✅ Monday briefing: Social media guidelines, social media sourcing, C4 fightback, PR imposter syndrome, tech regulation, hiring tips, top consultancies, toxic beauty, Samsung slammed, and more...
WaddsCon May, media, industry, best and bad practice, research and insights, and events
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.
WaddsCon April suffered a tech fail but we’ve fixed the gremlins and got the team back together for 1-2pm on 25 May.
If you got a ticket for April, it’s transferable and we’ll share access information shortly. If not, please follow this link. If you’ve any questions, please hit reply to this email. Thanks for your patience and continued support.
Media
🐤 SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDELINES: The Guardian and The New York Times have both issued new guidelines for staff on social media. Journalists aren’t expected to be on social media although most are. The Guardian cautions against criticising colleagues and recommends scrubbing tweets regulars using a service such as Tweetdelete. Spotted Deborah Wroe.
🦮 SOCIAL MEDIA SOURCING: IPSO’s latest version of its social media guidance provides a framework for media publications that source stories via social media. It includes recent decisions by IPSO’s Complaints Committee as well as two podcast episodes covering social media and photography. Spotted Alan Morrison.
4⃣️ CHANNEL 4 FIGHT BACK: Channel 4 has published an alternative plan to the Government's planned privatisation. It includes retaining its content model working with the independent sector, investing in jobs outside London, and creating 250,000 training and development opportunities for young people. Spotted Stephen Waddington.
Industry
🤔 PR IMPOSTER SYNDROME: The reality of public relations practice doesn’t match up to its own perception of itself. Research shows that while our expertise is welcomed by the most senior managers within an organisation, only exceptional practitioners are deemed good enough to operate at this level. My PhD studies will explore this gap. Source Stephen Waddington.
📱 TECH REGULATOR: The UK is to shelve plans to provide statutory powers to a new tech regulator in the upcoming Queen’s Speech in a bid to curb the dominance of tech platforms. The Digital Markets Unit was announced in 2020 to bolster Britain's competition regime to prevent tech platforms from pushing out smaller firms and disadvantage consumers. Spotted Stephen Waddington.
👔 HIRING TIPS: Employers can address the talent crisis by developing their employee brand, broadening or opening up job specifications, and firm management of the recruitment process. Rohan Shah, founder, Reuben Sinclair, spoke to Paul Stollery for his recent Scaling Service newsletter. Source Paul Stollery.
🥇 TOP CONSULTANCIES: PRWeek has published its annual ranking of the UK’s 150 biggest PR consultancies. Brunswick retained the top spot in the table after growing its UK revenue by 24% to £81m, while several of the bigger consultancies bounced back from a disappointing 2020. Spotted Andy Barr.
Best and bad practice
🕊️ TOXIC BEAUTY: New research from Unilever brand Dove found that one in two girls say idealised beauty content on social media causes low self-esteem. The beauty brand set up a social experiment that uses Deepfake technology to expose the dangers of toxic beauty advice online in their aim to champion wider definitions of beauty and make social media a more positive environment. Spotted Elaine Fee.
🏃 SAMSUNG SLAMMED: A Samsung ad featuring a woman running alone at 2am has been heavily criticised by some women's running groups and safety campaigners for being "unrealistic". Samsung has since apologised. Spotted Julian Christopher.
Research and insight
🔄 COVID TURNAROUND: Airbnb’s business dropped by 80% and its IPO was shelved in 2020. Recovery strategies including switching programmatic ad budgets to earned media as the pandemic hit according to Twitter thread by CEO Brian Chesky. Spotted Kristian Hoareau Foged.
Social media and platforms
🤝 TWITTER NEWS SUMMARY: Elon Musk has made an offer to buy Twitter for $44 billion subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. The platform has been over counting users by as many as 1.9 million per quarter for the past three years. Finally, Twitter articles are in the works. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith and Stephen Waddington.
📈 RECORD LINKEDIN ENGAGEMENT: LinkedIn is benefiting from the COVID-19 talent boom. Active sessions grew by more than a fifth in the past quarter. Revenues are up 34% year-on-year to $3.44 billion. The network has 810 million users in 200 countries. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith and Stephen Waddington.
Events
📅 MISINFORMATION CELL: On Tuesday 10th May, 3pm-3:40pm, Head of Lynn PR's Misinformation Cell Stefan Rollnick will present the learnings and insights from his team's pro-bono work in support of Ukraine. To register your interest click here. Source Stefan Rollnick.
Hard Numbers, Lynn PR, and Reuben Sinclair are Wadds Inc. clients.