✅ Monday briefing: Waddscon on AI in PR, levelling up, PR as promotion, tool survey, green claims, crisis book review, prompt engineering, and more...
Final call for tickets for Waddscon on Thursday on AI in PR
This is the final call for Waddscon, 1-2pm next Thursday, 23 February when we’ll be joined by four practitioners to talk about the potential impact of AI on PR.
We’ll explore the explosion of GPT-3 tools, digital creative, media analysis and measurement, and the potential impact on society and the future of work with:
Andrew Bruce Smith, public relations engineer and technologist - An AI explosion of GPT-3 tools
Mark Rofe, Digital creative - AI creative and media
Maya Koleva, Measurement maven - Media analysis and measurement
Bruno Amaral, Internet philosopher - A strategic perspective
All income generated from the event will be donated to The BAY Foodbank. It's our local foodbank in Newcastle. Please follow this link to buy tickets.
Research
🟰 LEVELLING UP: The public relations profession has made limited progress to address diversity issues. A CIPR research report suggests that the issue requires hard work in schools, recruitment and training. Source Stuart Baird.
📣 PR AS PROMOTION: The promotional role of public relations should be recognised as delivering benefit to organisations and society. Transparency ensures that promotional work is practiced ethically. Source Dr Heather Yaxley.
🛠️ TOOL SURVEY: If you work in public relations please complete this survey about how practitioners use and think about technology. Everyone completing the survey will be entered into a draw to win a pass to the PRovoke Global Summit. Source David Brain and Stuart Bruce.
Management
🌳 GREEN CLAIMS: Avoid using unqualified carbon neutral and net zero claims. Information should be accurate and verifiable. The ASA has published a Green Claims Code and said that it will take immediate action to sanction breaches. Source Slavina Dimitrova.
📕 BOOK REVIEW: Communicate in a Crisis by Kate Hartley is a manual for the digital age. It’s a guide to how companies can manage fake news, social media “outrage” and the declining trust that can undermine brands. Source Claire Munro.
🏚️ BROKEN BUSINESS MODEL: The Financial Times is critical of management consultancies for building dependency into their business models. It argues that it prevents skills transfer and stops organisations from building in-house expertise. An exit plan should be part of the consulting role. Spotted Steve Earl and Mark Lowe.
Artificial intelligence, search and social media
🤔 PROMPT ENGINEERING: Writing and social science skills are predicted to be the future of computer programming and a major job opportunity. They are required to interact with AI models and applications. It sounds a lot like the skills needed to work in public relations. Spotted Andrew Bruce Smith.
😅 AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS: Journalists have reported odd, often intense discussions with Microsoft’s Bing chatbot. As a result Microsoft has limited conversations to five messages per conversation and 50 conversations per day. Spotted Richard Bagnall and Michael Greer.
🔝 ARTIFICIAL INFLATION: The Twitter algorithm is inflating the reach of Elon Musk’s tweets. Musk fired a senior engineer and challenged developers after his influence appeared to have fallen. Spotted Craig McGill, Alan Morrison and Andrew Bruce Smith.
🪪 META VERIFED: Facebook and Instagram verified accounts are set to roll out in Australia and New Zealand with more countries to follow. Users will need to provide government identification and pay a monthly subscription. Spotted Sarah Waddington CBE.
Influencer marketing
🏛️ TAXING INFLUENCERS: HMRC is writing to online traders, gamers and social media influencers it suspects have not paid the right tax for money earned online. It includes people who have a large following and receive gifts for promoting products, traders using platforms such as Etsy and eBay, and social media content creators. Spotted Nigel Sarbutts.
🖼️ DE-INFLUENCE: Uncharacteristically critical reviews are an emerging trend among TikTok users. De-influencers tell their community what not to buy, directing criticism at products that they believe have been overhyped by other influencers. It's a tactic used to get new followers and build trust. Spotted Scott Guthrie.
Good and bad practice
📑 GAGGING CLAUSE: The Science Museum signed a sponsorship contract in which it agreed to avoid saying anything that could damage the reputation of Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor. The same issue arose with Shell in 2021 and has been widely criticised by climate change advocates. Spotted Con Franklin and Sarah Waddington CBE.
🏷️ BRAND BOOST: Airbnb attributed its strong financial performance to shifting marketing spend from performance to brand. It said that public relations is its most important area of marketing investment and that almost 90% of the platform’s traffic is direct. Spotted David Brain.