Inside PR

Can you believe it's mid-December and another year is almost done?

That can only mean one thing ... it's time for our annual episode where we gaze into the proverbial communications crystal ball ...

OK, it's not that dramatic, really. But Gini, Joe and Martin do talk about three of the trends we'll be watching over the next 12 months:

Natural language generation and AI writing assistants Values-based communication and leadership counsel Impact and consequences of social media algorithms

Check it out and let us know what you think and what other trends you may be seeing on the horizon.

This is our last show of 2021 and we'd like to say thank you for listening and for supporting us again.

In the wake of Facebook's bad news month, we discuss the communications challenges the company faces. A blip? Or a step on an irreversible path toward becoming the new MySpace? The necessary impetus to increased regulation? And would a company with an army of lobbyists ever see a regulatory regime that actually curbs its freedom of action in any meaningful way? Is it really becoming the new Tobacco? And, most importantly, is its community decaying from the inside?

Have you noticed your brand is no longer getting the type of engagement on organic social posts? How about ranking for search or interactions when you publish new content on your website or blog?

Perhaps the digital world has become even more pay-to-play and is expecting a higher price from organizations in order for them to achieve decent business results.

That’s what Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley and I talk about on Inside PR. Our conversation is based on a post by digital thought-leader Rand Fishkind called, 'The Incentives to Publish No Longer Reward Web Creators '.

TL;DR version: Your content marketing strategy needs a balanced and integrated approach.

Have a read, then have a listen and let us know what you think.

It's fall—well, almost—and there's a hint of excitement in the air. At least it feels like there should be!

Kids are going back to school. College and universities are offering more in-person classes. And people are getting revved up for the busiest season of the year.

But are you ready to go back to the office or would you prefer to work remotely or in some type of hybrid situation?

And how will you communicate what you decide to your team?

Of course, there are no easy answers, but if you're interested in our take, check out this episode of Inside PR.

Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley and Martin Waxman talk about:

The importance of having a communicator in the room when workplace decisions are being made. Why organizations need to listen closely and pay attention to people's reactions. Giving employees an opportunity to voice their opinions and know they're being heard, rather than simply feeling they're being talked at. Creating a culture of empathy by understanding people's situations, anxieties and fears. Being flexible and letting people know nothing's set in stone and that you're prepared to adapt if need be.

OK. Before you get defensive, I want make something clear right from the start: We are NOT saying all PR people are evil.

Far from it.

In fact, most of us are simply trying to do the best jobs we can for our organizations or clients and behave in an honest and ethical manner.

But let’s just say, there are some less than scrupulous individuals and companies whose approach and choices reflect badly on the industry.

And it’s not just PR pros who are guilty of this. Certain bloggers, journalists, media outlets and influencers are also not as honest or transparent as they could be when it comes to conflicts of interest.

And because social media has given us all a voice, we need to make sure we think through the consequeneces of how we use it.

That’s what we talk about for this week’s podcast.

We got the idea from a Washington Post story about a site that bills itself as an investigative blog. Turns out, it has financial ties to a PR firm and seems to focus on stories where the agency’s clients have a vested interest.

In our opinion, this contravenes many PR codes of ethics and standards including PRSA , CPRS and the Global Alliance to name a few.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

And if you want to dig deeper, check out Gini’s Spin Sucks pos t on the subject.
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We’d love to hear what you think and if you have any subjects you’d like us to cover in upcoming episodes.

Leave us a comment on the blog.

Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com ,

Connect with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich , Joseph Thornley , and Martin Waxman .
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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR
Our producer is Jacob Waxman , a talented musician, producer, and recording engineer. Jacob produced the episode and is also the composer of our new theme music. Roger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR 548: What I want isn’t important. It’s about what you want by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

Once they've tasted freedom, it's hard to take that away. It's not what I want as an employer; it's what you want as an employee.

Has your boss told you that you have to return to the office fill time? Part-time? Have they talked about flex work? Or even held out the prospect of working remotely on an ongoing basis?

And how do you feel about this? Do you want to return to the office? Full-time? A few days a week? Or do you want to continue to work remotely?

What are the things that you liked and valued about working from the office? What are the benefits of working at home?

Gini , Martin and Joe talk about mistakes that employers are making in the post-lockdown period. High-knowledge, high-skill workers have discovered the freedom of being able to choose where they work - and with the end of the lockdown, many of them will be thinking about what they want to do, and realizing that they have choices. So, the employer who informs their staff that they must return to the workplace full-time may discover that many of their workers not only don't return, but actually leave.

As with many other key decisions, success in bringing employees back to the office will turn on effective communications. And effective communications starts with listening, understanding others' interests and objectives. And then speaking to their concerns, not just blustering forward with what you want and care about.

So, this week, let's talk about effective communication for the post-pandemic return to the office.

Hello … Helloooo … Check 1, 2 … Is this thing on?

OK, cliches aside, I’m happy to report that after a hiatus of around 20 months and all the things that have happened between then and now, Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley and I are back recording Inside PR.

Why? To be honest we missed talking with each other about what’s new on with PR, social media and digital marketing. We also missed hearing from you.

Our one big change is we’ve moved to a biweekly or fortnightly format, which fits better with our schedules and commitments. That way, you can expect to hear from us on a regular basis. (OK, given our recent history, my fingers are crossed on that.)

In our first new episode, we catch up and discuss what we’ve been doing.

We also talked about how to establish boundaries when you don’t stray too far from the home office and ways to spark creativity.

It’s great to be back! Thank you for sticking with us.

On this week's Inside PR, Gini Dietrich provides practical advice to the PR practitioner on the importance of SEO to media relations and earned media. PR practitioners understand much more than algorithms. And we must combine our media relations expertise with SEO best practices to ensure that we maximize long term exposure for our clients' content. The cost of failing to do this will be the incursion of SEO experts into media relations.

Also this week: Open Government, open engagement and open data activists from around the world gathered in Ottawa. So did the grand committee of countries looking at the practices of the social platforms. But it doesn't matter how many countries come together in one place -- Mark Zuckerberg responds to no flag but his own. He was, once again, a no-show.
Linkworthy The Open Government Partnership OGP Summit 2019 Ottawa hearings show there is a political will to regulate big tech - but will it spur change? Media Relations: Increase your search engine optimization , Gini Dietrich

This week, we consider the implications of an Algorithmic Accountability Act, rebalancing the freedom of companies to capture and use our data with our right to informed consent. Plus: Protect your privacy against hidden cameras during your next business trip.
Linkworthy Booker, Wyden, Clarke Introduce Bill Requiring Companies to Target Bias in Corporate Algorithms A new bill would force companies to check their algorithms for bias , Adi Robertson Democrats draw up bill that would require tech platforms to assess algorithmic bias , Taylor Hatmaker MIT Technology Review The Algorithm Newsletter It's Time to Panic About Privacy , Farhad Manjoo The Big Nine , Amy Webb How to find hidden cameras in your AirBnB, and anywhere else , Michael Grothaus

Dan York joins the IPR Team

We have big news this week: Dan York is joining the Inside PR team. Dan is well known to Inside PR listeners for his tech segments on Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson's FIR podcast. And, if you didn't know, his day job is as Director, Web Strategy , at the Internet Society .

Gini, Joe and Martin are big fans of Dan's reports. He provides a perspective that combines expertise in communications and marketing with strong technology underpinnings. When Shel and Neville announced that FIR would be moving to a monthly format, Gini, Joe and Martin immediately put out a call to Dan to ask if he would be willing to contribute to IPR on the other three weeks of the month. And, happily, Dan said yes. So, you may hear Dan less often on FIR (and we encourage you to listen to FIR monthly), you'll be able to hear him the rest of the time on Inside PR.

So, that leads us to this week's debut of Dan's Two Minutes of Tech for Communicators segment. We know he's going to teach us a lot.

Tell your friends. There's another reason to listen to the Inside PR podcast - and his name is York. Dan York.

A digital charter for Canada

Canada has long taken privacy and consumer rights seriously. And as public concern about the unseen use of our personal by social networks data increased following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, calls for change have mounted. Now, the Government of Canada has made its next move with the announcement of a Digital Charter for Canada . While the Charter sums up established values and points to aspirational goals, it also takes two real steps toward action with references to Canada's Privacy Commissioner and Competition Bureau. Both have regulatory muscle that they could flex in the near term. And both are in a position to scrutinize the social networks.

Europe, California, and now Canada. Momentum to reign in the previously underscrutinzed use of our data by the social networks is gaining momentum.

We really never are alone

As if we needed another reminder of where the early optimism of the open web and the social graph has taken us, the New York Times offers a thought provoking look at our relationship with Google .

Linkworthy

Dan York on Twitter ISED Minister Navdeep Bains announces Canada's Digital Strategy Canada's Digital Charter: Trust in a Digital World Minecraft Earth goes a step beyond Pokemon Go to cover the world in blocks , Tom Warren WordPress 5.2 "Jaco" You're not alone when you're on Google , Jennifer Senior

A change of pace for FIR
The FIR Podcast is one of the longest continually-produced podcasts for communications pros. Since 2005, Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson have been providing insight into the communications trends and developments that are important to communications practitioners.

But now they are dialing back their production schedule to once a month. And as podcast producers who have followed in their footsteps, we're glad that they are continuing. Because if you are a communications pro, you're sure to learn something useful with each and every FIR podcast.

So, kudos Shel and Neville for finding a way to keep it going and keep it fresh.
GarageBand: Creating dreams
It's been fifteen years since Apple first offered GarageBand with Macs. Since then, it's become available for PCs and iOS as well. And that means there's a whole generation of musicians and podcasters who have brought their ideas to life using Apple's free software. In fact, we use GarageBand to mix and produce the Inside PR podcast. And it couldn't be easier to do, thanks to the simple, intuitive interface.

So, here's to GarageBand. And here's to the community of creators who have grown up around it. And here's to Apple for giving us this incredibly useful software.
You're just not important enough for us to take action
The abuse of social media by foreign or malevolent agents is not just confined to the United States. It is a global problem. But that doesn't mean that the social and search platforms are giving it the same attention in countries other than the United States. Indeed, you need look no farther than across the border to the north to Canada to see Facebook and Google taking very different approaches to the responsibility that national legislators and regulators say they should take on. In this tally, Facebook gains a point . Google loses a point .
If you're not part of the solution
Facebook's local news support project, Today In, underlines the news deserts that have been created by the diminution out of the display ad economy that local newspapers relied on. And in doing so, it drives home that the social and search platforms efforts to "support" journalism are not adequately addressing the problems they have created. It's time for radically different thinking.

Gini is on holiday this week. So, Joe and Martin are alone together.
Linkworthy FIR Podcast , Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson Inside GarageBand, the Little App Ruling the Sound of Modern Music , Amy X Wang Facebook introducing measures to prevent election disruption , Elizabeth Thompson Social media giants don't take Canada seriously, say MPs , Joan Bryden Facebook's local news project frustrated - by lack of local newspapers

Is Mark Zuckerberg's concept of privacy your concept of privacy? Probably not. And this week we discuss Zuckerberg's ongoing repositioning of Facebook as "private."

One more thing: Thank you to Emma Haddad for including Inside PR in her list of podcasts PR pros should listen to .

Linkworthy

A Privacy-focused vision for social networking , Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg discovers privacy , Taylor Hatmaker Roger McNamee thinks the pivot to "privacy" helps Facebook, not you , Hanna Kozlawska Facebook just shoplifted Snapchat's best idea , Kara Swisher Facebook lost 15 million users? Marketers remain unfazed, Amy Gesenhues 30 podcasts PR Pros should listen to , Emma Haddad

This week, we take a deep dive into Roger McNamee 's Zucked . McNamee, an early investor in Facebook and an erstwhile advisor to Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg has provided us with an insightful consideration of how Facebook and social media have changed over time. It is an account that throws light on questions of responsibility and accountability. And while it pulls no punches, it also presents a vision of what might be done to create a healthier relationship between the giant entities that dominate search, social and tech.

This should be a a must-read for anyone who deals with social media and search, with marketing and online advertising, with community building.

Also, on this week's show, we pay tribute to Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson's FIR Podcast, which just hit the 1,000 episode mark. Sometimes weekly, sometimes biweekly and now monthly, Shel and Neville are the seminal PR podcasters. And they're still going strong and providing insight that we can't do without. Keep it up guys.

Finally, a shoutout to Martin on the completion of an important milestone. Huzzah Martin!

Linkworthy

Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe , Roger McNamee The Virtual Self , Nora Young FIR Podcast , Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson

Joe had a moment of surprise when he realized that, not only does he no longer listens to radio, he doesn't even own a radio! Over the past few years, he had transferred his listening time from linear radio to on-demand podcasts. And he hadn't even noticed the shift in his media consumption - until his wife threw out the last radio in their house.

