Inside PR 517: There’s no such thing as “trolling for good”

• • Show Notes

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We have lots to talk about this week on Inside PR 517.

First, a couple #IPRMustKnows, things worth noting and acting upon:

  • WordPress is one more step closer to the full rollout of Project Gutenberg. This week, WordPress pushed out a maintenance update that included a prompt to all users to turn on the Gutenberg update. Gini did this for SpinSucks – and she raves about how great the new experience is. This may be the final release before WordPress 5.0 is pushed out to all users. And with WordPress 5.0, Gutenberg 5.0 will be turned on by default for all users. So, if you publish on WordPress and you haven’t turned on Gutenberg yet, now is your time to try it out.
  • Feedly is, in Joe’s opinion, the best newsreader available for people who want to curate their online information sources via RSS feeds. When Google closed down Google Reader, a substantial part of the Reader community migrated their reading lists to Feedly. That was a time of rocket ship growth for Feedly, which enabled users to access, read and curate their news sources on every device – desktop, tablet and mobile phone. Now the good folks at Feedly have initiated a major rewrite of the Feedly iOS app – and they have invited their community of users to test the app as it is being developed and provide their feedback. The Feedly team have set up a dedicated Slack Workspace for the beta phase, to announce the new features introduced or refined with each week’s release and asking for feedback on these features. And to enable participants in the beta to see that their input is being incorporated in the development team’s work, they’ve gone a step further, setting up a Trello workspace and posting links to it so that the participant community can see the state of work. The Beta program is just about to hit its midpoint. But new users still are joining. So, if you use Feedly and want to make it better, you too can still sign up to participate in the beta. Kudos to Feedly for building their app the right way, co-creating with their community will yield a much better product that meets both mainstream and specialized needs.

We know that many listeners to this podcast speak about their area of practice to conferences and at professional development events. If you do this even once a year, you’ll be interested in a post that Gini Dietrich wrote on the SpinSucks blog, Six ways to generate leads from a speaking engagement. Martin and I both thought it offered practical advice that we would put to work – and we asked Gini to discuss it with us.

Finally, on this episode, we talk about the Sarah Jeong controversy that erupted this week. If you aren’t familiar with this, we’ve posted links to key articles that will provide the backgroud. Here’s a quick recap. Last week, the New York Times announced that Sarah Jeong would be leaving the Verge to join the NY Times as lead writer on technology. And then a Twitter storm erupted as attention was drawn to tweets authored by Jeong that were derogatory of white people. The Times quickly reaffirmed its decision, pointing to the context in which Jeong wrote those tweets and indicating that they would not be acceptable in future now that she has joined the Times. Coming in the wake of the James Gunn and Les Moonves controversies, could we indeed be seeing the a restoration of the balance between nuance and absolutism? As Martin asks, could we be back to a time in which we can admit to a mistake, own it, show contrition, and move on? We can only hope so.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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There’s no such thing as “trolling for good” – Inside PR 517 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Learning, Reconciliation and Forgiveness?

• • PR, Show Notes

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Gini Dietrich is back with us this week. And that’s a good thing as we dig into the reactions to James Gunn’s firing and the allegations against Les Moonves. Do the responses of the Guardians of the Galaxy cast and the CBS Films’ President Terry Press signal a turning point in the conversation? Are we ready for learning, reconciliation and forgiveness?

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Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.
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Inside PR 516: Learning, Reconciliation and Forgiveness by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Good judgment or an abandonment of principles?

• • Show Notes

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Are some things just too sensitive to talk about? This week on Inside PR 515 we consider examples of tough issues and crisis points. Is it wise to keep your powder dry and hold off communicating? To avoid feeding the beast? Or should a communicator always look for a way to communicate the core principles and truths that he or she believes in.

  • The Canadian Civil Liberties Association issued an open letter to Toronto Mayor John Tory asking that he hold off a municipal council vote on installing “ShotSpotter” microphone technology across the city. Less than a day later, Toronto was struck with a horrific mass shooting that left a 10-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman dead and thirteen others injured. What would you do now if you were the CCLA? Respect the grief of the bereaved and victims as well as the trauma being experienced by the community as a whole and back away from your position? Or would you persist in advancing your position?
  • Burberry was caught out by environmentalists engaging in a long-established practice of luxury goods manufacturers, destroying unsold stock to keep it off the market and avoid dilution of their brand. That may have worked twenty years ago. But not in the era of social media when any person perusing a company’s annual report can spot something like this and deliver the news directly to an audience that will be critical of it. So, what’s a company like Burberry to do? Change its approach to be more in keeping in the times? Or keep its head down in the belief that this too will blow over? Watch with us in real time.
  • Finally, we raise an example that we plan to discuss next week when Gini returns to the show – the James Gunn firing and the rehabilitation of Leonard Lopate. Every action leads to a consequence. What do we do now?

