Inside PR

Inside PR


Inside PR 436: A crowded video field and an ad agency is defrauded

March 20, 2016

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley are back together again for another Inside PR - the first in which all three of us are together in over a month.
IPR MustKnows
In this episode's #IPRMust Know segment, we talk about Meerkat's pivot, Facebook Reactions and Snapchat's big video view numbers.
Meerkat is moving away from live streaming and attempting to pivot to become some type of video social network. Not surprising, given the tight integration of Periscope and Twitter and the introduction of Facebook live videos. It would be tough to see how Meerkat could stand out with the two main realtime social networks offering their own live streaming platforms.
Facebook Reactions have been with us for several weeks now. Chris Penn's early look at the impact of Facebook Reactions suggested that "haven’t statistically changed engagement yet. If you publish unengaging content, Reactions won’t help you. If you already have a highly-engaged audience, you will likely continue to do so – Reactions don’t appear to make it better or worse."  We offer our own early reactions to Reactions.
If you didn't have enough video in your life, take a look at Snapchat. Snapchat's CEO Evan Spiegel says that Snapchat users are watching more than 8 billion videos per day. There's clearly an audience for video. So, if you produce video as part of your initiatives, it's worth checking out what works well on Snapchat.
Fake accounts. Could this happen to you?
We close out this episode with a discussion of the communications agency executive who faked over $250 million in contracts go gain advancement at this advertising agency. Sad but true.
And a big thanks to Suzy Chisholm. Suzy, who heard Joe state a few episodes back that he preferred single purpose apps over those that take a "Swiss Army Knife" approach. Suzy, who lives in Switzerland, sent us three Swiss Army Knives, branded with the Philips logo (where Suzy works) and a very nice note. Thank you Suzy. You brought smiles to our faces and reminded us that there are times when you want to reach for that one thing that does it all. :)