FIR #433: Something Old, Something New

For Immediate Release

Blogs have been with us for 30 years, which qualifies as “something old.” In this long-form episode of FIR for October, we’ll examine the state of the oldest social media category. We’ll also examine the state of generative Artificial Intelligence, which has been around, for all practical purposes, since November 2022, which makes it “something new.”

In this episode, we’ll also explore Reddit’s potential as a channel for government agencies and businesses to engage with stakeholders during a crisis and which agencies and brands are already there. Intuit’s chief communication officer didn’t like the direction a podcast interview with his CEO took, so he demanded the podcast trim the parts he didn’t like. Was he justified? The news media has gained a reputation for clickbait, but it recently took a dark turn. And, executives justify their return-to-office push by citing the need for greater collaboration and connection among employees. But does having everyone in the office produce those results? We’ll look at the research.

In his Tech Report, Dan York (joined by a special guest) shares details of a VC investment round for Bluesky, and how competitors like Mastodon reacted.

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The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, November 25.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [e-mail].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Links from this episode:

• Is Reddit the Future of Crisis Communications?
• From the technology community on Reddit: Intuit asked us to delete part of this Decoder episode – we declined
• Intuit Asks The Verge To Delete Part Of Interview With Its CEO; The Verge Declined
• Katherine Ross (@byKatherineRoss) on X (on the Intuit podcast episode)
• Streisand effect (Wikipedia)
• 2024 Blogging Survey: Trends and Insights from 12,000+ Bloggers Over 11 Years
• The milking of Liam Payne’s death for clicks won’t do Reach plc any good long-term
• What Employers Get Wrong About How People Connect at Work
• The State of AI Report (introduction)
• The State of AI Report
• Welcome to the State of AI Report 2024

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report:

• Bluesky Announces Series A to Grow Network of 13M+ Users
• Eugen Rochko (@[e-mail]) (Mastodon’s founder responds)

Raw transcript:

[00:00:00] Hi everybody and welcome to episode number 433 of four immediate release, our long form episode for October, 2024. I’m She Holtz in Concord, California. And I’m Neville Hobson in Kruer Somerset in England. My new physical location as of two or three weeks ago, glad to be here. Kko, how do you spell that?

C-R-E-W-K-E-R-N-E. I never would’ve. Guess that in a million years. It’s a delightful part of southwest England. You’ve heard of Glastonbury? No doubt. That’s north of where I am. The English Channel South Coast is about 20 minutes to the south of me. , it’s a lovely part of the country. It rains a lot and I see tractors everywhere that I go.

Big ones ’cause farming country here. But we’re pleased to be here. And you have grandchildren there? Yeah. The family. That side of the family is here. All of them and the grandkids. I’ve seen more in the last week than I have in the last six months. It’s absolutely [00:01:00] delightful to be here for that reason.

Well, glad that you have finally made the move. I knew that was a long time coming. Yeah, it was. And I’m in my new, uh, in my new garden studio office. I’ll have something more to say about that in a blog post soon with photos. I hope indeed. And your move is one of the reasons we only had two short midweek episodes between the September long form episode and this one for October.

You have been moving house, as you say, in the uk. We just say moving. Yeah, and I have been away. I was at the Public Relations Society of America’s big annual icon conference the week before last. And this past week I was in Houston at a fascinating meeting of the construction communicators round table, an informal group of top communicators from about 20 of the nation’s [00:02:00] builders to get together , and talk about common communication issues.

And it was wonderful. I had a great time. I learned a lot. I should say I learned more there than I did at the PRSA conference. . It was absolutely worth going and, , it’s just been a busy month , for both of us. It, but I’m certainly glad to be back at the microphone. Me too. Yeah, me too.

When we recorded the, , I’ll mention this in a minute. When we get to the episode review, the one episode we did in between the beginning of October and today, I had moves, but I didn’t have any of my normal day-to-Day equipment, set up the computers, the microphones, nothing. So I recorded on a laptop, , with earbuds.

Uh and would you believe the, , laptop microphone? And when I listened to the recording after it, the LD wasn’t that bad. Did you have to do any editing with that? It was a considerable amount of editing. Your audio was, fine. It was absolutely [00:03:00] usable. But it did sound like it was coming through a third rate microphone, and I ran it through the Script’s Studio sound feature.

This is one of their Yeah. AI features. And it came out sounding wonderful. Yeah. This is an amazing, I had no idea that it could take, a telephone call sounding recording. Yeah. And make it sound like you had been sitting at a $400 microphone. A wonderful, that’s to hear Wonderful feature on the script.

Good to hear. Good to hear. I did think, hoping that it was great quality original recording, but now I know that Dell’s laptop microphone’s are crap, basically. I gotta tell you, when I listened to yours, I said, it’s all right. It’s a short midweek episode. It’s, yeah, it’s fine.

