Archive: September 2016

While Twitter Moments aren’t new to the platform, it’s taken some time for average users to get their hands on the feature. When Moments hit the scene, it was a highly regulated and carefully aggregated stream of content. Dedicated staff and Twitter’s content partners patched together tweets, images and Vines to tell important and trending stories in a more concise way than sifting through the platform’s deluge of content. Now, all Twitter users can create Moments to share with the world.

Increasing competition and a rapid shift in technology have made both the mobile app and journalism industries particularly volatile in recent years. Mobile app market saturation is at an all-time high, making it difficult for app creators to enter the industry and gain exposure. Meanwhile, the journalism industry is struggling with monetization as the advertising landscape evolves, being forced to re-evaluate the way it serves online content.

Twitter’s live streaming platform Periscope has unveiled a three-tiered VIP Program, in which users with a sizable Periscope following can apply to receive benefits including increased visibility and discoverability, a direct line to Periscope staff and a private channel for networking with other VIPs. The program is divided into three tiers (Bronze, Silver and Gold) based on number of followers, average number of stream viewers and streaming frequency.

Google just put more brains behind Analytics’ considerable brawn. Babak Pahlavan, senior director of measurement & analytics at Google, unveiled a variety of new features and beta tests for the search giant’s measurement platform at SMX East in New York City.

Since Instagram Stories was released in early August amid accusations of it being a Snapchat ripoff, users have quickly warmed to the new feature—and that includes brands. What are brands communicating via this new platform? Let’s take a look at some of the Stories posted in the past 24 hours to find out how this evanescent medium is being put to use, and see if we can glean some lessons about what makes them effective.

What the best PR does is amplify brand stories and messaging in ways that connect with the target audience, whether the brand defines that audience as pure consumer, professional or a hybrid. And think about what connection meant 40 years ago—if you weren’t connected via membership in a school club, a religious or professional organization, or at the very least to the households who shared your party phone line, then the extent of your connections would likely have been limited to family members, schoolmates and work colleagues.

Every brand has a story to tell, says Doug Busk of Coca-Cola. While the mechanism may not be the size and scope of Journey, Coca-Cola’s digital magazine, brand-building for any organization type is a matter of leveraging the awesome opportunity of digital storytelling.

Before the debate, some “experts” were advising Republican candidate Donald Trump to tone down his usual blustery public speaking style to sway undecided voters. Some urged Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to attack vociferously, shedding her calming image as a champion of the poor and the middle class and as an experienced governmental actor. Neither candidate listened to the so-called experts.

There’s no surefire way to win media coverage for your brand, but strategic timing can help you avoid wasting hours of research and writing pitches that are routinely ignored by journalists. It pays to resist the pressure from senior leaders or clients to send that pitch right now and instead be a part of the news cycle’s ebb and flow.

Snapchat is taking its first step out of the digital world and trying its luck in the hardware space, according to a blog post on the company’s website. Snapchat’s newest product, dubbed “Spectacles,” is a pair of sunglasses with a built-in camera that can shoot short videos and upload them directly to Snapchat.