A roundup of relevant links affecting our industry.
Each week at Ford, I compose a newsletter that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, social media, mobile, communications and marketing in order to keep the wider team up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in their jobs. These are those links.
If you have additional links, sources or ideas that might be helpful, I'd encourage you to add some via a comment below or tag me in Google+. And if you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links in my new This Week in Social Media Magazine.
Industry News
- What the killer app for mobile? Easy: messaging. With more teens using text messaging (63%) than any other form of communication, including phone calls (39%), it's clear that's where the opportunity lies. The challenge is how to build a platform around it.
- Much has been made of personal brands in the last few years, but this Forbes article suggests that it shouldn't be viewed as self-promotion but rather as a requirement for leadership.
- Here's a fascinating look at the future of narrative, as seen through data visualization.
- While LinkedIn is pushing to become more of a content provider (see below), it's also clear that Flipboard is continuing to shake up the traditional media business. Recently, Flipboard began to allow users to create their own custom "magazines" and the app has seen more than 500,000 magazines created by users in just two weeks.
- Speaking of changing media models, MWW News Discovery Report found that 44% of people get their morning news from Facebook and 29% from Twitter.
- Just who uses social media? Using data from the Pew Research Center's study on social media demographics, DocStoc produced an infographic that breaks it down by gender, age, income, population density, education level, race and platform.
- Good and bad customer service interactions affect brand loyalty (as we've long known); disaffected customers will be more vocal about their experiences than those with good experiences.
- How does Raytheon handle content marketing? They hired brand journalists rather than copyrighters to help them with the content on their sites.
- The answer to the collision of journalism and advertising is in an algorithm. And BuzzFeed thinks they have it.
- Who are the "global digital elite"? The world's most valuable audience has been identified and they're into a wide variety of media such as Family Guy, Elle, NPR; they have income over $76K, see 24X as many ads as average consumers, and command a 100% premium to reach on social channels.
The Platforms
- Long recognized as the most professional of all of the social networks, it should be no surprise that LinkedIn is preferred by executives.
- LinkedIn is continuing to push toward being a content provider. In addition to creating the section of thought leaders to follow, LinkedIn has just acquired the newsreader startup Pulse for $90 million. This may have reverberations through the content curation enablers such as Flipboard and Google's Currents.
- While it may have a low penetration in Mexico, LinkedIn is used quite a bit by job seekers there. Other statistics about the leading social networks in Mexico were provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau México (IAB México) in their report "Estudio de consumo de medios entre internautas mexicanos."
- Instagram is certainly a significant player (@Ford and @LincolnMotorCo both have accounts - are you following?) but here are 25 of Asia's top photo apps that compete with Instagram.
- Foursquare is working on a model in which it will offer check-in data about its users to other platforms for ad targeting.
- Twitter announced its acquisition of We Are Hunted and is prepping for the launch of a music service.
- Twitter is working with Viacom and NBC to bring more high-quality video content and advertising to its site.
- Facebook's algorithm for sorting your News Feed is perennially misunderstood. Here's an infographic from AllFacebook to help you understand Facebook's Edgerank algorithm.
- It's still early, but some Android users don't seem particularly satisfied with the new Facebook Home on their phones; 44% have rated Facebook Home with one star on Google Play.
- Detractors say that it is "Not an intuitive app," "kills my battery," and "If I wanted a single company to take over my homescreen appearance, I could use an iPhone."
- Supporters say "Takes some getting used to - like anything else, you need to play with it," "fast access to friends on Facebook," and "I'm glad I stuck through the initial learning curve and am now using it daily and loving it."
- Facebook is talking to Apple about an iOS version of its Home software.
- Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg says that the smartphone may be more important than TV for advertising, noting that it is the company's role to increase the usefulness of ads to users.
- The new in-line commenting system is in full effect in Facebook, allowing brands and users to reply to specific comments. Here's a rundown of what you need to know.
Legal/Regulatory
- Have you heard of Lawser? Of course you haven't (unless you’re one of the few lawyers reading this site); it's a social network for lawyers. It will be interesting to see how the legal profession uses such a specialized social network.
- Even after the SEC has shown willingness to allow social as an additional (not replacement) communications platform, Australia's ASIC and ASX are clinging to their ultra-conservative and fearful doubts.
Measurement/Big Data
- Why predictions suck: a view from KD Paine as to why the multitude of reports, data and the rest aren't panning out. Hint: we need updated standards.
Bookmarks/Read-Watch-Listen Later
- Please stop and spend 28 minutes of your time with Charlie Rose and David Carr of the New York Times, who discuss the future of television and journalism. This is an important piece.
- Carr also wrote about cracks that are beginning to show in TV profits that could have wider implications in the long term: what happens when there's no bundling, no cable and no advertisements?
Commentary
This week, we’re keeping the commentary relatively brief. In the U.S. market, the social platforms in the early part of the week were dominated by news of the bombings at the Boston Marathon. Social media went into overdrive, reporting developments in real time. Eyewitness accounts, videos, photos, news organizations and more all covered the unfolding news in live formats, including the first documented use of Vine for breaking news.As the search goes on for the perpetrators, we’re seeing countless examples of kindness and heroism in the face of adversity. Social and digital communications channels have kept us more closely connected during this crisis than they did some 12 ½ years ago on September 11, and not only are the platforms helping law enforcement track down the perpetrators, but they’re bringing us closer together.
Image credit: Werner Kunz