I had one of those ones where. When we signed into Riverside, , to do the recording, I didn’t notice that the microphone had defaulted to the one that’s baked into the camera and the audio wasn’t that good. , and if I had known that running it through Studio Sound, the [00:04:00] script would’ve fixed it. I.

Absolutely would’ve done that. That’s good to know that, Cheryl, I must admit. Good. So these two episodes that we have done since the September monthly episode, four, three oh 4 31 was on October the second. , we dove into PR weeks, the Evolution of Influence Report, exploring their dynamic shifts and how.

PR professionals exert influence in today’s fast changing landscape. It was a good discussion we had with that one. And then jump forward just over two weeks to October the 18th, and episode 4 32, the one that you had to do the audio editing with my recording. , CEOs and other senior executives are increasingly expected to nurture a presence on social media, especially LinkedIn, which has seen a 35% increase in c-suite professionals in the US over the last five years.

That’s where communicators need to step in. We said helping leaders find the most comfortable way to engage authentically online. That’s a key word there. Authentic. So that was [00:05:00] a good discussion. I actually did a follow up. Blog post myself, , with some further thoughts on that. But, in my mind, the authenticity is the kind of paramount word.

It’s worth a listen to that episode. It was pretty good, wasn’t it? And I know we got some comments somewhere amongst all this, haven’t we? We did, , got two comments on episode 4 32, 1 from Kerry Sullivan who said, leaders need to be present in order to attract and retain talent. They also need to write and show up in their own voice language is how we recognize one another.

Finally, if a leader isn’t confident enough to show up online, they’re probably not resilient enough to lead through anything more complex than a steady state business. And then we had a comment from Monique Nik who said, , many execs and public figures I know get others to do their content and approve it themselves, or only post once a month or so in, in a team photo.

Do you think it matters who actually creates the content or only that it aligns with the brand and is seen as authentic? So it’s an [00:06:00] interesting question from there’s Monique, there’s a whole topic. We could discuss that and maybe we will. With Monique, right? We might talk about that with Monique.

This is a great opportunity to let everyone know that this coming Tuesday, we are going to be speaking with Monique for an FIR interview. If you’re not already subscribing to the FIR interviews feed head over to FIR podcast network.com and subscribe. You don’t wanna miss this one. Uh she is among other things, the author of a new book, called Internal Communications in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

So looking forward to that conversation. We do have one additional comment. This is from an episode that goes back before our September episode. Sally Gch left a comment on this, and just by way of context, I should say that, as part of , the topic for that episode, rather than do the I [00:07:00] ident myself, that’s the little.

32nd introduction to the episode. At the very, very beginning, I wrote it and then had 11 labs produce my cloned voice. Reading it, it was apropos to the episode, and Sally said, as soon as the intro started, I thought Shell’s voice sounds different than something is off. And finally, is that ai, my brain got almost too wrapped up in trying to figure out what was wrong.

To take in what you were saying, it bothered me in a way that the synthesized voice of Google Maps doesn’t, and that in turn makes me wonder whether generative audio and video needs to be more real or less real to avoid the uncanny valley. , and it is actually an interesting point if it tries too hard to be really authentic.

Is that too distracting? Does it need to be? Inauthentic enough, obvious enough that it was [00:08:00] AI produced, that you go, oh, it’s an AI voice. Okay, I can now sit back and pay attention to what’s being said rather than, that’s really weird. Or discomforting, whatever. But, , it’s, it is an interesting point , that Sally makes.

Also wanna let everybody know that we have a new circle of fellows available on the FIR Podcast Network. This was an episode dealing with change management participants included ZORA artists, PRI Bates, Todd Hattori, and Cindy Schmid with Brad Whitworth. Moderating this one because I was at the PRSA conference and the next.

Circle of Fellows is scheduled for November 21st. It’ll be at 1130 in the morning, , Eastern Time. This is on executive Communication and leadership. Alice Brink, Bish Mukherjee, Julie Holloway and Maryanne McCauley will be the panelists for this one. And I will be moderating again, back in the [00:09:00] moderator’s chair.

And, , it should be , a great conversation. And if you’re able to participate live in real time, we love engaging with those people who are on the call with us. , but if not, it’ll be available as both a video replay and an audio podcast here on the FIR podcast Network. And that means that it is time to jump into our stories of the month, which we will do with vigor right after this, when there have been.

Natural disasters or other things that governments have needed to communicate. It became sort of a defacto rule that you would do some of that communication on Twitter. This was the place that Breaking News was communicated, and even if they didn’t have the audience that say, a Facebook has. They did have the attention of the media, and this tended to help [00:10:00] get the word out.