A recent report out of the UK suggests that Joe isn't alone:

Since 2010, around 840,000 15 to 24-year-olds have switched off for good, according to research from Enders Analysis. And among the 6.5 million or so who do still tune in, the amount of time they spend listening has plummeted 29% between 2010 and 2018.
Is streaming killing the radio star https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/08/is-streaming-killing-the-radio-star

Both Martin and Gini also have noticed a shift in their media consumption. Not just one that adds to their daily information diet. But a shift that has replaced one medium with another.

So, if podcasting is constituting a greater portion of many people's media consumption, you just know that advertisers are eyeing it and entrepreneurs are looking to provide them with a new medium to reach consumers. We've seen Spotify's big move, acquiring Gimlet and Anchor. This is unlikely to be the last move of this sort.

As others follow, what does that mean for the open podcasting system that has let enthusiast and professional podcasters coexist? Will services like Spotify start to push the enthusiasts off to the side, out of sight, as they promote their own professionally produced podcasts so that they can maximize revenue? Sound familiar? Substitute the words blog and Facebook for podcasts and Spotify.

So, is this end? Not necessarily. It may be possible for two systems of podcasting to existing together, thanks to things like Patreon, which didn't exist during the rise of Facebook and the decline of blogs, along with membership-oriented initiatives life that being advanced by outlets like Slate.

If you're a listener to Inside PR, it's probable that you too have made room for podcasting by reducing your consumption of other media. Have you done this consciously or has it crept up on you. Do you see a future for enthusiast podcasts like Inside PR -- or will we soon go the way of MySpace?

Linkworthy

I just realized that I don't have a radio anymore , thornley Is streaming killing the radio star? , Mark Sweney Spotify. It's not just for music anymore , Ben Sisario and Michael J. de la Merced With Supporting Cast, Slate wants to build the paid-membership layer of podcasting , Nick Quah

We have our own news to break on this week's Inside PR. Gini and Martin are going to be working together. Martin has joined the Spin Suck s team. Gini has been building Spin Sucks as a community for a decade - and growth has reached the point in which she needs help leading the content team. Enter Martin. Gini and Martin talk about the Spin Sucks editorial approach, in which Joe hears some traits of Jay Rosen's community-interest-driven alternative model for journalism. We also talk about the role of the Spin Sucks Slack community.

We also talk about the acceleration of job losses in journalism . In one way, it might be like that old saying that, "I went broke very slowly for a long time, and then very quickly very suddenly." So, there's no doubt that the journalism job losses this year have been massive. But even more remarkable is where most of those losses have been this year -- in digital media. Digital media, which only a couple years ago many investors and entrepreneurs were betting on as the platform that would replace traditional media. Clearly, online journalism has proven no less immune to the hoovering of advertising support by Google and Facebook. So, in 2019, we're still waiting for the new model that will save journalism as we know it.

And talking about PR in a world of disappearing and shrinking newsrooms, Martin and Gini argue that PR pros must stay true to the core value of relationships while making the search for the new influencers and news brokers with whom they must establish working relationships.

Having said that, are we in a world in which we are playing for time. Do we need to find a new core to PR to replace the central role that media relations once played. At one time, we thought it would be social media. But that has fragmented. And it seems that the pace of change is accelerating. So, we continue the search for the next key leverage point.
Linkworthy More than 2,300 people lost their jobs in a media landslide so far this year , Benjamin Goggin 2009: The internet is killing (print) journalism; 2019: The internet is killing (internet) journalism , Jeff Israely NYU’s Jay Rosen says 2020’s political journalism will be even worse than 2016’s , Eric Scott Johnson

In late January, Facebook launched a PR initiative that, on its face, appeared intended to reframe in 2019 the issues that got away from them in 2018, AKA Facebook's privacy offences that dominated the year since the Cambridge Analytica scandal became public. This week on Inside PR, Gini Dietrich , Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about this first phase of what by late February was unmistakably a concerted effort by Facebook to reframe the issues swirling around it.

Martin doesn't buy Facebook's argument that we are getting Facebook's service for free? Not for a second. We're paying -- and the currency is our data. Gini argues that we are the product when it comes to social media. However, she accepts Facebook's argument that they are not selling our data. Instead, she focuses on the need for each of us to make our own calculation about whether what we receive is a fair exchange for our attention and what Facebook learns about us. And Joe? Well he's not buying Facebook's arguments that they don't sell our data. They do sell the intelligence and insight that comes from possessing our data. And, as far as he's concerned that makes them "Data Launderers," the digital equivalent of money launderers.

Martin picks up on this and says that we can see Facebook as not necessarily selling the data, but being the agent by which our data is used and obtains the value of using it. And they can do this because they are so big. Perhaps too big. And, says Martin, all you have to do is look at what Facebook is doing with WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram -- rolling up the data each has about us. Different data from what we view as different platforms gives them an even more granular portrait of us that they can draw on to the benefit of advertisers. What of the trust we established with these platforms when they gave us the reassurance of remaining discrete and protecting us from being rolled into an even bigger data bank?

Gini brings it back to a pragmatic reality. Facebook has become so effective, so pervasive, so dominant, can an advertiser ignore them? And that leads us to accept their assertions of good intent.
Linkworthy Understanding Facebook's Business Model , Mark Zuckerberg What Kind of Internet Do We Want? , Sheryl Sandberg A Discussion with Nick Clegg The Facts About Facebook (paywall), Mark Zuckerberg An Anti-Facebook Manifesto, by an Early Facebook Investor , book review by Tom Bissell The Digital Winter Turns Apocalyptic , Alex Pareene

This week on Inside PR, we talk about:

Facebook's commitment to supporting local journalism . (0:55) Using Alexa Flash Briefings for your communications program (5:51) our take on Gillette's The Best Men Can Be video ad theme (15:44)

Linkworthy

Doing More to Support Local News , Facebook blog Facebook is funding more programs catering to local news publishers , Max Willens The Alexa Flash Briefing Guide for Communicators , Gini Dietrich Podnews.net and the Podnews podcast -- a template for Alexa Flash Briefings? Feedly News Reader, an indispensable tool for communicators The Best Men Can Be , Gillette "No going back:" Viral Gillette ad sparks fierce reaction ,

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.

Leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group , Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com , Interact with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich , Joseph Thornley , and Martin Waxman . And, of course, you always can leave a comment below this post.

It's our first show of 2019 and we decided to make it a more personal show - by talking about the things that are important to us personally and professionally - and what we plan to do about them in the coming year.

So, if you want to get some insight into what makes Martin, Gini and Joe tick, you'll probably find out this week. And along the way, we hope that you may get some ideas for things you may want to do this year yourself.

Of course, we'd like to learn from you. So, please share your own resolutions with us. Look at the "It's your turn" heading below for ways to connect with us.
Linkworthy The Agency Leader Podcast , Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich Subscribe to the Inside PR podcast
We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.
Subscribe to Inside PR on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to Inside PR on Spotify Subscribe to Inside PR on Google Play 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.
Leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group , Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com , Interact with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich , Joseph Thornley , and Martin Waxman . And, of course, you always can leave a comment below this post.

The past month has brought market and economic turmoil the likes of which we have not seen since 2008. And only one thing is certain. There will be many businesses that do not make it through the downturn.

So, what's the smart agency head doing? Definitely not going all in with a bet on a single business line. Smart leaders are diversifying their revenue stream during this time of uncertainty. And as they do this, they have the best chance of identifying the most promising areas for growth and also being able to exit the business areas without a future.

That's exactly what Gini Dietrich did following the crash of 2008. And since then she has built a very different business - a business that depends on a network of professionals with the range of skills necessary to drive multiple revenue streams. Diversification has been a successful strategy for Gini. And this week Gini Dietrich , Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley pick up on a recent episode of Gini and Ghip Griffin 's Agency Leadership Podcast to talk about Gini's strategy and what others can learn from her experience.

Also on this episode, Joe asks Gini and Martin for advice on how they would respond to a pitch that struck Joe as ethically challenged and also how they react to being pitched on pitched on LinkedIn within minutes of accepting an invitation to connect with someone.

We'll be back on January 1 with a New Year's Resolutions episode.
Link-worthy The Agency Leader Podcast , Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich Ethical Voices , Mark McLennan

Don't Feed the Giants
First, up on Inside PR this week, Martin points to Farhad Manjou' s final "State of the Art" column for the New York Times. Some smart advice for these digital times:
Don't just look at the product. Look at the business model. Avoid Feeding the Giants Adopt Late. Slow Down Don't Look Now, But Your Apps See You
Another blockbuster story from the New York Times (they seem to be making this routine.) This time, the Times stripped away any illusion that we may have had that those give us your location opt-ins are being used only for the purposes we think they are. Scary stuff.
Linkworthy How to Survive the Next Era of Tech (Slow Down and Be Mindful) , Farhad Manjou Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They're Not Keeping It Secret , JENNIFER VALENTINO-DeVRIES , NATASHA SINGER , MICHAEL H. KELLER and AARON KROLIK

This week, we cover a new Stories feature that LinkedIn is testing, the launch of another daily news podcast, this time from the Washington Post, and Facebook meets it match in the United Kingdom Parliament.
LinkedIn Stories -- Putting wings on an elephant?
LinkedIn is beta testing a Stories feature called Student Voices. On one level, it sounds like a good idea. However, if aimed at younger users who have seen Snapchat Stories as ephemeral content that enabled them to be spontaneous and genuine without fear of their mistakes showing up in a data cache. When they use LinkedIn Student voices, will they bring this expectation only to discover that the information lingers on their profile and is being viewed by prospective recruiters? Maybe there is an argument for keeping different social networks separate according to use and audience.
The Washington Post enters the daily news podcast game with Post Reports
The Washington Post has launched Post Reports , an afternoon news podcast. It is the latest in a series of high quality news podcasts, including The Daily , Up First , and Front Burner , that collectively signal a significant shift in the news diet of an increasing number of people.

They also represent a challenge for PR Pros. The one thing these new podcasts all seem to have in common is that they are highly curated. There are limited slots for stories in the short format adopted by all of the news podcasts - and they are cherry picking for their line up from the stories covered on their companion traditional news outlet. So, getting a story placed and covered on the news podcasts is not a linear extension of the traditional pitch. PR pros will have to watch closely to understand the unique perspective and focus of each of the new podcasts in order to find a way to ease a story's coverage. But a straight up pitch? Probably not.
Damian Collins shows Facebook that it's dangerous to thumb your nose at Parliament
Facebook may have more members than any country has population. And Mark Zuckerberg may feel he's too important to accept an invitation from legislators representing eight countries to testify before them. But Mark Zuckerberg definitely isn't bigger than Damian Collins, MP . Last week, Collins made good on his promise to release the documents from Facebook vs Six4Three court case. And the picture they painted of Facebook's competitive behaviour and Mark Zuckerberg's role in decisions that would exploit Facebook user data to advantage Facebook and disadvantage its competitors was .... ugly.
Linkworthy LinkedIn launches its own Snapchat Stories. Here's why it shouldn't have , Josh Constine Jameson Hsu's LinkedIn story example The Washington Post announces programming details for its new evening podcast, "Post Reports" The Washington Post has launched a new 20-minute daily news podcast , Max Willens News podcasts we love The Daily, NY Times Up First , NPR Front Burner , CBC Post Reports , Washington Post Summary of key issues from the Six4Three files, Note by Damian Collins , MP Parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers , Carole Cadwalladr Facebook Emails Show Its Real Mission: Making Money and Crushing Competition , Kevin Roose Facebook Used People's Data to Favor Certain Partners and Punish Rivals, Documents Show , Adam Satariano and Mike Isaac Now eight parliaments are demanding that Zuckerberg answers for the Facebook scandals , Natasha Lomas Delay, Deny and Deflect How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis , Sheera Frenkel , Nicholas Confessore , Cecilia Kang , Matthew Rosenberg andJack Nicas Subscribe to the Inside PR podcast
We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.
Subscribe to Inside PR on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to Inside PR on Spotify Subscribe to Inside PR on Google Play 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.
Leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group , Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com , Interact with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich , Joseph Thornley , and Martin Waxman . And, of course, you always can leave a comment below this post.

Facebook: Still Delaying. Still Denying. Still Deflecting.
Two hours after we recorded last week's Inside PR, the New York Times posted a bombshell report - Delay, Deny, Deflect - about Facebook's management of legislators and manipulation of the truth.

And in this report, they answered the question that Gini Dietrich has been asking since the whole Cambridge Analytica fiasco broke - where are Facebook's communications team and what are they advising. Well, as it turns out, the real question should have been, what communications playbook are they using?

