✅ Monday briefing: Socially Mobile launch, reporting terrorism, B2B thought leadership, stakeholder trust, search insights, search intent, and more...
Media, industry, research and insight, tools, social media and platforms, events, and postscript
This newsletter is crowdsourced each week from my blog and 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.
Thanks to the PRCA for awarding me the Mark Mellor, Outstanding Contribution Award last week.
Mark Mellor wrote to Steve Earl and I in September 1998, shortly after we started Rainier PR, to wish us well. It was a measure of his humanity that he took the time to wish an upstart competitor good luck.
He built Firefly along with Claire Walker and helped define and uphold professional standards through his work at the PRCA. His focus on workplace culture and wellbeing set the agenda for the industry.
I’ve dedicated the award to everyone who has offered their support to help Sarah Waddington CBE and I build Socially Mobile over the past year. We’ve launched to the first cohort of candidates. Please read on for details.
Media
🤕 REPORTING TERRORISM: A Survivors Against Terror (SAT) report calls on media not to call people injured in a terrorist attack or bereaved relatives for at least two days. Media should stop printing photos of attackers to avoid triggering secondary trauma. Spotted Alan Morrison.
👨💻️ MEDIA PITCHING ETHICS: The Verge has updated its public ethics policy in a bid to clearly set out its expectation of engagement with public relations professionals. It is seeking to readdress the balance with big tech companies which it claims routinely push the boundaries to deflect accountability. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith.
Industry
🚌 SOCIALLY MOBILE LAUNCH: The Community Interest Company has launched for candidates. Please make sure you look it up and consider either a funded or paid place if you’re in a tactical role and want to make the jump into management. Applications close on 3 December. Source Stephen Waddington.
Research and insight
🤔 B2B THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: A pandemic-induced glut of low-quality content is diluting the perceived value of thought leadership among B2B decision-makers according to a survey by Edelman and LinkedIn. Thought leadership is critical to customer engagement but please stop posting rubbish on the internet. You have been warned. Spotted Raf Weverbergh.
💬 STAKEHOLDER TRUST: Simon Baugh, Chief Executive, Government Communication Service said the fragmentation of media, information overload and speed, were critical issues for professional communicators in a speech at the CIPR's annual conference. Strategy and collaboration, listening and audience insight, and skills and capability, are critical to building trust with stakeholders, he said. Spotted Stuart Bruce.
🔮 SEARCH INSIGHTS: Automated content created by machines will not be ranked within Google search results. This is one of seven insights from the Google Relations team for the Search Off the Record podcast. The team also cover Javascript, URLs, meta tags, structured data, and voice search. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith.
Tools
🕵 SEARCH INTENT: Semrush just released a new search intent filter and added it to all its keyword-based reports. This allows you to identify the intent of any keyword as you research keywords, domains, and track positions. Answerthepublic provides a similar service using keyword visualisations. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith.
Social media and platforms
🤬 COMMUNITY STANDARDS: Facebook says that the prevalence of hate speech on the platform has continued to decrease for the fourth quarter in a row. It has been cut by half in the last year through improvements in technology and changes made to reduce problematic content in News Feed. Spotted Stephen Waddington.
👎🏽 DISLIKE BUTTON: YouTube is set to make the dislike count on videos private. The change comes because of attacks on users, where the dislike option has been used to harm a video’s performance. The change is being rolled out with immediate effect. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith.
🔍 PROFILE SEARCH: Twitter is adding a content search function on individual profiles. It enables a keyword search of tweets from an individual user. It is accessed direct from a profile page and is currently being rolled out to all users. Spotted Alan Morrison.
Events
📆 FIGHTING MISINFORMATION: Join Lynn PR CEO, Shayoni Lynn, and Head of Misinformation Cell, Stefan Rollnick, at 3:30pm on 22 November, for a discussion about the growing threat of misinformation and disinformation and its impact on professional communications. The discussion will focus on practical ways to counter misinformation. Source Shayoni Lynn and Stefan Rollnick.
Postscript
FOODBANK FUNDRAISER: We’re raising funds again in the run up to Christmas for The BAY Foodbank, our local food bank in Newcastle. If you’re among the 2,500 people that are regular readers of this newsletter, please consider donating. Demand is greater than ever this year because of rising food and energy costs, and Universal Credit cuts.
Here’s the small print and disclosure. Stephen Waddington is a founder with Sarah Waddington CBE of Socially Mobile. Lynn PR is a Wadds Inc. client.