You had people who were looking for breaking news, but you also had journalists there who could turn it around and present it through their channels. So what are we doing today? Imagine that you represent a government trying to communicate critical information after natural disasters. We’re talking about the essentials, how to apply for FEMA assistance, updates on recovery efforts, basic safety information.

You would think press releases, press conferences, and social media posts. In today’s landscape, though, those channels aren’t necessarily. Going to be completely effective. Traditional media audiences have grown more and more fragmented and polarized. TV viewers are divided, and people’s social media feeds are clogged with a mix of algorithm filtered content and distractions.

The government’s posts on Facebook might not even make it to the people who need them. Instagram stories have limited reach for this purpose, and on TikTok or [00:11:00] X, which if you’ve been following, is what they’re calling Twitter these days with fewer people and less revenue. Anyway, these messages get lost in the noise, drowned out by conspiracy theories or just never seen or ignored well.

Reddit has stepped in to the rescue. This might not seem like the most usual platform for this kind of content, but it’s increasingly significant. In response to hurricanes, Helene and Milton, the White House chose Reddit as an outreach medium. Posts appeared in subreddits like R North Carolina and our Georgia aimed at directly communicating with communi communities in need.

Now, I know Reddit’s not the typical channel for a government to use to communicate. It’s known for its niche communities. Canid exchanges, occasional brand disaster. Ask me anything that go awry. But Reddit does something, , rare. In today’s online world. [00:12:00] It offers a level of genuine human engagement moderated by community members and not by algorithms.

The shift highlights a move toward, , thinking about Reddit, which has been a last resort. Up until this point, subreddits like these let basic communication that might otherwise get swallowed up on traditional media outlets happen. And this isn’t just about governments. Take Sonos for example. This is the smart speaker company.

they. Issued, , an app update that caused all kinds of problems. It really upset a very loyal community of customers and a Sonos employees started posting regular updates on an unofficial subreddit to engage and appease these frustrated customers. It worked well enough that eventually the CEO stepped in, showing up where the audience was engaged and paying attention.

So is Reddit the future for crisis communication? , [00:13:00] probably not the way you would think, but it’s becoming a really important back channel. Where real unfiltered information can be shared. It’s not without issues. Reddit’s reliance on unpaid community moderators is under strain. There’s actually been something of an uprising of sub redditers due to some pricing decisions that the company made.

There has been an influx of bots and spammers that threatening to erode the authenticity that gives it value, but it still stands out as one of the few online spaces where important messages can still reach and engage audiences. So for us as communicators, platforms like Reddit, may. Soon play a bigger role in crisis communication and brand management strategies, especially as traditional channels struggle with engagement and trust issues.

So if you’re not engaging on Reddit, maybe it’s time to start. It’s an interesting. Development. I think, I mean I’ve been on Reddit at least 15 years, [00:14:00] not very active there. I participate in maybe 15, 16 different, subreddits of things that are, , mostly personal interest, but a couple of business related things.

And I’ve always found it, , useful. , I’m conscious too that some I visited and had been part of. I’m no longer simply because of the awfulness of some of the people in those places. So this is, you mentioned the risks. Yeah. There are significant risks. if you went into Reddit in a major way, I would say, or had something that was controversial that you dunno what you’re gonna get.

, is that different to others? Well, I think it is. And maybe not Twitter, X whatever. , but it certainly is, so you’ve gotta take that into account. Isn’t it true though that, , any argument about is this the right platform? Is almost wholly dependent on, do you understand your audience? , is that where they are?

Or is that where people are that you would like to get to know? So you’ve gotta have those questions down Pat. I think, , the White House one’s interesting. , the example that, the article that [00:15:00] I, , that you linked to talks about those hurricanes, , that, , I’d actually love to know why they decided this as opposed to continuing using X.

, did they not feel, that given the audience they’re trying to reach this very specifically in that part of the us, , maybe they felt, I dunno what they felt, , X couldn’t deliver. I don’t know that they did stop using X. They might have added Reddit to. Post on X. Yeah, that’s, it’s possible. I don’t know, maybe they didn’t, but No, sure.

But that’s possible, isn’t it? But the other example you mentioned, Sonos, I found really interesting. , particularly di diving deeper into the article. , it mentions, , that this guy who was, , the kind of representing, , Sonos Keith from Sonos is his handle, , was diligently, dutifully and patiently according to the article, , posting on the brand’s unofficial subreddit.

, after that app update you mentioned, I remember reading about that update. It [00:16:00] really did en rage, people with genuine rage, not internet rage. This was real stuff. Unhappy, unhappy. He was there daily doing messaging, all that stuff. So they hated the company, but they didn’t hate Keith and he carried on and engaged with people.

Next thing, , the company’s CEO headed over to where Keith was. And had a great time because of Keith. Now that is fascinating. So it reminds me of the story we talked about maybe some years ago, shell, about the, kid who, what was it? Sherwood Williams or the big paint company and he was doing stuff there with the imaging and creating graphic.