Making the world more open and connected? Maybe for you and me. But for Facebook, definitely not more open.
Linkworthy Delay, Deny and Deflect How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis , Sheera Frenkel , Nicholas Confessore , Cecilia Kang , Matthew Rosenberg andJack Nicas What Facebook Knew and Tried to Hide , Michael Barbara , Sheera Frenkel , and Nicholas Confessore About NTK Network Definers Team Now eight parliaments are demanding that Zuckerberg answers for the Facebook scandals , Natasha Lomas Concerns grow at Tory link to US lobby firm in Facebook smear scandal , Jamie Doward Subscribe to the Inside PR podcast
We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.
Subscribe to Inside PR on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to Inside PR on Spotify Subscribe to Inside PR on Google Play 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.
Leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group , Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com , Interact with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich , Joseph Thornley , and Martin Waxman . And, of course, you always can leave a comment below this post.

Facebook's Really Bad Behaviour
Sometimes, the stars just align perfectly. When we recorded this episode of Inside PR, we did not know that, within hours, the New York Times would publish a bombshell story delving into Facebook's tactics to avoid full transparency and accountability for the existence and persistence of Russian troll activity and other bad acts on Facebook. In this episode, you'll hear us discuss that the only truly satisfactory response on the part of Facebook must go beyond simple PR bromides to real actions that align with its promises. Something which the NY Times story suggests Facebook fell far short of.

Ironically, it was the NYTimes Tech Reporter, Kevin Roose, who provided the most succinct definition of what's really going on in a Tweet following the picture that emerged of a group of boys allegedly giving the Nazi salute prior to their prom. Roose tweeted, "has anyone answered "a generation raised on platforms that reward provocation in a culture with a shrinking list of taboos" yet[?]"

has anyone answered "a generation raised on platforms that reward provocation in a culture with a shrinking list of taboos" yet https://t.co/V9xTaTxO38
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 12, 2018
And it's not just outside observers who are rethinking the approach the social media platforms took to driving growth and user engagement. Recode reported that Twitter co-founder Ev Williams told a tech conference in Portugal, "I think showing follower counts was probably ultimately detrimental. .... It really put in your face that the game was popularity.” Williams went on to discuss the "suggested user" list that helped new Twitter users start to follow people on Twitter by suggesting well-known are widely followed people for them to follow. Reflecting on this, Williams suggested, “Those weren’t really interest-based follows, and then someone who had grown their following organically compares themselves to them. It’s inauthentic.”

And that brings us back full circle to Facebook. Even before the NY Times story dropped, legislators outside of the US were demanding that Zuckerberg provide some accountability to them for Facebook's operations in their countries. A few weeks back, we discussed the fact that Canadian legislators were prepared to travel across the Atlantic to attend a joint session with their counterparts in the UK Parliament - if Mark Zuckerberg would agree to appear before them. Last week, legislators from Australia, Ireland and Argentina joined their counterparts from the UK and Canada to provide Zuckerberg with a five for one offer. One appearance for five countries. Yet, at the time of recording Zuckerberg and Facebook still had not agreed to appear.

And then the NY Times story dropped - and we saw in vivid detail the machinations and manipulation Facebook was taking to duck calls for full transparency everywhere.

Delay. Deny. Deflect. Now that we understand this, could this be only the first of many bad weeks for Facebook?
Faster, Safer Internet Access from Your Phone
Do you ever connect to the Internet via a public WiFi network (think airports, hotels and Starbucks?) Have you read the terms of use you have with your Internet Service Provider (ISP)? If so, you may discover that they can share with "partners" data about your Web surfing and Internet activity from inside your home! Yes, it's a scary world.

Cloudflare, the company that many developers rely on for Domain Name Server (DNS) and Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, is making it easier for all of us to increase the security and privacy of our connections to the Internet - whether at home or in public places. Last April, the company launched its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver service that enables you to keep your Web activity private - even from your ISP. Now, they have introduced apps to bring the service to your mobile phone . I've installed the 1.1.1.1 app on my iPhone. It took less than three minutes. You too can download the app from the iOS and Android stores. It's an easy, simple step to protect yourself online.
It's about the links
When you pitch an article to an online news outlet, do you expect them to include a link back to the source you provided to them? Do you see this as good SEO for the news outlet? As important to your client? A recent PR article on obtaining links in articles referencing clients got us thinking.
The challenge and rewards of Nanoinfluencers
Finally, we talk about the emergence of Nanoinfluencers . From a thousand points of light may come great influence?
Linkworthy Delay, Deny and Deflect How Facebook's Leaders Fought Through Crisis , Sheera Frenkel , Nicholas Confessore , Cecilia Kang , Matthew Rosenberg and Jack Nicas Mark Zuckerberg Defends Facebook as Furor Over Its Tactics Grows, Cecilia Kang , Matthew Rosenberg and Mike Isaac has anyone answered "a generation raised on platforms that reward provocation in a culture with a shrinking list of taboos" yet[?] , Kevin Roose Twitter Co-founder Ev Williams says in retrospect that showing how many followers you have wasn't healthy , Teddy Schleifer Pressure grows on Zuckerberg to attend Facebook committee hearing , Alex Hern 1 Thing You Can Do to Make Your Internet Safer and Faster , Mohd Irtefa Announcing 1.1.1.1: the fastest, privacy-first consumer DNS service , Matthew Prince Journos don't appreciate being used as a marketing tool - PR Pros urge caution against SEO link requests , Arvind Hickman Are you ready for the Nanoinfluencers? Sapna Maheshwari 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.
Leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group , Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com , Interact with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich , Joseph Thornley , and Martin Waxman . And, of course, you always can leave a comment below this post.

In this week's episode of the Inside PR podcast:
Do you want to understand the Paid/Earned/Shared/Owned approach to PR and marketing? Martin tells people that Gini's SpinSucks site is a top site for info on PESO. Is Facebook really bigger than every government in the world? Does this mean that Facebook is above the oversight of the political leadership of nation states? Well, you might think so, as politicians in Canada and the UK band together to request that Mark Zuckerberg attends a joint hearing. Canadian politicians will fly across the ocean to question Zuckerberg, who will not fly four hours to speak to them directly in Ottawa. Still, some political bodies are determined to move forward to protect our privacy rights. The Canadian Privacy Commissioner announces new disclosure requirements for privacy breaches . Only in Canada, you say? Pity. Twitter's Q3 financial results showed that, while monthly active users may have decreased, daily active users continue to increase. And that's a good thing. Suggesting that Twitter is succeeding in reestablishing itself as a place that users like you and me will want to treat as one of our principal social networks on a daily basis, not just on an occasional basis. Finally, Kara Swisher gives us much to think about in her rumination on Silicon Valley's links to and dependence on investments from organizations and individuals who would never be considered to be friends of liberal democracy and free speech. And Ezra Klein 's discussion with Jay Rosen of the media's turn to entertainment logic from news logic underscores the media's weakness in helping us to come to grips with the true underlying issues. Linkworthy I thought the Web would stop hate, not spread it , Kara Swisher Jay Rosen is pessimistic about the media. So am I , Ezra Klein 's podcast The PESO model on SpinSucks UK and Canada MPs unite to demand that Mark Zuckerberg answers questions , Jim Waterson New data breach reporting requirements come into force this week , Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada Twitter Investor Relations Tweetstorm of Q3 2018 financial results 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.
Leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group , Send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com , Interact with us on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich , Joseph Thornley , and Martin Waxman . And, of course, you always can leave a comment below this post.

A couple weeks ago, Joe talked about his dismay at the social media communications from his local power company during a more than two day power outage in Ottawa following a devastating tornado. Well, you listened, and you told us that we (at least Joe) was being too demanding in what he expected of communicators in a crisis. We received some thoughtful feedback which we read and react to on this week's episode. Thank you Chip Griffin, Sean O'Driscoll and Shannah Hayley. Your comments made us think twice about our expectations of social media.

We also discuss Twitter's release of the Tweets from foreign Trolls trying to influence the US election. It's clear that the mischief makers are constantly revising their approach, presenting a moving target for researchers and members of the public who are trying to protect themselves form their influence. The bottom line: they targeted the most active people, presenting extreme positions on both sides of wedge issues, with the intention of undermining trust and pushing people into extreme positions.

Finally, we look at reports that Twitter soon will provide greater transparency about whether a tweet was removed voluntarily or was in fact taken down for a violation of the platform's terms of use. Displaying a notification that a tweet has been removed because of a violation of the terms of reference will provide even casual readers with a visual cue about the quality of an account. A small move, but one that will make a contribution to our ability to spot trollish accounts.

On this week's Inside PR podcast, we look at several developments and topics of interest to PR practitioners and agency leaders:
Google+ has gone away . We reflect on its demise and what it did and didn't mean for us in its prime and at the end. The retro-lovers among us may have noticed the return of the Palm brand name. It may go to show that there's always a demand for people who turn left when the rest of us turn right. There's a new podcast for PR agency leaders, aptly named the Agency Leadership Podcast . And Gini Dietrich is co-hosting it with former Custom Scoop CEO Chip Griffin. Each week, Gini and Chip will provide insight into the challenges, skills and moves necessary to run an agency in the gig economy. This is Gini's third podcast. She will continue to co-host Inside PR with Martin and Joe and she will also offer advice for practitioners on Spin Sucks. The era of Gini Dietrich podcasting truly has arrived. Is your boss an Algorithm? Algorithms are everywhere. They determine the content we see. They rate our performance at work. And their influence over us is expanding and growing. Is this something we should simply accept or should we become proactive in examining and shaping how and when they can be applied? What do you do when clients refuse to call back? Last week, an agency owner raised the question in the Spin Sucks Community on Slack of how to handle a non-responsive client. We've all seen clients who get busy, who disappear for a while, or who are chronically late with feedback. And we have a good discussion of how we have dealt with that in the past.

On this week's podcast, Gini, Martin and Joe talk about privacy and the continuing interest of government legislators about what the social networks and search engines are doing - and not doing - to protect it. Privacy is not just about the personally identifiable data. It's as much about the metadata that flows from it.

We also talk about how realistic it is to expect agencies and organizations to respond to individual people during a crisis. The case is Joe's over-two-day return to the dark ages when he and 250,000 other Hydro customers lost their power following a tornado in Ottawa. Is it good enough for organizations to simply publish general information - or should they attempt to respond to individuals and communicate information that would be useful to specific groups, such as neighbourhoods.

With Twitter, the old way is better

Twitter users everywhere heaved a sigh of relief last week, as Twitter gave users the option to again view tweets displayed by recency. No more need to see stale tweets that Twitter thinks you’ll be interested in. As you did in the earliest days of Twitter, you can again see the tweets displayed in reverse chronological order. Hurrah. At the same time, Martin reports that he is seeing a button on the top of his Twitter feed that highlights live videos.

Meeker moves on

Mary Meeker, who has provided data driven insights on the state and evolution of the Internet, has left Kleiner Perkins to start her own company. Meeker’s insights have been influential among communicators and marketers, pointing the way to emerging channels and opportunities that have opened new opportunities connect with consumers. Hopefully, this venture will give Meeker new energy and scope to stay on the leading edge. We all benefit from her insights.

Adjusting to Facebook’s declining share of youth attention

The trend of young people abandoning Facebook continues. What happens to communications programs and planning in light of the continuing shift of young people away from Facebook? Are you shifting your programs to allocate more resources to YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat or other channels to compensate for shifts in usage of Facebook?

This week on Inside PR, we discuss Nike's recent endorsement of Colin Kaepernick as an example of corporate activism and corporate social responsibility. And we also share some things we've created elsewhere that we hope you will find useful.

Martin Waxman has a show? No, a LinkedIn course. Martin Waxman's new LinkedIn Learning course has just been released. Check out Martin's advice for using Blogging for Your Business.

SpinSucks, but you don't The latest episode of the SpinSucks podcast provides a good refresher on the PESO model. If you are looking for a good overview, check it out.

Let's go Inside P2 Joe has started a series of interviews with leaders of the public engagement community from around the world. He published the first of these on the current edition of Inside P2, an interview with the President of IAP2 Canada, Bruce Gilbert.

Nike and Colin Kaepernick Gini and Martin see Nike's Colin Kaepernick endorsement as a laudable example of corporate activism. Joe is not so sure.

We're back after a brief summer vacation. And we have lots to talk about. Snooze Keywords on Facebook Facebook is working to make it easier for you to avoid those annoying spoilers about the program you're half way through binging with a new keyword topic filter. The keyword filter has been available to some lucky users in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Let's hope that it becomes available to us all soon. I know I'll be using it to hide anything to do with cats and kittens. Rooting out bias Facebook and Google's role as gatekeepers of what we see is under scrutiny again. Farhad Manjou directed our attention to the built in biases that Google's algorithms and AI can display. We've talked about this before. And the platforms have acknowledged that they do have problems that they are trying to fix. But when they do, their solutions are opaque to end users and citizens. Can we trust the platforms to self regulate? Can communications professionals play a more active role in calling for more transparency? Can government establish a legal or regulatory regime that will achieve a better balance between the public interest and the interest of the platforms' shareholders? A Lasting Reputation Hit for the New Yorker It seemed like a good idea at the time - invite Steve Bannon for a featured interview with David Remnick onstage at the New Yorker Festival. And then the reaction started. Other speakers pulled out. People weighed in on social media (of course!) And before you could turn around, Steve Bannon was uninvited. Some said this was the right thing to do. Others suggested that it was another example of an institution caving to the Twitter mob. So, what does the New Yorker do now? How do they avoid a permanent reputation hit?

