✅ Monday briefing #8: Agency start-ups, Enero posts growth, PR proof, chart tool, link attribution, AI reader comments, value gap, news habits, and more
Industry health, important reads, tools, corporate communication, media and social media
Good morning. My name is Stephen Waddington. I’m a professional advisor to agencies and communication teams.
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.
Industry health
🙋 AGENCY START-UPS: Innovation in the PR industry is alive and well. I caught up with nine entrepreneurs to talk about the agencies they’ve launched during the pandemic. Meanwhile if you’re thinking of freelancing or starting a fledgling agency here are 25 things to think about. Source: Stephen Waddington.
😢 UNCONFIDENCE INDEX: Media and comms professionals are among the least-confident UK industries in relation to their jobs, finances and career prospects according to LinkedIn's Workforce Confidence Index (WCI). Spotted by: Andrew Smith.
📈 ENERO POSTS GROWTH: Revenues for marketing services group Enero are up year ending June 2020 by 4.9% to $135.8m, operating EBITDA is up 17.7% to $24.4m. Nice work: BMF, CPR, The Digital Edge, Frank, Hotwire, The Leading Edge, OB Media and Orchard. Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.
Important reads
🔍 PR PROOF: PR practitioners need to learn from their marketing counterparts. They need to build better measurement models and use data that proves the impact of work according to Carma’s Orla Graham. Spotted by: Andrew Smith.
😬 EXAM SHAMBLES: The UK A Level results are a sign of what's to come when a simplistic algorithm is applied to a large data set without adequate scrutiny and testing. It’s brutal, exaggerates inequality and is hugely unfair. Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.
Tools
🎵 OFFICE VIBES: MyNoise is a white noise generator to help you focus and chill out. Cafe Restaurant, Irish Coast, Japanese Garden and Primeval Forest are recommended tunes. Spotted by: Alan Morrison.
🎥 BOT CROP: Kamua is a browser-based tool that automates aspects of video editing including cropping horizontal video to vertical. It’s currently in beta but you can apply for access. Spotted by: Alan Morrison.
📊 CHART TOOL: Datawrapper is a freemium tool to create interactive and responsive charts. It’s an open source tool and you can input data in a CSV or spreadsheet. The free version exports to PNG and HTML embedded formats. Spotted by: Andrew Smith.
🔗 LINK ATTRIBUTION: UTM is a two decades old technique for making sure Google Analytics correctly assigns traffic correctly. It costs nothing to implement. Here's a useful explainer by Businesswire's Serena Ehrlich. Spotted by: Stuart Bruce.
Corporate communication
🍦 BRAND STAND: Ben & Jerry’s took issue with the UK Home Secretary’s position on the migrant crisis in the UK in a thread on Twitter. The move polarised public opinion of the Unilever owned brand. Spotted by: Kerry Sheenan.
💬 AI READER COMMENTS: Reach is working with AI community and moderation tool Viafoura to relaunch reader comments on its national and local digital brands. It will curate comments and source stories and topics for journalists. Spotted by: Alan Morrison.
📝 VALUE GAP: MIT management researchers analysing Glassdoor found no correlation between 1.2 million reviews posted by employees and the values celebrated by large companies on their websites. Examples include integrity, collaboration and customer focus. Spotted by: Ged Caroll.
Media
📰 NEWS HABITS: 75% of consumers follow the news on TV according to OFCOM while the proportion using social media to keep up with the latest stories has fallen 45% in 2020. BBC1 is most popular (56%) followed by ITV (41%) and Facebook (34%). Spotted by: Alan Morrison.
Social media
⛔ TOO BIG TO FAIL: Oxford University researchers called for new regulations to protect users, and society, in case of the world’s biggest technology companies collapse. They claim Facebook and others, are too big to fail. Spotted by: Sarah Waddington.
📱 TWITTER MODERATION: Twitter users can now control who replies to their posts, giving more control over conversations. Users can select from three sets of people - everyone, only people they follow and only people they mention in the tweet. Spotted by: Sarah Waddington.