✅ Monday briefing: Freelance talent, lockdown agency start-ups, open access, pandemic parenting, Facebook news block, Lockdown Unconference, and more...

Industry, media, practice, data and insight, social media and platforms, tools and events

This newsletter is crowdsourced each week from my blog and Lockdown Facebook community. Lockdown is a community of practice for people studying and working in marketing, media and PR. It’s a hive mind, newsroom and source of information, help and support. Our first Unconference takes place on 26 February. You’d be welcome to join if you haven’t already.

Industry

📥 FREELANCE TALENT: LinkedIn is rumoured to be developing a service to help users find and book freelancers. It’s an interesting example of innovation in professional services at scale that could impact the PR market alongside virtual agencies and platforms such as the PR Cavalry. Spotted James Crawford and Nigel Sarbutts.

🆕 LOCKDOWN AGENCY STARTUPS: Wadds Inc. is working on a project to characterise innovation in the UK PR agency market. We’ve identified more than 50 PR agencies started in 2020 and 2021. Please let me know if there’s anyone we’ve missed. Source Stephen Waddington.

🌦️ CLIMATE MISINFORMATION: The PRCA has launched a new climate misinformation initiative led by Don’t Cry Wolf’s John Brown. It’s seeking practitioner support for a survey aimed at gathering data ahead of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference in November. Source John Brown and Koray Camgoz. 

Media

📉 NEWSPAPER DECLINE: Benedict Evans takes a look at the decline of newspaper sales over the last decade. It’s a well trodden story about the rise of Google and Facebook and a shift in ad investment to the internet. Spotted Justin Kerr-Stevens. 

📰 REGIONAL COVERAGE: Reach is hiring 25 new journalists in a bid to expand its regional digital coverage. The recruitment drive aims to expand the company’s network of local news sites, including the launch of some new online brands. Spotted Alan Morrison.

Practice

📒 OPEN ACCESS: A lively Twitter discussion about Exploring PR and Management Communication raised the issue of open access publishing for research. It's an approach that universities are increasingly taking. Alternatively contact authors directly who'll usually send you a copy of their work. Source Stephen Waddington.

👎 COUNTERING DISINFORMATION: Fake news has become a catch all term to describe everything from omission to blatant falsehood. Practitioner and Councillor Stephen Canning calls on local authorities to rise to the challenge of becoming a clearly marked and credible, single source of truth. Source Stephen Canning.

🏢 SKYSCRAPER TECHNIQUE: Copyblogger.com’s Brian Dean defined the Skyscraper Technique to describe a content creation and distribution strategy. It’s based on finding link-worthy content, making it better, and reaching the right people to encourage links and shares. Google’s focus on quality makes it more pertinent than ever. Source Louise Linehan.

Data and insight

🤳 DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: A report by MIT Sloan Management Review explores shifting attitudes about leadership and management. Workforces expect digital transformation to better reflect and respect their concerns and values and not just boost business capabilities and opportunities. Spotted Jon White.

👪 PANDEMIC PARENTING: The CIPR has published a guide to parenting during the pandemic. It provides tips on how employers can support working parents during lockdown and how to talk to your manager about your circumstances. Spotted Sarah Waddington. 

📏 SOCIAL MEDIA BENCHMARKS: Engagement rates were flat on Facebook and Twitter in 2020. Instagram posting frequency continues to decline. These insights and more are included in the Rival IQ Social Media Industry Benchmark Report. Spotted Debbie Sharratt.

❓ PRACTITIONER SURVEY: #FuturePRoof has launched a Spring 2021 survey to benchmark skills in PR. We’re keen to explore the opportunity for PR following the COVID-19 crisis and the readiness of practitioners. We would appreciate you spending two minutes completing the survey. Source Sarah Waddington.

Social media and platforms

📊 CLUBHOUSE DATA: Audio chat app Clubhouse went viral among Chinese-speaking audiences before being blocked by the Chinese Government like other social media apps and platforms before it. Stanford Internet Observatory examines whether user data was protected from the Government. Spotted Rebecca Zeitlin.

🇦🇺 FACEBOOK NEWS BLOCK: Facebook is restricting content from news publishers in Australia in response to a proposed Media Bargaining law. Google has said it will negotiate direct payments to publishers rather than pull out of the market. It’s a situation that is the worst of all worlds for public discourse. Spotted Andrew Smith, David Brain, Ben Lowndes and Maja Pawinska Sims.

Tools

🎥 INSTAGRAM STORIES: Hootsuite has added content and production support for paid plans. Users can schedule images and stories and use on platform content libraries to ensure their story content is on-brand. Spotted Alan Morrison.

Events

📆 WADDS INC. UNCONFERENCE: Four presenters will each speak for five minutes followed by a 10 minute Q&A. Topics include diversity, developing junior talent during lockdown, PR reporting dashboards and the regulation of social media platforms. It’s an innovative learning and development event taking place on 1-2pm, 26 February. Source Stephen Waddington.