They fired him. So he was picked up by a competitor. ‘ , ’cause outside the control of , the control freaks at the company basically. So this interest, well let’s go further back than remember. Remember Frank Eliason with Comcast Cares on That’s right. Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, in the other days, unsanction, he was just doing it on his own.

Yeah. And he ended up with a team of what, 11 or 12 employees early days. [00:17:00] This is recent and yet conceptually I think it’s not different. , so that, well you argue that wasn’t a crisis per se. , so I, I would say the question , is not so much for crisis communication specifically, or that it could be for that the future crisis communication, a future, maybe it’s your overall engagement, whether it’s in a crisis or not.

So we’ve got the examples of a crisis. So, , to me it’s like if you could answer the questions, do you know your audience? Is this where they are? Then that itself would be a reason why you wanna be there. Or maybe in the case of the White House, we don’t know if that’s our audience, but we do know certain types of people we wanna reach.

Probably are there. So let’s go there. I mean, maybe, I dunno, I’m guessing here. EEE Exactly. If there’s a subreddit for a state or a region, yeah. You’ve gotta believe that some people are there and if this is where this information is being doled out, other people will spread the word. You can go to other communities and say, Hey, there’s some really good information being shared in [00:18:00] the Georgia subreddit.

You should come over here and partake of that. Yeah. So it, it could build the audience. But going back to what the article said, I really believe it’s the fact that , it’s community moderated and there’s no algorithm. So it’s an opportunity to get the word out and engage with the people who care about this information without the platform getting in the way of that communication.

Yeah. That makes total sense. I agree. Good example. I think, so we have an interesting story here that is about. Well, egregiousness is one word that comes to mind. , stepping over a line, , from a communicator’s point of view, this is a story of, , Intuit, , and a podcast and someone wanting to erase part of it after the recording that didn’t like it.

So this was a recent episode of The Decoder podcast that’s a publication of The Verge, , where Nle Patel, who’s the [00:19:00] editor in Chief of the Verge and host of decoder, interviewed Saan Zi. Who’s the CEO of the Global Financial Technology Platform? Intuit, the interview is especially notable due to a request after the recording from Intuit’s Chief Communications Officer Rick Heinemann.

To delete a portion of the discussion, the Verge refused the request. So the Verge believes Intuit’s request reveals the ethical considerations at the heart of its editorial standards and ethics is something they played a, they blew a big trumpet about. In the decoder episode, Gazi responded to questions about Intuits lobbying against simplified tax filing processes in the us.

Specifically, the Verge raised concerns over Intuits lobbying history, which aims to protect its paid service. TurboTax from direct competition with free government-led filing options. When questions turned to Intuits lobbying activities and history of misleading free, quote unquote tax filing claims, [00:20:00] Azis firmly denied the portrayal.

Following the interview, Intuit’s CCO Rick Heinemann labeled the exchange as inappropriate and demanded that the verge remove the contentious five minute segment. Citing raised voices and overlapping dialogue is distracting the vote. Refuse citing. Its strict editorial independence and commitment to transparency.

The publication maintains that interviews should remain unaltered to preserve journalistic integrity, and it saw no basis for the edit beyond potential discomfort over the pointed questioning. The segment ultimately add uncut, placing the issue of corporate influence on media and editorial ethics front and center.

As Nle Patel explained, the Verge follows a clear non-negotiable editorial policy focused on journalistic ethics, transparency, and accountability. It says its long maintained an ethical stance that prohibits interviewees or their representatives from reviewing, approving, or altering published content.

By [00:21:00] refusing to delete the segment, the Verge says it underscored its commitment to maintaining an unfiltered public record, which it viewed as particularly relevant in this case due to the public interest surrounding tax reform and Intuit’s influential lobbying efforts against simplified free tax filing options.

Their decision to release the verbatim transcript was a trapped a step towards total transparency. They said enabling the audience to form their own opinions on the contentious interaction. There are a number of issues with this that we could discuss for a while. For starters, is the intervention of Intuit CCO in demanding a deletion, an egregious step over a red line.

What’s your take? She. Yes, yes. It’s in the word greatest step over a red line. I can’t be any more unequivocal than this. He was wrong. , and the verge was right in this, , you agree to do an interview. On a podcast, that’s no different [00:22:00] than agreeing to do an interview with a reporter from a mainstream newspaper.

The only way you get to say you can’t use the information that was shared in that interview is if you get the agreement from the journalist at the beginning that this is off the record. And I can’t imagine that anybody doing a podcast would get an off the record agreement from the podcaster. I mean, imagine one of our interviewees.

