Monday briefing #5: A love letter to regional media, paid Twitter, PR foul play, bot catcher, women in PR research, community support, and more

Media, social media, commercial break, innovation and research

Good morning. My name is Stephen Waddington. This is a mix of articles from my own blog and content discussed in the marketing, media and PR community. My thanks to all the contributors.

Media

♥️ PR PLEA: In a love letter to local media, Manifest’s Niamh Spence highlights its importance as the heart, soul and voice of communities. She calls out the important of investigative reporting and its role in digging out stories. Source: Niamh Spence.

😢 RIP Q: We said goodbye to Q magazine after 34 years celebrating music. Publisher Bauer Media blamed falling circulation and losses due to the COVID-19 crisis. Spotted by: Stuart Bruce.

👛 MICRO PAYMENTS: Axate is a micro payment platform for a group of local papers and niche titles. It uses an online wallet that grants access to sites in its network. A broad range of titles will be critical to success. Spotted by Nigel Sarbutts.

Social media

🐤 PAID TWITTER: The social media platform is looking at subscription options after a drop in ad revenue during the COVID-19 crisis. It could help clean up the platform. Paid for services are usually better quality. Spotted by: Andrew Smith.

👎 AD BOYCOTT: Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun expects the Facebook ad boycott to continue. “I don’t see it quietening down because I can see the determination of our clients to make things change.” However, the impact is limited because of the long tail of advertisers. Spotted by: Julio Romo.

😡 SOCIAL MEDIA SLAMMED: Instagram and Twitter have been criticised by Home Secretary Priti Patel for failing to quickly remove anti-Semitic posts by grime artist Wiley. The case spotlights the ongoing debate about the responsibility of social media platforms as publishers. Spotted by Russell Goldsmith.

😦 PR FOULPLAY: The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard case concludes this week. Heard’s side alleges that social media discourse has been weaponised during the case by fans, dodgy video clips and Twitter bots. Spotted by: Sarah Waddington.

Commercial break

🌱 COVID-19 OPPORTUNIES: I engage with agencies and communication teams as an advisor, non-executive director, mentor, and speaker, providing pragmatic and straightforward advice and execution. This week I wrote about COVID-19 opportunities for agencies.

Innovation

🔧 TOOL STACK: MartechGuru is a platform that helps make sense of the tool market. It provides a visual blueprint of your tech stack and helps map integrations and costs. Spotted by: Andrew Smith.

🔨 TOOL DATABASE: Velocity's Agu Rejón has updated the Martechbase with Scott Brinker’s MarTech 2020 dataset. The updated version includes a blueprint map to visualise your own tool stack. Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.

🎨 VIRTUAL CREATIVE: Miro is my tool of the week and possibly lockdown. It is a collaborative white boarding app for brainstorming. It is a means of transferring the creative process to the virtual environment. Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.

🎙️ PODCAST AI: Descript is a creation platform that turns spoken audio into text. Post production is undertaken by cutting or adding words in a word processor interface. The software generates fresh audio as if you were speaking it. Spotted by: Kerry Sheehan.

🤖 BOT CATCHER: Bot Sentinel is handy tool for checking the veracity of a Twitter account. It rates accounts based on their activity and identifies commonly use topics, hashtags and URLs. Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.

Research

👩 WOMEN IN PR STUDY: Susan Kinnear would appreciate the help of women studying or working in PR for a university research project. It will take five minutes and will help shape the future of the profession. Thank you. Source: Susan Kinnear.

📈 SOCIAL TRENDS: The Q2 Socialbakers Trends report finds the cost per click increasing as brands seek to recover sales post-pandemic, Facebook Live effective in cutting through the newsfeed algorithm, and influencer activity down as a result of COVID-19. Spotted by: Stephen Waddington

📰 CONTENT MARKETING: The Statista 2020 Content Marketing Report analyses b2b and b2c content marketing. It includes data on the most effective ads, and content formats across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. Source: Stephen Waddington.

Support

👥 COMMUNITY SUPPORT: Darryl Sparey has created a supportive community on Guild for anyone in the marketing, media and PR industries that has been furloughed or made redundant during the COVID-19. Email Darryl for an invitation.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up. It would be much appreciated. Have a great week.