the next generation; branded equity in the customer journey; the paradox of customer needs; creating spaces for conversations; and engaging end users for social proof. Spotted Andrew Smith.

📖 BOOK REVIEW: The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters describes the conflict between our chimp brain and our rational brain. Our emotional response to safety, food, sex and self-actualisation will always trump rational thinking. Recognise this and don’t be a dick. Source Stephen Waddington.

🤖 AI ETHICS: The Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI is report prepared by the EU High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence. It sets out seven key requirements for organisations building trustworthy systems including: Human agency and oversight; privacy and data governance; and societal and environmental well-being. Spotted Andrew Smith.

Social media and platforms

📷 MISLEADING FILTERS: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has warned influences not to use 'misleading' beauty filters if they exaggerate the effect of the product. The ASA was responding to the #filterdrop campaign that called for it to be compulsory for influencers to state when they use a filter to promote products. Spotted Jenni Field.

🖥️ REDDIT MONITORING: Brandwatch’s publication of a guide to monitoring conversation on Reddit is timely after a group of users drove GameStop stock up almost 20-fold in January by creating a buying frenzy. Reddit is an insightful and often ignored community. Spotted Stephen Waddington.

Tools

🐤 TWITTER CALENDAR: Twitter has published a series of regional content calendar for 2021. It’s a useful planning tool to help brands engage in conversations around events, occasions and trends. Spotted Alan Morrison. 

🔍 SEARCH CONTEXT: Google is rolling out a new feature during February alongside search results to help users understand the context of a result. It labels different types of information and credentials sources. Spotted Andrew Smith.

Support and events

🎤 KOLLABORAOKE IS BACK. Join the fun on 17 February from 7pm, GMT for more slides, confusion and plenty of laughs. Speakers present each other's slides. There’s two rules: slides are unseen before the event and there’s 45 seconds per slide. The event will raise money for food banks. Source Sharon O’Dea.

🎓 LOCKDOWN UNCONFERENCE: You’re invited to join a new Unconference learning and development event at 1pm-2pm GMT, 26 February. Better still, come and share an idea. Confirm sessions include developing junior talent and social media regulation. The complete agenda will be published next week. Source Stephen Waddington.

📏 MEASUREMENT MENTORS: AMEC has launched an international mentoring programme for senior professionals to join a supergroup of measurement mentors. Follow this link for further information and to apply. Source James Crawford.