Tweet Threads made easier

This week on Inside PR 518, we talk about the upgrade to the Twitter app that makes creating Tweet Threads as easy as clicking on a plus sign at the bottom of your tweet composition window. Twitter threads are a great way to tell more complex stories over time. And they have the extra value of pulling all the tweets in the thread to the top of your followers' timelines whenever you add a tweet to the thread. This is a great way to stay in front of your audience without repeating tweets.

Sidewalk Labs paves a bumpy path

Sidewalk Labs, a Google/Alphabet company, has big plans to redevelop an industrial section of Toronto's waterfront into a demo of the smart city of the future. Sounds like a great idea! But Sidewalk Labs' path to make Toronto a showcase has raised controversy around the stewardship of the data about people that willl be collected. And skepticism has only been accentuated by suggestions that Waterfront Toronto, the agency that is responsible for the lands Sidewalk Labs wants to develop, has been so eager to make the deal that they have become too cozy with Sidewalk Labs too early in the negotiation process. A communications challenge at any time. But an especially big challenge post-Cambridge Analytica.

Ethics! Ethics! Ethics!

The New York Times profile of the fake Youtube views business is the latest example of the social platforms rewarding bad actions. This is just plain wrong. But for PR folks, salt was rubbed in the wound by the suggestion in the article that most of the views are purchased by PR and marketing agencies. It's hard to imagine who those agencies would be. Do you work at a PR firm or know someone who works at a PR firm that buys YouTube views? If you do, we'd love to hear from you and maybe even get you to come on the show to talk with us about this practice.

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.

Are some things just too sensitive to talk about? This week 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.

We consider three developments from the past week:
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?

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 Lynda.com/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.

Six weeks after GDPR came into force, it's clear that many companies haven't really got it right. And now, California has enacted the toughest privacy law in the United States. So, if you thought GDPR and privacy rights were in the rearview mirror, think again.

Facebook left publishers in the lurch. And that hurt. But new data from Slate tells us that a better, more balanced publishing distribution and promotion network is emerging now that Facebook released its stranglehold.

Plus, Instagram releases a guidebook to make better videos for IGTV. And Headliner releases data that shows the effectiveness of audiograms when promoting podcasts.

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.

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.

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.

We have lots to talk about on this week's Inside PR podcast.

PRSA Counselors Academy

Counselors Academy wrapped up in Toronto last week. And, if you missed it this year, Martin Waxman talks about some of his personal highlights - and tells you why you should attend next year.

No Klout

Klout is no more. We won't spill any tears.

GDPR Last Call

This is deadline week for General Data Protection Regulations. Final warning. This may be a European law, but it can be applied to any Website that gathers data from Europeans. Be sure that you are in compliance with GDPR.

Don't give up on constructive conversation on social media

There's a lot of toxicity in social media discussions and comments. However, not everyone is giving up on the potential of social media to give voice to intelligent and constructive conversation. News this week of a project out of Simon Fraser University to to develop algorithms that would identify the most constructive, well-supported comments and raise their visibility.

A course to get you started podcasting

If you're thinking about doing this, Martin has a new podcast course on Lynda.com. A great place to start. And if you do start your own podcast, plesae let us know and we will promote it on Inside PR.

Gini Dietrich launches the Spin Sucks podcast

If you know Gini, you know this will be an outstanding podcast. So, hop over to iTunes and subscribe now.

In the past two weeks, many people have jumped on the bandwagon launched by Will Oremus' article "Are You Really the Product? The history of a dangerous idea." In a nutshell, Oremus argues that the "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product," aphorism doesn't really apply in the case of Facebook. Gini and Joe have different perspectives on this. Gini sees a lot of value in Oremus' arguments. Joe thinks that his arguments bring us to the same conclusion: "If you aren't paying for it with money, you are paying for it in other ways." Ultimately, he who pays for something sets the terms. AND LinkedIn. Can it really be 15 years old? It seems like only yesterday we first met LinkedIn is not as big as Facebook. It doesn't sit at the middle of the news cycle like Twitter. And it doesn't have the love directed at Instagram. But it is older than all of these social networks - and it occupies a unique place for business. We talk about how it has changed over the years and our ongoing love/hate relationship with it.

We often think back to where we were when we first heard about a life altering or world changing event. And as we do, we think about the emotions and thoughts that those events triggered. A White House Press Corps that falls over themselves to distance themselves form a comic sho spoke truth to power. The remarkable performance of Rudolph Giuliani and the rapid shift in the President's tweets from "Rudi's got it right" to "he has to get his facts right." What is truth? Where is truth? And is the news media even less capable of providing us with the information we need as citizens. Or are they locked in a race to the bottom? In the wake of these events, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley revisit how we felt in the days after President Trump was elected. We struggled then, as we do now, to understand the new President, the people around him, and the effectiveness of news media outlets weakened by a deterioration in their business and distribution models. So, after several weeks of reflecting on Facebook and social media, let's take a step back and replay our conversation from Inside PR 464 about the new Trump administration and whether the news media is too weakened to do its job. And as you listen to it, we think you'll find that the questions we asked in January 2017 are as apt today as they were then.

What's the matter with mat stories? Quite a bit, in the absence of full disclosure, it appears. We talk about the different approaches to mat stories in the two largest providers in North America, NAPS in the United States and News Canada north of the border. We talk about where the responsibility for disclosure resides and we see that there may be failings at all three points in the news chain, PR agencies, mat distributors and publishers.

We also look at Facebook's curious performance during and after its testimony before a Canadian Parliamentary Committee. Called to testify about its privacy policies, Facebook's spokesperson first told Parliamentarians that Facebook has its own interpretation of Canadian lobbying laws. An interpretation that resulted in Facebook having no lobbyist registration, despite the fact that Facebook was on record having meetings with several Cabinet Ministers. Curious, said the NDP's Charlie Angus. But, there's more. To top it off, Facebook, the distribution platform on which many Canadians receive their news, refused to take any questions from reporters. This, even thought the reporters accompanied Facebook's Canadian rep down three stories from the Committee hearings to the building exit where he could finally flee them. Hmmm. When you distribute the media, you're probably bigger than the media and don't need to answer questions?

Should you use Reddit for your business communications? Will the Reddit community welcome you or even accept you? Mike Connell's recent article on the Spin Sucks blog launched this week's discussion. And we didn't need much prompting to talk about Mark Zuckerberg's appearance before Congress. Not surprisingly, Gini, Martin and Joe have very different takes on Zuckerberg's performance and its impact and potential consequences.

We CAN change the balance of power between people and the social networks. But to do so, we need to be aware that it is our presence that makes social networks economically viable. And we need to look to government and public interest groups to champion and, if necessary, force the changes that will assert our rights and interests as a precondition to social networks being able to operate in our country.

Mark Zuckerberg is quiet no more. After a period of uncomfortable silence that saw Facebook savaged by privacy advocates and users like us, Zuckerberg gave a remarkable interview to Ezra Klein, suggesting a Facebook governance structure that would transcend national boundaries. Huh? And what does 1.1.1.1 mean to you? Thanks to Cloudflare, you now have another means of protecting your privacy from your Internet Service Provider.

It's episode 500 of Inside PR. Thank you for listening to the first 500. And now,we're starting the next 500. Episode 1,000, here we come! This week we talk about positive steps by Twitter, Facebook and Netflix to promote authoritative news sources and video news magazines. A new news ecosystem takes shape? The Web is almost 30 years old. And the Web's inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, wrote a thought-provoking article about the threats to the Web. Well worth reading and considering. Something about which we all should be taking action.

Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman talk about the introduction of ethics into tech education, a move that's long overdue. Could ethics in Tech turn on the concept, Do no harm?

Also: Facebook users are skewing older as younger people move to other platforms. Can geritol ads be far behind? And Google AMP Stories shows another platform moving to take advantage of the trend to package and present content as stories.

This week, we keep the focus on Facebook and its algorithms. As long as two thirds of us are using the platform, it is important. We start our discussion with Matthew Ingram's recent Columbia Journalism Review article, Facebook's latest changes will probably make misinformation worse. Facebook is indisputably a media company. A change in its algorithm will not change that. And so measures like its two question news questionnaire are something we should examine closely, like every move Facebook is making in this area. But as we do, we must recognize that Facebook's algorithm is opaque to its users. There is no way we really can know what is going on under the hood. And that affects what we read. It's a question of having control.

And, if you think that we are just baying at the moon, another piece of news worth noting, this time out of Canada. Think about the Right to be Forgotten. Then think about the GDPR. Think about CASL, the Canadian Anti Spam Law. Now read a discussion paper from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. The need to give individuals more control over their data leads to a focus on de-indexing and source takedown. The bottom line: We may have a global internet, but we have national sovereignty over privacy and personal rights. So, pay attention. You may not want government regulation, but that doesn't mean you won't get it.

Finally, we talk about Google Bulletin, It reminds us that, before Facebook pushed into and then fled news, there was Google. And when we talk about innovation, let's not count out Google.

We take a further look at Facebook's shifting treatment of news that appears in our newsfeeds. The problem: Facebook has become the dominant news distribution platform. However, the algorithms have had a nasty propensity to elevate what has been broadly labelled as fake news. So, in this new world, how are we to know what is real, what is reliable, what is trustworthy? In recent weeks, Facebook has announced measures to address this issue. Today, our conversation centers on the introduction of two survey questions to ask Facebook users about their awareness of and trust in news sources.

Also on this week's agenda, payola PR. Does it exist? What does it say about ethics in PR? What should we as an industry and as individual practitioners do to combat it?

Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook's solution for fake news is to remove news from the newsfeed. We talk about the implications of this for news outlets, PR people and Facebook users themselves. While it will take some time for this to play out, it could lead to a period of innovation as publishers and communicators turn to other platforms and tools (check out Feedly). But, however this turns out, there is no doubt that Facebook always looks after its own business interests. And in the case, its interest simply wasn't in coming to grips with the problem it created in its relentless push to aggregate audiences and news outlets. Facebook made this mess. Now the rest of us are left to deal with it.

A recent post by Gini Dietrich on Digital Distraction and Creativity provides our jumping off point this week. We talk about he importance of times when our minds are "in neutral" for creative thinking and serendipitous inspiration. For Gini, it's long bike rides. For Martin, it's long walks. For Joe, it's shaving and the shower. It may be something totally different for you. But whatever it is, it's important that you make time to enable your mind to free associate and generate new ideas. Just a couple years ago, Canada's Antispam Law (CASL) forced marketers everywhere to revise their approach to building mailing lists, as marketers everywhere discovered that, if they captured any Canadians in their lists, they had to clearly indicate the intended use of the data and provide people with a clear opt-in for the list, not an opt-out. And failure to comply with these standards could lead to legal action and fines. Now publishers and marketers around the world are gearing up for Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which compels a similar rethink about the way that data about people is collected, including cookie data. And, similar to CASL, living outside of Europe is not a shield against the regulation. It's effect and the truly sizeable financial penalties that can be levied against those who violate the regulation can be applied to anyone anywhere if the capture data about Europeans. Finally, we discuss research from Pew that underlines the relentless erosion of television news consumption, that is leaving it as a medium consumed by older, less educated, less wealthy Americans. No wonder I see so many drug ads on CNN! And this trend leaves PR people scrambling to reach audiences in the new online places they habituate.

This week's conversation was sparked by a comment from Monica Miller, who wonders how the flow of sponsored content and content originated by companies and published by communicators affects media credibility. This leads us to a discussion of the limits to sponsored content, new models for journalism and the possibility that local journalism may be linked to a more traditional blue collar model than it is to the television-fueled celebrity salaries of recent years.

Artificial intelligence was a hot topic among communicators in 2017 and it's something to continue watching and exploring in 2018. Clearly, it will have an impact on the nature of the work we perform. It will destroy many existing jobs, especially those involving repetitive, data-based tasks. But, for those who are lucky and prepared to innovate, it also holds the promise to create new opportunities.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley kick around two topics on this week's Inside PR podcast. • Can Snapchat be fixed? It is a great service with the right set of users, but just a terrible user interface? Or do its problems runs deeper? • The outing of sexual predators gives us pause to examine how you can respond to the unconscionable. What do you want? An apology? Or a commitment to change? Are either sufficient alone or even in combination?