Yeah. This, I’m, I’m happy to go on FIR interviews, but, , it’s gonna be off the record. Okay. Or on background, maybe. , no. there, there is absolutely no justification for this. And anybody who’s graduated from journalism school should understand this. I am astounded that somebody who has attained a chief communication officer level in an organization thinks that they could get away with nonsense like this.

It’s ridiculous. Yeah. , that, that was my, no, that was my thought as well. Shell, I’m thinking [00:23:00] the Verge, like many publications, , whether they’re so-called new media or traditional media doesn’t really matter. You have, , policies you publish about your standards, your terms and conditions of use, all that, , and nowadays is very common for publications, whether they’re mainstream media, social media, even.

Even business blogs, so that matter, still a publication go into some detail, , about their ethical approach and accountability and responsibilities, et cetera. So they have all that. It’s public, so it’s not like , the, these people did an opportunity to see it. , I’m wondering whether they had something as simple as a literary disclaimer form that the interviewee sites, , I remember, , business podcasts I’ve done for companies always have those for guests, which make it quite clear what the ground rules are different.

If, let’s say the Verge had published something that was totally wrong, , , if something had happened that it was totally wrong, that might have been different perhaps, but they didn’t. And I’m wondering whether, and again, we’ve only got the words of how it was written about the CCOs kind of [00:24:00] demanding they do this and it was stepping over the line and all that.

If, if he went in with that approach, no wonder they said. we can’t really say these words on a podcast, family podcast like this, but they dismiss that out of hand. Maybe if he tries to negotiate something, he may have got somewhere, but I doubt it. He, like you said, she surely he should have known better than to do this for goodness sake.

So that, that makes disappointed if someone in a senior role like that making something like this become then the story, which is what this is. , but totally wrong and you shouldn’t ever even try to think of doing some of that after the event. Unless, like you said, you’ve got agreement about something beforehand or it’s serious.

It’s, it really is a mistake and you can justify your intervention and try your hardest to get it changed. But this was ridiculous. A few thoughts. One, I agree if he had gone to decoder and said, gosh, I. The CEO’s kind of unhappy about that [00:25:00] last five minutes and is asked if it’s possible, or I’m gonna ask on his behalf if it’s possible to trim that off.

And they’re probably gonna say no, but you’re probably gonna get farther and maintain a better relationship if you make it a request rather than a demand you have no standing, no basis , for making a demand. Now, however, that this has become the story, every journalist dealing with the communications department at Intuit’s gonna go into it knowing that this is a possible outcome and they’re going to treat into it differently.

And yeah, probably not in a good way. So I could see that. You gotta wonder what he was thinking. Intuit’s a big company. They get coverage. They have clout. So yeah, I think this is gonna affect the perception of the public based on the way that the media reports on them as a result of this.

Yeah, one thing that struck me thinking it through was the fact that this request, , stemmed from a disagreement [00:26:00] over the portrayal of a lobbying practice practices and not from factual inaccuracies. That’s the key thing to me, highlights this kind of conflict between public relations interests and transparency of information that impacts consumers of this particular case.

So their desire into its desire to control damaging dialogue. That’s how I’m reading this, , points to the influence corporations are gonna seek to wield over media portrayal, which you shouldn’t do that. There is another issue here that amazes me and that is that nobody should have been surprised that this point of discussion came up.

People have been talking about this. John Oliver did a segment on this on last week, tonight, years ago. People know that Intuit lobbies to maintain the ability to make money from tax preparation software when most people would like the IRS to provide that [00:27:00] software free, to make it easy for them to file their taxes and.

He should be prepared. The CEO , should be prepared to address that question. Is he not media trained for heaven’s sake, right? if the CCO is upset about this, what he’s probably really upset about is that he hadn’t prepared his CEO to answer this question and engage in a conversation about it shouldn’t have been a surprise.

No. That exactly , is a point , that, , I was thinking about as you were saying those words. How briefed was he? , maybe they didn’t see this as serious, which is why the hell are you doing it? In that case, every interview that you do, particularly if you know you’ve got a skeleton that ain’t in the closet, it’s right out there that people are gonna be asked about.

Surely they should tell. What if they ask about this topic, Mr. CEO, here’s what you need to, well, you didn’t tell ’em what he’s gonna say. Look, here’s the pros and cons of this. Do you refuse to talk about it? No, you can’t do that. Is it one of those situations where you could say. The best person to talk about this is this person can go there or deflect it in some way, but you need [00:28:00] to be prepared.

and like you said, they obviously weren’t if he were media trained, he would’ve been able to take that question and say, let’s look at three reasons why this is a good thing. First of all, it’s a better product than what the IRS is ever going to be able to provide.

Second, third, you do the threes. And you bring it around back to your talking points and then the podcaster moves on. The interviewer moves on rather than making it contentious. , looking through that script, it, it, it seems to me that it was the CEO who started to take that off the rails a bit.

