✅ Monday briefing: FT Edit, trans 101, influencer marketing, public distrust, website energy crash, TikTok best practice, no authority, communication challenges, media usage, 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.
Thanks to Jamie Klingler, Catherine Frankpitt, Jessica Shepherd, and Ben Miller for speaking about best practice public engagement working with earned media at #WaddsCon March. We raised £500 for The BAY Foodbank in Newcastle. Here's the replay.
Jamie is speaking at TEDxKingston on 30 April if you want to catch her in person. Grab a ticket.
Thanks to our supporters Comms Hero, The PR Cavalry, PRCA, and Reuben Sinclair.
Media
📱 FT EDIT: The Financial Times has launched an app that it hopes will attract an audience beyond its traditional, professional readers. FT Edit provides a curated, daily selection of eight articles at 8am each weekday and a summary at weekends. It’s free for 30 days, then 99p a month for six months, and then £4.99 a month. Spotted Marcel Klebba.
Industry
👣 TRANS 101: TransMission PR has published a primer on the trans community. The agency’s goal is to positively influence the narrative for trans people in the UK by ensuring trans and non-binary people are an integral part of the conversation. Spotted Stephen Waddington.
🤳 INFLUENCER MARKETING: The Economist reports that influencer marketing has become a serious business accounting for around 3% of marketing budgets. Influencers provide an alternative to Google and Facebook ads and a bridge between entertainment and e-commerce. Source Andrew Bruce Smith.
Best and bad practice
🤥 PUBLIC DISTRUST: Meta paid a lobbying firm Targeted Victory to create public distrust about its rival TikTok according to The Washington Post. The campaign placed op-eds and letters to the editor in various publications, accusing TikTok of being a danger to US children. Spotted Stephen Waddington.
💥 WEBSITE CRASH: E.ON Next deleted a series of tweets this week that appeared to blame consumer expert Martin Lewis for its website crashing. Utility websites were placed under strain in the UK as consumers uploaded meter readings before the energy price cap rise. Spotted Julian Christopher.
🖼️ TIKTOK BEST PRACTICE: Public sector practitioner and trainer Dan Slee has evaluated five ways the public sector is using TikTok. It includes examples of campaigns for voter registration, health and wellbeing, and public service. Source Dan Slee.
⚖️ NO AUTHORITY: Jackie Weaver, the council clerk who shot to fame for ejecting bullying councillors from a Zoom meeting of Handforth Town Council acted without authority. An independent report found sympathy for Weaver’s situation but concluded that she acted without any legal footing. Spotted: Kristian Hoareau Foged.
Research and insight
🎖️ COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES: Challenges facing the communication profession include freedom of media and freedom of speech, media literacy and education, and new technology and digital media ethics. A paper published by ICCO outlines the issues and impact on public relations practice, and its role in finding solutions. Spotted David Gallagher.
🤳 MEDIA USAGE: Many children use private social media accounts; social media users are becoming scrollers not creators or sharers; children are dodging age restrictions to use social media; and social media is generally a force for positive social experience and wellbeing. These are the headlines from Ofcom’s latest report on the social media experiences of 8-17 year olds. Spotted Stephen Waddington.
Social media and platforms
😰 WATCHBAIT THROTTLED: Facebook is clamping down on watchbait videos that lure viewers into hitting play with sensational or misleading titles. The reach of rogue content will be throttled by the algorithm. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith.
📰 LIMITING MISINFORMATION: It has added new tools to help limit the spread of misinformation and limit the reach of false reports in partnership with its fact-checking partners. Google is adding a label to developing news stories which will alert searchers that the facts are still being clarified. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith.
📊 GOOGLE ANALYTICS: Google is set to retire Universal Analytics and replace it with Google Analytics 4. Universal Analytics properties will no longer capture or process any data after July 2023. The switch will require significant investment. Spotted Stephen Waddington.
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