We talked to one another for 42 minutes to plan the podcast before we started to record. At the end, we've decided to take the pressure off by saying that this is a recording that is not remarkable. Just three friends, three communications professionals talking about issues of importance to us. The responsibility of the big platforms, Facebook and Google. Their begrudging appearance before Congress, an appearance that makes that case that government has levers that, just by their existence, keeps the big players in check. If Congress had not persisted, we never would have gotten the real picture about what was going on with Facebook, Google and Russian interference in the US election. Yep, Facebook and Google are media companies. Publishers that makes judgements through the algorithms they deploy just as surely as humans do. Have they become too dominant, too focused on their own commercial interest, to realize the original dream of people connecting with one another in a meaningful, positive way? And what's the impact of a few dominant players on innovation? When they buy new innovative companies when they haven't yet fully realized their potential. The may not be a remarkable discussion. But that doesn't make it unimportant.

Does Amazon have a problem with Bot reviews? Are your purchase decisions influenced by the reviews that you read on Amazon? Just like fake news and fake people on Twitter and other social media platforms, we need to be constantly skeptical about what we read and see. The number one rule of online reviews? Do your research before you click. Consumer beware. And when it comes to endorsements, the FTC makes it clear that influencers really must disclose any paid sponsorships or promotions connected to any of their social media posts. This is something about which PR professionals should be constantly mindful. However, we all can point to examples of PR people who post about client-related matters without any disclosure. We've all lapsed on occasion. But its' essential that we keep this top of mind and observe the rules. Influencer beware. Influencer disclose. Would you join the PR dream team? Gini has created the PR Dream Team as an online PR support community. Since launching in beta in February, PR practitioners have joined to learn from one another and help one another with common issues and challenges that we all have. Come for the content. Stay for the team. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley riff on this and more on this week's Inside PR podcast.

It's conference season. And, like you, we want to get the most out of the conferences we attend. And we have become more demanding of the conferences we attend, given that we can get so much great content via Webinars and online courses. So, let's talk about why we attend conferences. What are they good for? How do you get the most out of them? Should conference organizers offer a different experience, based on facilitated discussions drawing on the expertise in the audience?

Think about what you heard yesterday. Do you remember the facts that you heard or do you remember the stories that you were told?

We've come a long way since the days when corporate executives were rehearsed in the art of "bridging" in order to keep returning to their predetermined key messages. Authenticity didn't count as much then as it does in the art of social media. T

erry Fallis' career in communications has reaches back to those days. But he left them behind to be an early pioneer in social media (He was the original co-host of Inside PR). And along the way, he began writing. Six novels later, he's an award winning best-selling author who advises executives and public figures on how to communicate effectively in the era in which we all have a voice.

Listen as he talks with Joseph Thornley about the importance of narrative and story telling.

Google's HR problem We offer our take on the James Damore memo and how Google handled it. Will this discussion get us into trouble? Will you unsubscribe? Will you judget us harshly? Google expands speech recognition News that Google extended speech recognition to another 30 languages used by 1 billion people underlines how rapidly Google is preparing for the era in which we will be interacting with our devices primarily by voice commands.

Facebook Watch Facebook is rolling out a new "Watch" tab on the mobile app to feature short form, more professional videos. But what will be on it? Variety profiled several early shows, which sounded to Joe like reality TV dreck. Gini, however, is one of the lucky people with early access - and she reports that her "Watch" tab includes the Ellen DeGeneres Show, ABC News, Good Morning America, and the Tonight Show. So, there will be dreck there. As Martin says, it sounds like something created by Chuck Barris, known for his low brow game shows. However, Gini's first set of feeds suggests that the algorithm will give people the kind of content they consume (if not deserve). If you click on dreck in your Facebook feed, expect to see dreck in your Watch tab. If you click on more intelligent news and videos on your newsfeed, expect to see something more thought provoking in the Watch tab. The Future of Voice Search and AI We have entered the era of voice search. And we talk about its implications. One thing is clear: voice search will require marketers to think differently about the content they create and the placement they seek in a voice search environment. Think about the way you interact with your voice devices like Alexa and Siri right now. Do you ask a question and then go to the first result you hear? Or do you ask it a series of questions? We think that success in the era of voice search will be rely on finding a way to be useful in a conversational mode - to have the most useful content that will surface as users interact with their voice interfaces.

The White House has a new Communications Director - who is not a professional communicator. Gini and Joe discuss what the demise of Sean Spicer and the appointment by Donald Trump of Anthony Scaramucci as White House Communications Director says to professional communicators and what it means for professional communications. Can any Tom, Dick or Anthony do what we as professional communicators do? Can they do it well? Do they even know what we do and what goes into it? Do you feel belittled as a professional communicator when a person with no professional communications experience or expertise is appointed to one of the most senior communications positions in the world? Is being able to get yourself on television a critical skill for a communications executive? How important is it to be able to manage up? It's nice that you like your boss. But, when telling truth to power, it's better that you respect the boss. The bottom line: This could get ugly. Post Script: In fact, it did get ugly, really ugly. We recorded this prior to the publication of Ryan Lizza's New Yorker interview with Anthony Scaramucci, with all of its vulgarity. The quotes in that article speak for themselves.

This week, Gini, Martin and Joe are doing something special - a joint episode of Inside PR and the Spin Sucks Fireside Chat. During her journeys on the speakers' circuit, Gini met Tyler Brown, a long-time senior communicator at the Republican National Committee who has recently moved over to public affairs consulting. The confluence of political and corporate communications is a hot topic for all of us. So, Gini asked Tyler if he would share his experience and insights with us. Tyler knows both the worlds of political and corporate communications. From 2009 through the 2016 US election season, he held a number of senior communications positions at the Republican National Committee. During that time, he served first as Northeast Regional Press Secretary, then Director of Rapid Response and Deputy Director of Communications. From 2012 through to the end of 2016, he was the Republicans' Director of Digital Strategy. In January 2017, Tyler joined Mercury Public Affairs' Washington office as Senior Vice President. His areas of practice at Mercury include digital, grassroots coalition building, and public affairs campaign management. Our conversation covers a lot of ground. Join with Martin, Gini and Joe as we talk with Tyler about what he saw in eight years inside the Washington political machine and what that taught him that we all can use.

Dean Baquet inadvertently makes the case for a Public Editor at the New York Times. Google supports innovation in online news, but diverts attention from the real issue. The News Media Alliance calls for an antitrust exemption. Yep, that's right. Solve the problem of market dominance by compounding the problem. Really, we're not making this up. Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these issues in this episode of the Inside PR podcast. Gini Dietrich is traveling this week, but she'll rejoin us next week.

When is a yellow rubber duck worth a thousand words? Facebook walks like a news publisher and quacks like a news publisher; must be a news publisher. No surprise here: Venture capitalist research features their portfolio companies. But what of disclosure? Marketing with social bookmarking. Social media innovation is alive and well. And IPR is on iHeartRadio. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackles these issues in this episode of the Inside PR podcast.

This week, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich, and Joseph Thornley are joined by Alex Sevigny, the Executive Director of the McMaster-Syracuse Master of Communications Management Program. Alex talks about the importance of data science to the skillset of the well-rounded PR professional. We also talk about upcoming updates to the Apple Podcasts app, which will support podcast series and give podcasters analytics so that they can learn more about how people are consuming their content. And before we leave, we talk about the comfort to be received from Binky. It started as a joke, and then it took over the world. :)

Pinterest acquires Delicious and will preserve it as an archive. Martin Waxman provides a primer on social listening for business. And Mary Meeker tells us about the Internet Trends that are shaping our world. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are together for another episode of the Inside PR podcast. Farewell Delicious Delicious was one of the first social apps that Gini, Martin and Joe used. A place to bookmark content and share it with our communities. An early pioneer, Delicious sold to Yahoo … and the end began. Yahoo didn't know what to do with Delicious. The app stagnated and was overtaken by newer competitors like Diigo. And now one of those rivals, Pinboard, has purchased Delicious. Pinterest's 1 billion entries will be preserved as an archive of the early social web. Thank you Pinboard for preserving the archives. Martin Waxman is a celebrity Yes, Martin is a celebrity, a Lynda.com, LinkedIn Training celebrity. In 2016, he produced his first course for Lynda.com, Social Media Marketing for Small Business. Now, his second online course for Lynda/LinkedIn - Social Listening for Marketers - has been published. It takes a 50,000 foot look at the importance of social listening, how it has transformed research, how it has enabled us to understand and connect with customers. Martin loves the Lynda.com team. And he has enjoyed developing these courses. So, check out his newest and expect more in the future. The State of the Internet Social media geeks wait all year long for Mary Meeker's Internet Trends report. And this year, Meeker again unveiled the report at a presentation at the Code Conference. This year's presentation weighed in at 355 slides - yes, that is not a typo. 355 slides. That's a lot of data and insight. We discuss some of the things that we found most interesting.

Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online Data & Society, the New York-based research institute has published a new study, Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online, which every person interested in today's media environment should read. Media manipulation techniques are being used by a wide swathe of groups, such as the alt-right, Men's Rights Activists, gamergaters and trolls. They observe one another, adopt techniques and adapt them to achieve their objectives. The report is well-researched and cites several recent case studies, including Hillary's Health and Pizzagate. Well worth a couple hours of your time to read. Pinterest: Shazam for Food? Do you use Pinterest to share food, recipes and dining experiences? A huge number of people do, including Gini Dietrich. In fact, Pinterest reports over 5 billion food-related saves and searches by US-based users in the past year. And now Pinterest has introduced new tools, including visual Lens discovery, Recipe Pins and search filters to make it easier for users to post, promote and find food and related recipes. Facebook keeps the focus on video Three additional Facebook innovations in video are worth noting this week: Facebook's watch and scroll feature, which lets users view videos side by side with their news feed is now available to desktop users. Live Chat with Friends during Facebook Live Videos gives users the ability to move in and out of private and public chats while watching a Facebook Live Video. Facebook Live With now enables people to share a Live Video with a guest. Facebook's community standards guidelines If every there were doubt that Facebook is operating as a publisher, it was put to rest once and for all by the publication by the Guardian of leaked community standards guidance documents used by Facebook content moderators. As we have argued repeatedly, Facebook is not just a carrier, a dumb pipeline. It is a publisher. And that starts with its algorithms that incorporate the judgments of their creators and it now extends to the increasingly high profile work of their content moderators. MP3 is dead. Long live MP3 Yep, many tech media outlets were suckered by a self serving corporate position. Yes, the patent on MP3s has expired. Yes, the company that owned the patents no longer will profit from the patent. But that doesn't mean that MP3 is dead as a standard anymore than JPG is dead as a standard. The patent may have expired on both formats, but they will live on. Why? Because they do the job they are intended to do - and that's good enough. Sometimes, "good enough" technology is all we need, and its simplicity and widespread adoption will keep it alive indefinitely. So, ignore the stories about the death of MP3. You don't need a replacement. It's not going anywhere. And for an intelligent explanation of this, take a look at Marco Arment's post. Car crashes all the time Ignore the clickbait headline in the New York Times. Read the article. Respect for Ev Williams, who embodies the idealism that the Web is built on. We can do better than the ad-driven, clickbaity environment we find ourselves in. Let's join Ev in not be satisfied until the Web is again a place to create amazing content and to be able to share ideas.

Good times for PR at PRSA Counselors Academy. No-slide presentations! Better tools for Facebook Groups. Wordpress joins Hacker One and offers a bounty on bugs. Quartz has an Obsession with propaganda. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are together for another episode of the Inside PR podcast. Good times for PR at Counselors Academy Martin returned this week from Counselors Academy and he reports that attendance was up substantially. Martin estimated that about one third of the attendees being first timers. We talk about the conference and the subject matter that stood out for Martin. And among the best news for Gini and Joe: Next year's Counselors Academy will be held in Toronto. Better Tools for Facebook Group Administrators Facebook has provided group administrators with the ability to set up a brief questionnaire that prospective new members must answer when requesting membership in the group. It's not a big thing. But it will help administrators to understand who is joining the group and what has drawn them to it. Thank you Facebook. Wordpress steps up its efforts to keep our Websites secure Over 28% of the top Websites are powered by Wordpress. So, it's great to see that Wordpress continues to take security seriously. So props to Wordpress for joining HackerOne and for introducing a bug bounty program. Quartz Obsesses on PRopaganda Quartz has started a new collection of articles on a topic that should be of interest to PR practitioners: Propaganda. No, we're not suggesting that we see ourselves as propagandists. But it would be naïve to suggest that the birth of the PR industry and propaganda weren't closely intertwined. And in these times, its ever more important for us to pay attention to the ethics of communications. And when you've bookmarked the Quartz obsession, you may want to check out Tim Wu's treatment of Ed Bernays and the birth of PR in The Attention Merchants. And for a lean-back experience that should spark further thought, find and watch The Century of the Self, a four part documentary first shown on BBC in 2002.