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It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Inside PR 515: Good judgment or an abandonment of principle? by Joseph Thornley, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Behind the Scenes at LinkedIn Learning

• • Show Notes

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Online learning courses have become the main channel for many of us to pick up new skills and refresh our understanding of the latest developments and best practices in our current field of work.

Have you wondered where the ideas for them comes from, how the instructors are chosen, how the courses are produced or how the sessions are targeted at you? Well, this week, Martin Waxman is in California recording his next course for LinkedIn. And we took the opportunity to invite Martin’s producer, Hilary White, to give us insight into these and many more questions we have about online courses.

Bonus: Do you think you might like to offer an online course with a major platform like Lynda.com or LinkedIn Learning? Listen to the end for info on how you can put yourself forward for consideration as a LinkedIn Learning instructor.

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It’s your turn.

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Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Behind the Scenes at Lynda.com and LinkedIn Learning by Joseph Thornley, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

It’s about disclosure, stupid!

• • Show Notes

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On this week’s episode of the Inside PR podcast: The biggest change to WordPress in ten years; the Guardian decides good enough video really is good enough; and a teachable moment in marketing ethics. It’s about disclosure, stupid!

WordPress 5 with Gutenberg

WordPress users have something big to look forward to – the release of WordPress 5. WordPress published an update forecasting that WordPress 5 will be released as early as August. Why is WordPress 5 such a big deal? Because it will incorporate the new Gutenberg editing system.

Gutenberg will be the first significant change in WordPress’ core editing dashboard in ten years. And when it is introduced, WordPress users will have, for the first time, a true WYSIWYG interface that will enable them to create, format and arrange their content as they create it, seeing the results as they make the changes. As long time WordPress users, this is something that we have been looking forward to. August can’t come soon enough.

Sometime good enough video is good enough

We know that video is the most engaging of social objects. But we also know that it takes a lot of work to produce highly polished “professional-looking” videos. Digiday reports that The Guardian has adjusted their approach to video on Instagram. They concluded that the uptake of their videos does not justify the high cost of production of highly polished videos. On the other hand, they also noticed that less polished videos were being viewed as often as higher quality, higher cost of production videos. So, from now on, the Guardian is producing less polished videos such as 12 to 15 screen “explainers.”

We think there is a lesson here for all of us – sometimes it makes sense to aim for “good enough” to achieve your objectives. If you can achieve your objective at lower cost, doesn’t it just make sense to do this?

If you fail to disclose, this could be you

A few weeks ago we talked about the less-than-transparent disclosure made by matte story distributors and publishers. This week, Buzzfeed threw daylight on another lapse in disclosure. They highlighted the behaviour of one marketing company that routinely places bylined articles in online news outlets such as Forbes and Entrepreneur without disclosing that references to their clients within the articles are in fact references to clients of the marketing firm.

Nobody is served well by this practice. Not the client. Not the publisher. And not the marketing firm. Just one more reminder to us all that trust is built over time, but can be lost with a single action. Let’s remember, when in doubt, disclose.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

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Inside PR 513 It’s about disclosure, stupid! by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

A Very Un-American Approach to Privacy?

• • Show Notes

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GDPR: Not yet in the rear view mirror

It’s six weeks since the effective date of GDPR. And many people think that, now that the flood of emails telling us about GDPR has ended, they won’t hear anything more about GDPR. Well, the reality is that we haven’t finished with GDPR. Not by a long shot. Many publishers and websites are going to be found to come up short on their implementation of GDPR. Some implemented opt-out instead of opt-in. Others buried their approvals out of plain sight. Some gave us an all or nothing approval. And all of these sites may find themselves being scrutinized in future. On top of that, California passed what may be the toughest privacy law in the United States, with an effective date of 2020. So, GDPR and privacy laws are not in our rearview mirror yet.

After Facebook: A return to a more diverse, more open online publishing ecosystem?

More evidence of the impact Facebook’s retreat from news had on publishers. Slate shared the 87% decline in traffic that they received from Facebook. But that’s not entirely the bad news it may seem at first blush. Because Slate didn’t go all-in on Facebook. They maintained a multi-channel promotion and publishing strategy – and that is serving them well now. Traffic to their home page is up. Traffic from sources other than Facebook are up and podcasts now constitute 25% of Slate’s revenue. Gini shares some of the stats for Spin Sucks – and they mirror what Slate revealed. Yes, Facebook referrals are down. But increases in traffic from other sources more than compensate for this loss. The bottom line — Facebook’s retreat from news has given a more diverse social system a chance to reestablish itself. And, as tough as the past 18 months have been, we’ve arrive in a much better place, a place that reminds us of the pre-Facebook open web.