Yeah. He wasn’t prepared. No. , and that’s shocking. Really is, yeah. Neville, I know that you continue to do a fair amount of blogging. I do. I don’t, I haven’t had the time. My, my blog, , sits there. I cross post the monthly episodes of [00:29:00] FIR there and not much else, but there are plenty of people who are still blogging and you, and they are, , the basis of the 2024 blogging survey that was published by Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media published on LinkedIn, interestingly, as opposed to in a white paper downloadable report, , a microsite now it was a LinkedIn article.

, the surveys in its 11th year, it draws on insights from over 12,000 bloggers and offers a comprehensive look at evolving blogging trends, tactics, and results. It’s a really rich. Report for content marketers who are looking to understand what’s working in content strategy and, where their emerging challenges are.

So let’s take a look at the key takeaways I have. Eight of these. And Neville, I thought what I would do is go through ’em one at a time and get your thoughts on each one. [00:30:00] the first one deals with the traffic challenge and zero click platforms. A zero click platform would be something like perplexity, where you get the answer thanks to what somebody published on a blog, but you never have to click through to the blog in order to get it because Perplexity has given it to you.

, this is one of the most critical challenges bloggers are facing. Driving traffic is a key challenge. Only 20% of bloggers are reporting strong results driving traffic, and that’s down from 30% just five years ago now, the decline largely stems from platforms like Google and social media increasingly keeping users on their sites leading to a rise in zero click.

Content marketing expert, Rand Fishkin suggests that content marketers need to rethink what success looks like, shifting their focus from traffic volume to building loyal niche audiences through methods like gated content or newsletters. This zero click phenomenon is reshaping strategies, [00:31:00] encouraging marketing marketers to nurture smaller engaged communities rather than depending on high traffic numbers alone.

Your thoughts, Neville? I’m kind of different how I use my blog, , since I reboot, relaunched a thing effectively last July. I don’t do this for monetary gain. I don’t do this for, , a kind of strategic approach to engagement. Indeed, there’s no, you can’t comment anymore on my blog. I disabled commenting about four years ago actually.

I don’t, I have different focuses. I get this though. I do understand this. I don’t, I’m not bothered at all by zero click and at all. , I’m quite happy for people to read my content that shows up in a perplexity search or they get it because of Google. Even Google search. I’ve seen blog posts, I’ve written show up in Google results sometimes.

So what benefit do I get from that? It’s kind of like, , my content is out [00:32:00] there. , unlike the days you and I talked about many over a decade ago, if content scraping was a big thing back in the, , late. Teens, the late zeros, , late, what do you call it? The two thousands. , not too bothered about that.

Don’t, yeah, I don’t see it much these days actually. Zero cake doesn’t bother me, but I understand why it does concern others. And indeed, we’ve talked about this in a recent podcast episode, so I do understand that. I’m not concerned by that. If I were doing this. Wearing a hundred percent a business hat and seeking some kind of engagement or recognition or reward that might bother me where I would be concerned about the traffic.

I do pay attention to traffic, to Google Analytics, to rank math, which is one of the SEO tools that I use, and I do pay attention to that so that also they guide me in terms of some of the keywords I might use, but it’s not front of mind. I tend to write naturally. So I know many people like that. By the way.

some running business blocks too, a hundred percent business blocks, , have similar thinking. [00:33:00] So to me , that’s how you can demonstrate authenticity, which is a significant thing that I care a lot about, the authenticity of content that you come across. There’s no hidden agenda, and I have critics who tell me everyone’s got a hidden agenda.

I do not believe that. And to which they call me terribly naive still, but hey, I don’t care, to be honest, shall so This is. An issue without doubt. And , I don’t believe that it’s gonna end well for anyone who believes zero issue, a zero click is going to go away sometime soon. Or it doesn’t matter anymore if you are a business looking for results that way.

’cause it will matter. So what do you think of the alternatives that are suggested here? Like, , switching to, a Substack style newsletter or gating your content? Don’t, I don’t buy any of those, options at all, but might be different. If I wore a business hat Substack, I wouldn’t recommend to anyone to use Substack.

And that’s all to do with the behavior they have exhibited with extremist, , content. Right. , that’s why I [00:34:00] said a Substack style. Got it. Got it. Well, yeah. Okay. , I use, I have a newsletter. That’s actually, , just WordPress that, , you sign up and you get emailed Every time I publish a new post, that’s all it does, and I see interesting engagement from that newsletter that otherwise wouldn’t be the case.

And I don’t pimp anything or push anything I. It’s free. And I’m not making any money outta that. That’s fine. I’m quite happy with that. I think that is something though, to explore. I, I hear lots of people talking about, I’m gonna do a newsletter and monetize my content. I remember using that phraseology 15 years ago and it produced results back then.