Twitter and Bloomberg Twitter's partnership with Bloomberg to offer 24 hour video news is a positive move. It makes sense for our news feed to be running curated video news alongside the community-generated news. Twitter may not be the first app that Martin, Gini or Joe opens in the morning. But when news breaks, it’s the place we turn to find out the latest. So, we're bullish on its new video initiatives. Feedly features filters They're not here quite yet. But Feedly promises users that it soon will offer Mute Filters. And Feedly is going about developing them the right way. They're surveying users about what they want and asking them to comment on a user interface. Feedly is one of the most useful tools for communications professionals . If you aren't using it, you should be. Click over right now and create a Feedly account. (No, this is not a paid ad. We're just big believers in the value of Feedly and want to share it with others.) Sysomos integrates Communications professionals have long relied on Sysomos MAP for the data used in communications audits and Sysomos Heartbeat for social media monitoring programs. But Sysomos has been acquiring other services. And now these services have been integrated into a single Sysomos Platform offering several functional stacks: search, listen, discover, publish, engage and analyse. All in one user friendly interface that anyone familiar with Tweetdeck or Hootsuite will find intuitive. It’s a whole new Sysomos. Let's just hope that it isn't priced out of the budget range of small and mid-size agencies. Sysomos Light? Yik has Yakked When were you last on Yik Yak. Our bet is not recently. And that's what the company realized too. Users had dropped off steeply. And so Yik Yak threw in the towel. RIP Yik Yak.

The NY Times is on Snapchat Discover. You're probably not on Mastadon. But is that really important? Consolidation on the Internet. Facebook and augmented reality. Let's go Inside PR. It's just Martin and Joe this week. But we cover a lot of ground. Facebook focuses on AR Facebook just isn't letting up on the pressure on Snapchat. Last year, Snapchat made waves with its glasses, pointing the way to a video future. Just as it has parroted other Snapchat features (Stories anyone?), Facebook is now pointing to an AR future and committing Facebook-scale resources to it. Competition is great, as long as the giant doesn't crush the upstart. Distributed publishing isn't all publishers hoped it would be News that the Guardian has pulled out of Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles comes on the heels of earlier reports that other publishers were not seeing the financial results they hoped to achieve from adopting the distributed publishing model being touted by Facebook, Snapchat and Google. And for those of us who publish our own content, take note. Don't shut down your owned website quite yet. The New York Times is looking for more on Snapchat In April, the New York Times joined Snapchat Discover. It's hard to see how Snapchat Discover matches the nature of the Times content. Take an early Discover article as an example. On Sunday April 23, the Times ran a major feature on Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. The version of the Times Website clocked in as just under 4,000 words. The next morning, the Times launched its Snapchat Discover channel with the Kalanick story. And what a difference! The Snapchat version contained an animated GIF and three text panels containing under 160 words. That's right. 4,000 words on the Times site. Less than 160 on Snapchat. Consolidation on the Internet A recent NY Times article underlined the degree to which the previously open Internet is consolidating around a handful of platforms. Consolidation of attention makes us less free, makes us less able to serendipitously encounter different views and different experiences. Are you on Mastadon? Probably not. But does that matter? Do platforms need to scale to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat levels to be of value? No, it's not. It's important that we support and play with new experiments like this. Whether Mastadon every grows, the very spirit that gives to its rise underlines the vitality of the Internet and Net Neutrality.

It's social media feature tweak week. Changes to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat underline how competitive the social media platforms are. Plus we get onside with changing norms in acceptable language. And Spin Sucks surveys PR pros. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back for another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Stories Here. Stories There. Stories Everywhere … on Facebook Facebook lets you had Stories directly from your mobile app. In a world in which more than half of Facebook usage is on mobile apps, this is the real start of the race for Facebook. If the essence of an attention getting story is a visual, then it only makes sense to let us compose stories from the device with a built-in camera. Snapchat Keyword search Casual users may find Snapchat much more welcoming now that Snapchat has upgraded its search to enable full key word searches. Twitter confuses long time users When are extra characters worth keeping around? When they are the @NAME convention in tweets that respond to other people's tweets. Take it away and you have confusion on the part of many long time users. Periscope live streams now appear inside Twitter Moments Periscope is a great live streaming tool. It's also less popular than other livestreaming services. So, anything that raises its profile is a good thing. RIP the Egg And we couldn't let the passing of the Twitter egg go by without comment. Another of the quirky, idiosyncratic things that made early Twitter so distinctive is now just a memory. Say hello to generic head and shoulder outlines as the new avatar for trolls and newbies. A small step for gender neutral language, a giant step for Mankind Communicators must be aware of words and phrases that convey or reinforce values that are outmoded. This is a challenge in a time in which acceptable language standards are established by focused communities of interest. It's a big challenge to stay on top of these changes in acceptable use. We struggle to keep up. Spin Sucks surveys PR practitioners about the state of the business Gini Dietrich's Spin Sucks site asked readers to tell them about the PR industry they work in today. The responses came in mostly from people who work at small PR firms and independently, which itself says something about changes in the PR industry. Gini takes us through some of the insights she gained into the state of the business through this survey.

We celebrate a big award win for Maureen Judge (read on to learn of her connection to the podcast), test Instagram Hyperlapse and struggle with bridging the perspective chasm that seems to support fake news. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back for another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnows Kudos to Maureen Judge It's not strictly PR, but it is communication, communication as in documentary filmmaking. So, a quick shout out to Maureen Judge, whose documentary film, My Millenial Life, won the Canadian Screen Award. Maureen is not only a talented film maker, but she also is Martin's wife. And Martin enjoys basking in Maureen's aura. Instagram Hyperlapse telescopes event videos Hyperlapse, a new Instagram app enables users to speed up videos up to 12 times the speed in which they were taken. This should prove to be a boon for people staging events who want to produce behind-the-scenes, preparing for the event, or other kinds of videos capturing a longer time span. Struggling with fake news and bridging the perspective chasm We'll be honest. Gini, Martin and Joe would all self-identify as progressive in our political perspective. And yes, we're struggling with the challenge of fake news and the decline of traditional news organizations. A story in the New York Times launched us into a discussion of the potential for social revenue sources like Patreon to support a bubbling up of entrepreneurial niche and community-based news media. But that quickly morphed into a discussion of the continuing problem of replacing the mid-sized news organizations that are most in trouble. And from there we found ourselves again struggling to come to grips with the immediate manifestation of these changes in the news ecosystem - fake news. In our struggle with fake news, we move past the problem with social algorithms that lead to its distribution and the measures being taken, finally, by Facebook and other platforms to deal with it. Simply tagging something as fake doesn't bring us any closer to why people would believe it in the first place. It doesn't bring us any closer to understanding why people distrust traditional news organizations. We have to understand the lived experience and perspective of those who reject the relevance of the facts that are advanced. They may be facts. But are they relevant to what these people really want to talk about? We need to listen to one another, engaging in a dialogue to find understanding and common ground. Yep, it's three liberals struggling with the challenge of fake news.

#IPRMustKnow Time Berners Lee reminds us about what the Web should be Gini points out some wise words from Tim Berners-Lee about things that must change in order for us to realize the potential of the World Wide Web. And it starts with a concern for privacy. An article well worth reading. Boaty McBoatface went for a swim We just can't get enough of this story. Boaty McBoatface sank beneath the waves - and then resurfaced. Turning a PR embarrassment into something positive and memorable. Channels, Channels and Channels. Can you count on them? Skype. Slack. Twitter. Snapchat. PR pros have adopted many new communication channels in recent years. Lately, there has been a great deal of concern about the future of Twitter. PR won't die if Twitter dies. But it sure will change things. Twitter isn't as much about pitching as it is about understanding the interests of journalists who we might want to pitch. People tweet about the things they care about. And knowing what a a journalist cares about is useful when deciding who to pitch a story to. Having said that, nothing is for ever. So, don't get too comfortable with the tools you use today. You may have to make changes tomorrow.

Escape with us. From fake news. From our filter bubble. From annoying videos that play sound as soon as they scroll into view. From Snapchat hype. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back for another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Snapchat hype In the wake of the Snap IPO, we talk about what really matters for its prospects - a disconnect between its user base and its business model. And since we recorded this program, the dramatic drop in Snap's share prices suggest that, after the hype, others have taken a closer look at what's really going on here and have decided that its time to pull back from overly inflated excpectations. Who is asking for Sound on videos by default? Not us. Facebook's move to turn sound on by default on videos that scroll into your newsfeed is another example of what happens when the interests of advertisers are placed ahead of the wants and likes of users. It's also something that happens when one player dominates the marketplace. It can do things that don’t serve users. But, heck, where can we go? (See Snapchat above.) Facebook is getting better at identifying fake news Facebook has begun to more clearly mark fake news when users attempt to share it. A good move. An overdue move. And another clear indicator that Facebook is a news media company. And it should shoulder the editorial responsibilities of a news media company. Escape your filter bubble Social media, with its newsfeeds created by algorithms designed to retain our attention and increase our interactions, traps us in a filter bubble. We will only escape this through action on several fronts. By acknowledging and understanding standards for journalism grounded in transparency of perspective in place of the illusion of objectivity. By continuing to pressure the social networks to acquit their editorial responsibilities as news media. By promoting increased media literacy among all people. #TryPod March is #TryPod month. During this month, we and other podcasters are encouraging you to share with your friends one or more podcasts that you love. For my part, I want to share with you two podcasts. Brief Remarks. Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery veteran Susan Delacourt knows all the key players in Canadian politics. And every week, she interviews them. A chance to get to know not only the politicians we see every day, but the behind-the-scenes players who make government work in Canada. The Daily. Every weekday, Michael Barbero provides an in depth look at one of the big stories or trends that the New York Times is covering. In greater depth than is possible in the newspaper or on a blog post. Interviewing the people who researched and wrote the stories. Providing context. It's the podcast I listen to to start every day. If you have podcasts that you love, share them with others. Post about your favourite podcasts on Facebook, Twitter or any social media using the hashtag #trypod. Share the joy of podcasting and look for the smile on your friends' faces as they too discover content that matters to them.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back for another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Note to Self's Privacy Paradox series Do you care about retaining (some) control of your privacy while online? Do you want to know who is creeping you and how they are doing it? Do you want tips for some simple measures you can take to retain some control over your personal information? If you said yes to any of these questions, click over to Privacy Paradox, a project of WNYC's excellent Note to Self podcast. Register to participate and each day for five days you will receive and email with links to a special podcast episode, personal challenges you can take to assess your own privacy and tips on tools you can use to maintain awareness and retain some control. Time well spent. The Washington Post goes to Snapchat Snapchat's user growth may have been slowed by Instagram Live Stories. But that's not stopping news media from continuing to flock to it. The latest is the Washington Post, which launched on Snapchat Discover. I'm all for news media drawing revenue from any source they can. But it still seems to me that Snapchat is not a place people go to find the news. The Neverending News Cycle Round and round we go. When the United States has a President who seems to rarely sleep and always has his Twitter feed at hand, how can news organizations plan media announcements? Is there any such thing as clear space any longer. Or even a clear time of day?

Net Neutrality. Canada's PMO fights back, against fake news. And we talk about how to be effective and responsible in our use of email. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back for another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Net Neutrality is worth fighting for New that the new FCC Chair, Ajit Pai, has begun to undermine net neutrality. If you value innovation. If you want to ensure that the Web stays open for new entrants. If you care about choice, pay attention. It's time to get ready to stand up again for net neutrality. Nipping fake news at the source We know that fake news usually is totally fabricated. But it also can be founded in erroneous reporting. So it was encouraging to see Kate Purchase, the Director of Communications to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, tackle Fox News head-on to obtain a correction to an item that was being distributed as fake news. In the wake of the Quebec City, several news organizations reported early information that one of the suspected shooters was Muslim. That was wrong. He was an innocent bystander. In fact, the victims were Muslim and the person arrested was not. Other news organizations quickly corrected the error. Fox did not. At least until Kate Purchase sent them a letter and publicly shamed them by publishing it on Twitter. Canadians are nice people. But we also can make a point when we need to. Huzzah Kate. Tips for responsible use of email Previously, we offered advice about how to cope with an overflowing email inbox. This week, we talk about how to be responsible and effective as a sender of email.