Learn how to produce better videos the Instagram way

Have you been spending time on IGTV? Are you wondering how to produce better video to reach your friends and others? If you are, Instagram wants to help you. They have published a 48 page guide on how to produce better videos. And if equipment and software are a mystery to you, fear not. The Instagram guide provides tips on the apps and accessories you can get and use to make better video.

Audiograms really do work

Audiograms – the social posts that add video animations to soundclips – really do work. New data from audiogram provider Headliner showed that audiograms are much more effective at actively engaging your potential audience than are social posts with static images.

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It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 512 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Reddit and Apple fill the news void left by Facebook

• • Show Notes

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Apple News and Reddit’s new news tab both offer something useful to news consumers. And Instagram’s IGTV offers a fresh take on long form video. But Google’s Podcasts app doesn’t appear ready for prime time.

Serious news consumers have two interesting new news aggregators. We already know about the value of RSS feeds in a newsreader like Feedly. And a smart feed of news through Google News. Now two new promising sources of news from Apple and Reddit. Apple is offering a new channel of reliable news about the mid-term US elections. Reddit has added a news tab to its IOS interface. These are encouraging takes on news delivery that fill the gap left by Facebook’s retreat from news.

Also, Instagram celebrates 1 billion users with the launch of IGTV – long form video on Instagram. IGTV has a winning format for video added to an app we love.

Finally, Google introduces Google Podcasts for people using Android. And it’s receiving brutal reviews. Gini, Martin and Joe all use iOS devices. So, we don’t have direct experience with podcasts on Android. If you listen to Inside PR on an Android device, please let us know if you’ve tried the new Google Podcast app and what you think about it.

Linkworthy

Can Apple’s new unbiased, “fact-based” news section really remain unbiased? Andy Meek

Reddit is testing a news tab in its iOS app, Kris Holt

TL;DR: Some iOS users will see a news tab we’re testing and we want your feedback

Google Podcasts is pretty but basic, Terrence O’Brien

Welcome to IGTV, Instagram release

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 511 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

It’s about seeing the people not just the data

• • Show Notes

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Do you need another social network? Can an existing social network break out by jumping on the privacy bandwagon? Can it do it by advertising in the print version of the New York Times? We talk about MeWe.

In her Internet Trends 2018 report, Mary Meeker suggests that we’re living in a Privacy Paradox. We found this to be the most important section of her report and we discuss its implications.

Linkworthy

Mary Meeker at Code 18, full transcript and video

20 Takeaways from Mary Meeker’s 2018 Internet Trends Report, Lisa Lacy

MeWe review, Andrew Orr

MeWe

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 510 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Yes to greater transparency and more balance

• • Show Notes

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Instagram released some information about how its algorithm determines what we see. Every individual has a unique feed. But all of us gain some insight from Instagram’s disclosure. A praiseworthy step toward greater transparency is how the social media sausage is made.

Last October, Facebook de-emphasized news in the Facebook Newsfeed. The bottom dropped out of many publishers’ traffic. New data from Chartbeat suggests that the system is returning to a healthier mix in which traffic to publishers from Google Search and direct has increased to provide a more balanced flow of traffic. Balance is good, in that it reduces the relative importance of any single platform.

Linkworthy

How Instagram’s algorithm works, Josh Constine

Mobile traffic rises for news sites, Christine Schmidt

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 509 by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 508: Gini Dietrich wrote the book. So don’t be surprised that she follows it in real life.

• • Show Notes

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On this week’s podcast, Gini Dietrich gives a textbook demonstration of how to start a podcast, we look at one important element of success in managing distributed workforces, and we look at the marketing and advertising hangover from the implementation of GDPR. All this, and news from the CPRS Annual Conference.

Gini’s podcast, Spin Sucks, launched with three episodes. We talk about Gini’s approach to packaging and launching the podcast, and how she hopes to use it to build the Spin Sucks community. Not surprisingly, there’s real method to Gini’s actions. A text book example of how to launch a new podcast.

We also talk about the trend to building geographically dispersed teams freed of the need to show up at the office each day. Automattic, the company behind WordPress, just celebrated their 15th anniversary. And they also gave up their last office. Automattic has built a business that lasts with a team that works from the space that works for then. We see this happening more and more in communications and marketing. But there’s one important lesson from Automattic’s experience. It is important to bring people together at key times.

We all had two years to prepare for GDPR. So, are you surprised that so many organizations were not prepared for its May 25 effective date? Well, it’s clear that many weren’t. It’s also clear that GDPR is having an impact on advertising, with significant drop offs in advertising volumes reported in days following its implementation.

Also, Martin is shares some of the discussions that stood out for him at this year’s CPRA Annual Conference in Charlottetown.

Linkworthy

The Spin Sucks podcast on iTunes

Automatic makes the distributed workforce work, Oliver Staley

A GDPR hangover for the publishing industry, Mathew Ingram

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.
Creative Commons Licence
Inside PR 508 by Joseph Thornley Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich 659777 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.