I mean, you and I had sponsors in the early days of podcast that, , was, worthwhile. , now today things are very different. , you have to be focused, I think, more on authenticity than ever before. There are so many people writing stuff. Much of it is drl Again, that’s subjective. I then look at the click bait stuff, like the story that, , in this episode we’re gonna talk about, , [00:35:00] that is, is everywhere you look.

How do you tell if something is real? , that’s another big issue. So, , these are all issues. She seems to me, did I answer your question by the way? Did that answer your question? Oh, yes, it did. Thank you. ,we’ll move on to the second key takeaway, , increase the increasing role of artificial intelligence and content creation.

, AI has become mainstream in blogging. 80% of bloggers are using it in various stages of content creation. , most are using it for idea generation headlines, outlines only a small percentage are relying on it for complete drafts of their posts, but the impact is mixed. While it boosts efficiency, it hasn’t yet translated into significantly higher engagement.

There are voices in the industry like Christopher s Penn and Mark Schafer who are pointing out that bloggers are navigating a steep learning curve, experimenting at this point in ways that accelerate their processes while [00:36:00] preserving authenticity and unique voice. I, I do assume you’re using AI at some level , in your blogging.

Oh, , utterly, , to generate ideas, to summarize articles. I don’t use it. I tried it. I don’t use it as I see some people talking about it, which is to literally ask it question, give me a good idea. I can blog about this topic. I don’t do that. , I, when I tried it, I found every single thing I tried with that is absolutely not what I would write about and the way in which it proposed I write.

So no, I don’t waste my time on that. But ideas, yes, in terms of, , an idea I’ve already got. How to flesh it out further, I might ask it. I often ask chat, GBT plus. a kind of a, here’s this thing, ask me questions about this. , what I’d like you to do is come up with a way in which I can talk about X on this topic.

And I found that helpful in every case that on how I use it, these are idea generators, hence generative ai, not creators of the overall [00:37:00] content that I’m gonna publish. I have yet to publish an article except one or two, which I’ve mentioned on my blog as part of my experimentation wholly generated by the ai.

And boom, there it’s, nah, that, that’s not what you should be doing. And looking at some of the metrics here, I find quite interesting. , the biggest percentage I see in the, , list given about how Blogger is using AI was, is 40, 54% using AI to generate ideas. And that’s 11% since the last time they did the survey.

Yeah, that, that makes sense. 40% to write outlines. , I’ve done that a couple times and. , not as good as, , as saying, for instance, to chat GPT and even perplexity sometimes, , write a draft of this topic, 400 words or 600 words, , in a couple of paragraphs, , or, , actually, I don’t tend to use the word, paragraph.

Let’s say give word counts. And that often, particularly in the case of chat, GPT, steers me in the direction that , I decide I want to go to you. Arguably, you could say if you [00:38:00] hadn’t done that, you’d have had to go in a different direction possibly. I would’ve had to think of all that myself, which is what I used to do.

I don’t see this any different at all, by the way, as using a colleague to bounce ideas off, , or, , as the phraseology goes, getting the intern to write a draft, this to me is no different to that. Happens to be. A bit of software. Yeah. I have baked AI into various parts of my article writing or post writing workflow.

So it’s become a habit that at this stage I’m going to use ai. , one of the things that I’ve done a couple of times is I have taken my notes, , from an interview and I, I do use a note taking app. I use auto ai, but in, in these cases, I didn’t, I was sitting there with my laptop interviewing somebody.

This is for a personality profile, and I found I just didn’t have the time to write this feature article. So I took my notes and I gave them, I, I think it was Claude, but I don’t remember for sure which one I was using. [00:39:00] And I said, here are my notes from this interview with this person. Here’s a little bit more information.

, write a first draft of, , an employee profile. , and it did a surfaceable job. I would say that I rewrote it. I’m not gonna say that I edited it heavily. It was a complete rewrite, but it took me probably half the time it would’ve taken to write it from scratch. It did not sound like a, nobody would look at this and go, oh, AI wrote this.

Because like I say, it was a complete rewrite. I don’t know how long I would spend on this, but the, I get that the longer you write it and the greater the depth of your content, the more it mentions you get better results. I don’t see what they mean by better results. Do they mean by more clicks, inbound links, , amplification, or what?

What does better result mean, do you think? I’m presuming it means more. Views and higher levels of engagement. I don’t have that data, but those are the results that I would consider to be better as a blogger. Yeah. [00:40:00] Yeah. , yeah, I guess so. what would I think about? , thinking about a couple of posts I’ve written recently, one of which got significant attention and sharing.

, it was a topic that seemed to resonate and some key people had shared it, and that drove more traffic to it. So that wasn’t a designed approach. If I write this way about this topic and they targeted to that kind of person, I didn’t do any of those things. I just write, , as I said in the description of my blog when I relaunched it.