Let's talk about the failure of distributed content, the elimination of U.S. privacy protections for foreigners, and taking your agency virtual. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back for another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Distributing content on Facebook and other social platforms hasn't proven to be the bonanza publishers need A new study, reported by Digiday, reveals that a year into the new Distributed Publishing era, in which news media publish their content on platforms like Facebook, Google Amp, SnapChat Discovery, the revenues have not lived up to expectations. In fact, only 14 percent of publisher revenue is coming from distributed content. Another bullet that turned out not to be so magical. So, the search for new revenue sources continues. And their search includes podcasting. Witness the new podcast from the New York Times, The Daily. Foreigners take note. You've lost data privacy protection in the U.S. In a world in which privacy protection is often assumed and opaque, news that non-Americans have been stripped of privacy protection in the United States may influence decisions about non-Americans to seek cloud and data solutions that guarantee that their data will reside outside of the United States. Thanks to Michael Geist for pointing this out. Virtual vs. Brick and Mortar communications agencies Gini did it. Martin did it. Joe's playing with a hybrid version of it. As our work applications have moved into the cloud and video conferencing and document sharing has become a one click experience on both laptops and phones, it has become easier than ever to stay connected with a distributed team. Have we reached the point the tipping point in which the benefits of virtual teams have matched and even exceeded the benefits of assembling a cohesive team in one place?

We've entered a new era, a whole new world, an alternate universe. And Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley focus this entire episode on the implications of the approach to media relations (and truth) being taken by the New President and the ability of today's weakened news media to play their important counterbalance role in relation to Power. Sources that we found useful for this: Liz Spayd, Public Editor of the New York Times, critiquing the Times' coverage (or failure to cover), Trump, Russia, and the News Story that Wasn't Susan Delacourt's recounting on the Brief Remarks podcast about how the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery survived the Stephen Harper government.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back for another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnows Things that caught our attention and that we think you should note include: the future of Twitter? Not a social network, but a news feed, the place to see what's happening. Medium's pivot away from advertising and their less-than-clear business model reminds us that we should publish the content we care about on our owned space. Then use other platforms to promote and amplify it. Don't serve email. Make email serve you. And at this time of the year, all must be asking ourselves how we can get out from under the tyranny of email. We swap tips about how we make email serve us, rather than becoming the creatures of email.

Books for communicators On this episode of the Inside PR podcast, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley talk about books that had lasting impact on us and that we would recommend to others: What Would Google Do, by Jeff Jarvis, an annual read for Gini. Always inspiring. "It's fun to watch the progression of my own business since I first read that book," says Gini. Spin Sucks, by Gini Dietrich. Martin says, "I'm not sucking up. I put it on the reading list for my social media course." Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam, "A book written about how people were losing their social connections as they cocooned during the television age," says Joe. A must-read to understand what social media freed us from. Alone Together by Sherry Turkle. The other side of the social media and handheld device revolution. When can we be alone in a crowd? Disruptive Power, by Taylor Owen. A contemporary take on how these trends have led to the era of non-hierarchical collective action. Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman writes in an accessible fashion about how and why we make unpredictable decisions. A primer on behavioural economics that we can all understand. Built to Sell, by John Warrillow and Bo Burlingham. Gini found this book invaluable in helping her to conceive of how to turn here services business into a process driven company that is scalable and less dependent on her personally. The Art of Strategy, by Avinash K. Dixit and Barry J.J. Nalebuff. Martin read this book when he was selling his business. It helped him sort through his thinking about what strategy really is and how it differs from tactics and how to manage through situations in which people are acting on very different strategies. These books made a difference in our thinking. And we return to them repeatedly. So, we recommend them without hesitation. #IPRMustKnows Also, on this episode, we cover: A recent study underlines the persistent problem of people not being able to discern the distinction between native advertising and editorially-independent news on publishers' websites. Snapchat adds to its content with a deal with Turner to develop original shows for Snapchat based on TBS programs.

Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman recorded this episode in the wake of the US election and so it's not surprising that they reflect extensively on face news, the responsibility of Facebook and our relationship to news media. 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. Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to insideprcomments@gmail.com, leave a comment on the Inside PR Facebook group or the FIR Podcast Network Facebook group, We’re also on Twitter. We’re @inside_pr or connect directly with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman.

This week we try "speed podcasting." Martin, Gini and Joe triple booked ourselves. So, we only had twelve minutes to record the show. Could we make it in that time? Well we could if we focused on the #IPRMustKnows. #IPRMustKnow Vine faces its existential threat Say goodbye to Will Sasso and disappearing oranges. Say goodbye to Vine as Twitter focuses their business and decides that Vine is not part of its future. Could there be a white knight out there who will take Vine off Twitter's hands and keep it alive? Facebook launches digital masks It may be only in Ireland right now, but Facebook's emulation of Snapchat's most popular features marches on. Facebook's strategy: Never stay still. Look for what's hot. Copy. Profit. Trump's digital campaign machine We recorded this just prior to the election. And even though we couldn't see the outcome, Gini pays reluctant tribute to Donald Trump's digital team. A remarkable story. We did it! Inside PR in under twelve minutes. We had a great time recording this. It's like speed podcasting.

This week's Inside PR podcast comes to you from the PRSA International Conference in Indianapolis. Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman presented sessions at the conference and they bring us their sense of what is on the minds of North American communicators who attended the session. Even better, we're joined by a special guest, Michael Smart. Michael delivered a presentation on how to generate positive media coverage. And Gini and Martin dig in for his insights in this area. We also visit some of the takeaways of the panel on podcasting that featured Gini, Deirdre Breakenridge and Shonali Burke. Finally, Martin, Gini and Michael talk about the discussion around cybersecurity that really stood out for them at this year's PRSA conference. The audio quality has some background noise. Gini, Martin and Michael were in a room with a fair amount of traffic. But we think the content is good. So, I hope you will overlook the background sounds. They never quite drown out the conversation. Oh, and by the way, Joseph Thornley was here too.

Twitter Moments for all of us. Large publishers' growing dependency on Facebook. Thinking ahead about the implications of AI in our devices and apps. And the ethics of the close-hold embargo. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnows Create your Own Twitter Moments Twitter Moments, introduced for media and select users earlier this year, is now available for all users. This is a useful feature for anyone speaking at a conference or participating in an event or discussion that they want to curate and preserve. Bit by bit, Twitter is becoming even more useful. Large publishers are becoming dependent on Facebook. But where is the revenue? A report published by the International News Media Association and reported on by Nieman Lab indicates that 30% of visits to large publishers websites are referred from Facebook. That's huge. But if publishers are becoming ever more dependent on Facebook's network effect, and with Facebook favouring content published natively on it, the big question continues to be, is traffic paying off in revenue? Getting out front on AI The increasing introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into apps, social networks and internet-connected devices raise a broad range of ethical, legal and policy issues. And where that happens, government is likely to act. So, it should come as no surprise that large businesses are banding together in a number of organizations to address these issues in order in advance of legislation and regulation. Of course, we can only hope that the voice of civil society will be heard alongside that of business. A media relations issue to ponder: Close-hold embargoes Charles Seife, writing in Scientific American, introduced us to a practice we had never encountered: A close-hold embargo. And it gives us the opportunity to ponder the line between transparency and manipulation and the ethical questions that public relations practitioners must confront when negotiating terms of access with news media.

#IPRMustKnows Snapchat is a Snap If you missed the news, Snapchat has rebranded and at the same time begun to move outside of its core business, including the promise of Snapchat video glasses. Snapchat may well pull off what Google Glass failed at. Why Allo? Google Plus redux? Do we need yet another duplicative app? The sprit of selfless sharing MOZ, the SEO app is a useful tool and source of expertise for many PR people who need to learn and apply pragmatic SEO to their programs. Recently, Ran Fishkin published a remarkable post in which he was both candid and insightful. And we contemplate his observation that "Inbound marketing never really became a thing..." A big deal if you are repositioning your company into the inbound marketing space. Something for PR people to think about as we reposition our businesses for the future. Not specifically about inbound marketing. But about any space we are moving toward. Will it still be there when we arrive?

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnows From Docs to Podcasts A sign of the continuing professionalization of podcasts. In a few weeks, Hot Docs, North America's largest documentary film festival, will launch its first Hot Docs Podcast Festival. The lineup is heavily skewed to mainstream, large audience podcasts. I guess that means that we need to continue to look to community-generated events like Podcamp Toronto to represent amateur niche content. Things like Inside PR. :) Twitter - independent or acquisition? Can Twitter survive on its own? Would it be better being acquired by a larger entity? I know that, one way or the other, I don't want Twitter to disappear. As other services have refined their algorithms to present popular content first, I think that Twitter now holds a unique place as our newsfeed. An essential lense on the world that not only allows us to bear witness in real time, but also allows anyone to see it happening in real time. Google Automated Insights If you use Google Analytics, you must check out the automated insights that have been added to the Google Analytics mobile app. An invaluable tool that helps you quickly identify the most salient trends and events in the traffic to your site. Little by little, we are moving in the direction of the intelligent assistant. And it's free! PR can't stop changing For our main topics this week, we discuss the need for PR to accelerate the repositioning of its core business proposition in the face of shrinking newsrooms. PR will not disappear. It just won't look like it did a few years ago. And companies that haven't changed their focus away from earned media will find themselves left behind. The rise of Facebook as an aggregator. The decline of newsrooms. Sponsored content as the new norm. The end of print newspapers. PR must prepare itself for the post-newsprint world. Some PR agencies are well down the path of reimagining the business. The new firms seem to understand that the emphasis must continue to be on relationships. But different forms of relationships with different actors and agents (algorithms anyone?) Those that evolve in this way will succeed. Along the way, those that change will have to explain themselves to a marketplace that may not have understood the need for these changes. Those that don't will disappear. Bet on it.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnows Martin Waxman's Social Media Marketing for Small Business is on Lynda.com Yes, this is a shameless plug. But since it's Joe writing this, Martin doesn't have to be embarrassed. In fact, I think Martin is as smart about social media as anyone I know. And now Martin is sharing this knowledge on Lynda.com. Martin tells us about his trip to California to record a video course, Social Media Marketing for Small Business. Buzzfeed News isn't entertainment Buzzfeed separated its Buzzfeed news operation from the Buzzfeed entertainment operation. Prelude to a possible sale of Fuzzfeed News. Buzzfeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith says no. WhatsApp shares user data with Facebook As happens so often with privacy concerns, after an initial spate of bad press, public protestations about Facebook's decision to share user data from WhatsApp with Facebook seems to have died down. Our concern with privacy is something that spikes occasionally. But then we put it out of mind as we enjoy the experience of social media. Wired tells us about teens and social media A few things in Wired's profile of teens and social media caught Gini's eye. There are a lot of do's and don't's. It's not about understanding young people. It's about looking at the social mores being established by a cohort that doesn't have the baggage of previously shaped expectations and behaviour, a cohort that can lead the way in assessing new channels and defining norms of behaviour on them. As Martin says, "One generation's romantic is another generation's lurker." (Apologies to John Cusack.) The NY Times on Facebook Liz Spayd, The New York Times Public Editor, recently offered her take on the content that The Times has been creating for Facebook. In her analysis, Facebook Live: Too Much, Too Soon, she states "...here’s the problem. After watching countless hours of live video in the past few weeks, I have hit upon many that are either plagued by technical malfunctions, feel contrived, drone on too long, ignore audience questions or are simply boring, by I imagine most anyone’s standards. "Too many don’t live up to the journalistic quality one typically associates with The New York Times." This leads Martin, Gini and I into a discussion of the nature of content appropriate to social media. It's not always going to stand up to The Times' traditional standards. But it will be effective in its new place, for different reasons. Also worth noting in this article is something I hadn't seen before. The New York Times has a contract to produce video content expressly for Facebook. "While the terms of the deal are secret, the transaction requires Facebook to give The Times a guaranteed sum (reported to be $3 million a year) in return for a prescribed amount of video (so far it’s averaging upward of four a day). Neither Times officials nor Facebook would discuss the deal, citing confidentiality. Several other media companies, including BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and Mashable, have also signed on. Their job: to stock Facebook’s pond with high-quality video so it can compete in the rapidly growing market for live-stream video." The Times as content creator for Facebook. That's something different from The Times posting its stories on Facebook. Different even from The Times posting its stories natively on Facebook. It is instead The Times creating content to meet Facebook's needs. That is different - and worth watching.

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back with another episode of the Inside PR podcast. This week, we discuss: #IPRMustKnow Instagram Stories continues to attract publisher interest. It could well be the combination of an engaging experience meeting a pre-existing audience. Blab shut down, abruptly. Another sign that the psychology of scale has beat out the idea of sustainability for many business founders? For sure, it's another reminder of the danger of placing your content eggs in any single shared space. Unless you promote it, they will not come Gini Dietrich schooled Joe on the importance and method of promoting content when she interviewed him for the Spin Sucks Inquisition. Within minutes of the post going live, Joe started to see mentions on his Twitter feed. Over the next week, he watched Gini promote the video. But beyond that, he watched Gini's network chime in and share it. So, this week, we discuss Gini's approach to promoting content, an approach which enables her to leverage a large and interested community of interest. Listen to the end for this week's outtake You know that we're not polished in our presentation. And if you heard us before the show is edited, you'd know that even better. But we genuinely like one another and have fun doing the show. Occasionally, this shows through in what we don't include in the final version. Listen to the very end to get a taste of the stuff we leave on the cutting room floor. We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you.

