✅ Monday briefing: Hyperlocal network, behaviour change communications, Oz search scrap, COVID-19, SEO keyword suggestions, Wadds Inc. Unconference and more…

Media, 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, 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. Our first Unconference takes place on 26 February.

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

Media

📶 HYPERLOCAL NETWORK: Hyperlocal news network Nub News is recruiting more journalists and expanding its presence to more than 100 UK towns this year. The announcement comes after Media Minister John Whittingdale praised the network for its continued growth. Spotted Alan Morrison.

Insight

🇪🇺 EU COMMUNICATION MONITOR: The 15th edition of the longest standing Communication Monitor aims to explore digital skills and media, virtual conferencing and future roles in strategic communication. You can participate by following this link. Source Ralph Tench.

🔀 BEHAVIOUR CHANGE COMMUNICATIONS: The Government Communications Service (GCS) has published a behaviour change best practice guide for professional communicators. The document sets out the practical application of behavioural science in communications. Spotted Andrew Smith.

🗣️ PLAIN SPEAKING: Plain speaking people who avoid jargon are confident about their subject. Buzzwords are used as a mask for insecurity and status according to a paper by researchers at Columbia and the University of Southern California. Spotted Michelle Goodall. 

🛍️ MESSY MIDDLE: Google set out three tips to untangle the so-called messy middle of the consumer purchase journey. These include brand presence, behavioural science and closing the gap between trigger and purchase through good UX design. Spotted Alan Morrison.

Social media and platforms

🥊 OZ SEARCH SCRAP: Australia is ground zero for the ongoing copyright debate between platforms and new publishers. Microsoft boss Satya Nadella has stepped into the fray, promising Prime Minister Scott Morrison that Bing will not follow Google and threaten to pull out of the market. Spotted David Brain.

💉 COVID-19 VACCINE INFLUENCERS: Elton John and Michael Cain appeared in a NHS England Twitter video encouraging the public to get the COVID-19 vaccine. It included a reenactment of Elton John getting the vaccine himself. Spotted Miranda Smith.

🐤 DISTRIBUTED SOCIAL NETWORK: A so-called Bluesky version of Twitter will enable users to create their own federated version of Twitter and select different versions of the algorithm. A tipping system is also in the works. Spotted Stephen Waddington and Becky McMichael.

🤳 TIKTOK TRENDS: Family, pets and education are the most popular content in the UK on TikTok. Its new trend report explores the content and conversation opportunities for brands in key markets around the world. Spotted Alan Morrison.

🍳 WEETABEANS: A Weetabix Twitter post showing an image of the breakfast cereal with baked beans received more than 37,000 retweets. Brands piled in to banter with Weetabix and the marketing industry broadly applauded the work. The impact on sales is unknown. Spotted Danny Abbasi.

Tools

💬 SEO KEYWORD SUGGESTIONS: The UberSuggest Chrome Extension provides an estimated traffic figure for a keyword. It also shows other ranking keywords, Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) page position and estimated traffic by keyword. Spotted Andrew Smith.

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.

🎙️ 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 are 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.