A recent Ontario arbitrator's ruling reminds us that the law and social media are in an ever-changing relationship. The Olympics' once again aggressively enforce trademarks on social media. Instagram Stories are feeling good. And the trend to distributed publishing prompts a rethink of the hub and spoke content publishing model. Join Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley as they discuss these topics on this week’s Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Employers' social media responsibilities are fluid You may think that social media has been around long enough that you're comfortable that you know what you should, can and must do when interacting on social media for your employer or client. Well, an Arbitrator's ruling in a dispute between the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the union representing its employees should remind us that nothing is fixed when it comes to social media. As reported in the Toronto Star, the Arbitrator ruled that the TTC, when operating @TTCHelps, its Twitter outreach ID, failed to take all of the measure it should have to protect its employees from online harassment and abuse. The union argued that, by operating its customer service Twitter ID, @TTCHelps, the TTC was providing a forum for abuse and harassment of its employees. While the arbitrator did not support the union's demand to shut down the account, he did indicate that the TTC be more assertive, telling people to take down posts, images, etc. considered offensive to employees, blocking Twitter uses and requesting Twitter to close the accounts of those users who do not cooperate. We have a good discussion about this ruling. Regardless of which side you come down on, this is a reminder to be ready to revise your practices on social media. The law still is being made. Olympic-sized trademark enforcement says its about big money more than athletics It's become a tradition. Noting the hyper-aggressive trademark enforcement surrounding the Olympics and the use of any of their registered terms. Small businesses need to keep themselves as safe as the larger entities. And that's just not fun. Instagram Stories make a good social media platform even better Gini has been posting to Instagram stories daily, and she reports that it's a much simpler, intuitive experience than posting to Snapchat. Simpler. Intuitive. A solid foundation for success. Does the hub and spoke need a tire change? The hub and spoke approach to creating, distributing and promoting content has been a best practice for several years. However, after hearing that 75% of the content Buzzfeed produces isn't published on Buzzfeed.com, Martin wonders if it's time for marketers to reassess the role of the hub. Gini and Joe aren't quite ready to abandon their blogs, but they agree with Martin that we need to challenge our accepted practices.

A recent Ontario arbitrator's ruling reminds us that the law and social media are in an ever-changing relationship. The Olympics' once again aggressively enforce trademarks on social media. Instagram Stories are feeling good. And the trend to distributed publishing prompts a rethink of the hub and spoke content publishing model. Join Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley as they discuss these topics on this week’s Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Employers' social media responsibilities are fluid You may think that social media has been around long enough that you're comfortable that you know what you should, can and must do when interacting on social media for your employer or client. Well, an Arbitrator's ruling in a dispute between the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the union representing its employees should remind us that nothing is fixed when it comes to social media. As reported in the Toronto Star, the Arbitrator ruled that the TTC, when operating @TTCHelps, its Twitter outreach ID, failed to take all of the measure it should have to protect its employees from online harassment and abuse. The union argued that, by operating its customer service Twitter ID, @TTCHelps, the TTC was providing a forum for abuse and harassment of its employees. While the arbitrator did not support the union's demand to shut down the account, he did indicate that the TTC be more assertive, telling people to take down posts, images, etc. considered offensive to employees, blocking Twitter uses and requesting Twitter to close the accounts of those users who do not cooperate. We have a good discussion about this ruling. Regardless of which side you come down on, this is a reminder to be ready to revise your practices on social media. The law still is being made. Olympic-sized trademark enforcement says its about big money more than athletics It's become a tradition. Noting the hyper-aggressive trademark enforcement surrounding the Olympics and the use of any of their registered terms. Small businesses need to keep themselves as safe as the larger entities. And that's just not fun. Instagram Stories make a good social media platform even better Gini has been posting to Instagram stories daily, and she reports that it's a much simpler, intuitive experience than posting to Snapchat. Simpler. Intuitive. A solid foundation for success. Does the hub and spoke need a tire change? The hub and spoke approach to creating, distributing and promoting content has been a best practice for several years. However, after hearing that 75% of the content Buzzfeed produces isn't published on Buzzfeed.com, Martin wonders if it's time for marketers to reassess the role of the hub. Gini and Joe aren't quite ready to abandon their blogs, but they agree with Martin that we need to challenge our accepted practices.

A recent Ontario arbitrator's ruling reminds us that the law and social media are in an ever-changing relationship. The Olympics' once again aggressively enforce trademarks on social media. Instagram Stories are feeling good. And the trend to distributed publishing prompts a rethink of the hub and spoke content publishing model. Join Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley as they discuss these topics on this week’s Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Employers' social media responsibilities are fluid You may think that social media has been around long enough that you're comfortable that you know what you should, can and must do when interacting on social media for your employer or client. Well, an Arbitrator's ruling in a dispute between the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the union representing its employees should remind us that nothing is fixed when it comes to social media. As reported in the Toronto Star, the Arbitrator ruled that the TTC, when operating @TTCHelps, its Twitter outreach ID, failed to take all of the measure it should have to protect its employees from online harassment and abuse. The union argued that, by operating its customer service Twitter ID, @TTCHelps, the TTC was providing a forum for abuse and harassment of its employees. While the arbitrator did not support the union's demand to shut down the account, he did indicate that the TTC be more assertive, telling people to take down posts, images, etc. considered offensive to employees, blocking Twitter uses and requesting Twitter to close the accounts of those users who do not cooperate. We have a good discussion about this ruling. Regardless of which side you come down on, this is a reminder to be ready to revise your practices on social media. The law still is being made. Olympic-sized trademark enforcement says its about big money more than athletics It's become a tradition. Noting the hyper-aggressive trademark enforcement surrounding the Olympics and the use of any of their registered terms. Small businesses need to keep themselves as safe as the larger entities. And that's just not fun. Instagram Stories make a good social media platform even better Gini has been posting to Instagram stories daily, and she reports that it's a much simpler, intuitive experience than posting to Snapchat. Simpler. Intuitive. A solid foundation for success. Does the hub and spoke need a tire change? The hub and spoke approach to creating, distributing and promoting content has been a best practice for several years. However, after hearing that 75% of the content Buzzfeed produces isn't published on Buzzfeed.com, Martin wonders if it's time for marketers to reassess the role of the hub. Gini and Joe aren't quite ready to abandon their blogs, but they agree with Martin that we need to challenge our accepted practices.

Twitter opens verification to everyone. Yahoo closes an era. Anthony Ponce is a backseat rider. And the New York Times Public Editor shines a spotlight on the importance of perceived bias. Join Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley as they discuss these topics on this week's Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow RIP Yahoo Yahoo once was the directory of the internet. So, we couldn't let it fade into oblivion without marking the event. Verify me, Twitter It has been a widely-coveted symbol - the Twitter blue verification check mark. Now, we all can apply for it. Many will be called, but few will be granted? Have you applied for Twitter verification under the new process? Has your application been approved? Backseat Rider Anthony Ponce left his job as an on-air news anchor to spend full-time driving tax and posting the stories he picks up to his Facebook page. An interesting experiment. Politicians long have known that the best briefing they could get when visiting a city is the discussion with the taxi driver. They go everywhere and see everything. Bias in News Media Redux This is the issue we live with on a day by day basis. It's also something which viewers of Fox News seem to accept, even welcome. Liz Spayd, the recently-appointed Public Editor at the New York Times reminds us that perception and reality do not necessarily converge when it comes to the issue of bias in news coverage. We've talked a lot about bias and personal perspective. And Spayd's column brings us back to this topic.

PostGhost, a service that preserved deleted tweets, was told to cease doing this by Twitter. PostGhost complied and shut down its service. But it did not go quietly. They published an Open Letter to Twitter, arguing that the deleted tweets of people with very large followings could have as much impact on public issues as the tweets of politicians. Citing deleted tweets about the Brexit vote by British celebrities with large followings, they say, "the ability to reach millions of followers instantly and leave no trace is a massive and growing power, and one that is currently completely unchecked and undocumented." The PostGhost letter raises important issues that have been debated before and will continue to be debated. And once Gini raised it, we too found ourselves debating it - for the entire episode. So, this is a single episode about one thing that raises a number of important issues. We hope you find it interesting and useful.

Snapchat is more than ephemeral with Memories. Pokemon Go rules the world. And we pick up on Walt Mossberg's discussion of our fragmented messaging environment. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these topics and more in this week’s Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Snapchat Memories for when ephemeral isn't enough Hard on the heels of news that Snapchat has surpassed Twitter in daily users, we say Snapchat switch from its ephemeral-always model to provide users with the ability to save their Snaps using a new feature, Snapchat Memories. Memories lets you save current and previous Snaps and then use them for future stories. So, now you never need to worry people missing that embarrassing photo of your best friend that you sent out 25 hours ago. You can reach into Memories, add the photo to a new story, and start the cycle all over again. Pokemon Go Goes Like virtually everyone else this past week, we have been entranced by Pokemon Go. For its privacy implications. And because it has brought the potential of augmented reality to the masses. It may be a fad. But it's a fad that will have made a difference. Here an App. There an App. Everywhere an App It was simple in the days of email: Just settle on your client - Outlook, AOL… and then add all your email accounts to access them in one place. Today, as we spend more of our time on chat, with proprietary, non-interchangeable standards, we are again facing the need to switch constantly between apps - for social networks, for chat. Pain the butt? We riff on a theme recently explored by Walt Mossberg in a blog post, The Tyranny of Messaging and Notifications, and on his podcast, Ctrl-Walt-Delete.

Twitter brings easy analytics to your mobile device. YouTube plays catch up in livestreaming video. And we ask why, after all these years, integrated marketing communications isn't the norm. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these topics and more in this week’s Inside PR podcast. #IPRMustKnow Twitter Engage brings Twitter analytics to the masses Twitter just made it a whole lot easier to track analytics like follows, @mentions, retweets, and video views, with the launch of Twitter Engage, a new iOS app. Real-time monitoring in your hand. The app launched on iOS in the US-only. You can hear the collective sigh of disappointment from Twitter addicts in the rest of the world. YouTube Livestreams from your mobile Livestreaming videos to YouTube from your mobile is about to be possible. YouTube announced at VidCon that it is testing livestreaming with select publishers. Available to the rest of us soon. With YouTube's huge catalogue of videos that we already have uploaded, it's going to be competitive with both Facebook Live Videos and Periscope. Does that mean that I have to buy a third phone to livestream events to all three services? Integrated Marketing Communications: Many are called. Not all answer. Gini Dietrich wrote in a blog post that, with the proliferation of platforms and the need to integrate ephemeral and chat channels, integrated marketing communications is more important than ever. We're all heard the term integrated marketing communications for over a decade. Independent agencies seem to have embraced integration. PR agencies in particular have moved to the PESO - Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned - model. So, why isn't integrated marketing communications practised each and every day? We talk about the impact of tight communications budgets and the persistence of silos within corporate marketing and communications functions. We also look at the legacy of separate profit centres in holding company agencies. The need to maximize returns for individual centres may work at odds with making integrated marketing communications a daily way of life for people working in holding company networks.

#IPRMustKnow Sponsored Content on Facebook Instant Articles Screenshot 2016-07-03 10.33.45Neiman Labs reports that two heavyweight traditional news outlets, the Washington Post and The Atlantic, have begun running sponsored content in their Facebook Instant Articles. Happily, the illustration in the Nieman Labs story suggests that the content will be clearly labelled as "Sponsor Content." I tried to verify that by reviewing my own newsfeed. However, I couldn't find a single sponsored article from either the Washington Post or The Atlantic. That makes me think that either this sponsored content is so far very rare or Facebook is geotargeting the ads and my Canadian IP address puts me outside of the target area for them. Jason Keath, Founder of Social Fresh Jason Keath is the CEO of Social Fresh, which recently released The Future of Social, a report based on research involving over 500 social media managers and executives. Gini tracked him down and interviewed him about the report and the lessons we can take from it. Among the highlights: Companies that invest in social media tools achieve a greater return than those who don't. 95% of respondents using social media software report a positive ROI on their social media activities vs. 63% who are not investing in tools. Social media is best at connecting with existing audiences, customers, strongest leads, fans and stakeholders. Building awareness through social media can be an expensive proposition. To increase leads and sales, focus more time on fewer pieces of content. For example, Social Fresh invests heavily both in their research and the conference. This enables them to stand out by being deeper and offering more unique insights. Take your audience up the commitment curve. Ask little of them at the beginning. Reading a post. Downloading a paper. Registering. Then work them up the curve to larger commitments. Instagram is on the verge of leapfrogging LinkedIn and Twitter to become the second largest ad platform. Marketers report satisfaction with the results they are achieving with video content and they plan to increase their commitment to it in the coming year. If you're interested in more info about this year's Social Fresh conference, it will be held August 18 to 21 in Orlando. Discounted registration is available until August 1.