This is a place to think out loud and get other people’s thoughts too. not necessarily in conversation here to spread the word. If. But there’s no strategy behind it for me. , so I’m not sure what that means. , better results either way. I get the connection between the longer, , your longer articles that are well thought through, hence the four hours, , likely.

, and I often find that when I’ve written a post from, say it’s had input from one of the ais in terms of structure, , [00:41:00] and looked at the first draft that I’d written and often do that and ask it, critique this, suggest how I could improve this. Something simple like that. I don’t give it to complex, requests.

Always comes back with, at least here are four things you could do. And often they’re typical things like, more subheadings or add some images or something to break it up. , but often not always the you think, oh, that’s a damn good suggestion that leads then to me to do something more. So I get, I sometime have spent four hours, but my time typically is a couple of hours.

, if that , on a 900 to 1200 word post, I tend not to count too much, but I think, and so what do I get out of it? , I look at the traffic, from, , Google Analytics in particular and see this post has got that much attention. Fine. , rarely are they comments. These days, except on some social networks, but that’s often not to the post.

, that’s if I’ve amplified it particularly on LinkedIn. [00:42:00] Although I do find, , threads is actually working pretty well in that regard too. But I’m actually not doing it for that reason. She, understand obviously, people, , publishing from a business point of view are doing it that way. I’m not, but I, I get why that’s important.

So I think that’s a good point to make, to show, to outline how long the typical blog post and that relationship between length and time spent, you can connect to better results, I guess. Yeah. It also says to me that there’s a thirst out there for longer form. Content if longer blog posts are producing better results.

But let’s move on to the fourth key takeaway, which is, , around blogging frequency and SEO impact. It’s interesting that while posting frequency has dropped, quality remains high. Fewer bloggers publish multiple times a week with a growing trend toward monthly updates, which, in the early days of blogging, people would’ve said, ah, you’ll never gain any traction posting once a month.

, but it remain. SEO [00:43:00] remains, , vital as consistency and freshness contribute to better ranking and traffic performance. Madi French and SEO strategist highlights the importance of maintaining regular updates and aligning the search intent to achieve visibility, especially in competitive spaces. Are you paying any attention to SEO.

not to the extent that this suggests, no, , not really. , but I think, , it is interesting about , the, the correlation and effort and performance you published more often and more likely to report strong results, quote unquote strong results. Yeah. That makes sense to me. Monthly blogging is more popular, but less effective than ever.

Reminds me of Richard Amo when he started his 6:00 AM blog. It was once a week, , every Monday at 6:00 AM his time. , I dropped into, , this year at times one, two posts per month. And then sometimes, I think it must have been August the, so-called Quiet Month, in which case probably the worst time to publish content you want people to get at.

I think I publish like six posts. I try, I tell myself, publish one a week. [00:44:00] It actually turns out about once every two weeks that I publish something, but I don’t feel any pressure to do that. So I have a long list. I’ve always had this shell. You’ve, you are the same, I’m sure. I’ve got a long list of ideas to blog about.

There’s like 20 items in there. I never get to half of them. You never know. Something might spark. So I use Evernotes, , particularly to note down topics I’d like to write about and usually it helps. , biweekly is the minimum for content performance. This, , this report says, , publishing 10 to 12 posts per year won’t cut it.

I’m sure that’s true, but, , I get skeptical about, stuff that talks about longer content, is therefore equal to greater success and spending more time on longer content. And then you’ve got this, , biweekly, not monthly, , more often than likely to report better results. Stuff like that depends what you’re measuring, I suppose.

Depends what your goal is. But, , I know businesses who are. Once, twice a month and are consistent at it. , what results are they getting out of it? If it’s thought leadership, [00:45:00] perhaps, , is it amplification elsewhere? You need to do an analytics report on that kind of thing. I think it’s good to see, , blogs still alive and well in spite of, , some of the downside of all of that, which is useless content, clickbait type content, , that you see employed by some media tabloids in particular.

, you see that reflect in some blog posts along with, and again, this is my kind of tired cynicism. , sometimes shell that you look at some con you think, why on earth did you even. Publishes drl. And that’s very subjective, and it’s cruel sometimes to say that. I wouldn’t say that to anyone. You often think it, I often wonder, do people say that about my stuff?

Sometimes I wonder, I’ll never know unless someone tells me. , I don’t go out and ask people. But, , it’s good to see blogging. It is not going away. This Fiori with WordPress I don’t think is helping anything. , with a fight with WP Engine. And then this whole argument about who owns the intellectual property rights to WordPress, , et cetera, , I see a lot of people, , what does that mean a [00:46:00] lot?

Maybe 15 or 20 over the past few weeks saying, I’m quitting WordPress. I’m gonna go to Ghost, or I’m gonna go to some other service, or whatever. Yeah. I suppose inevitable. Are we at a time then for the shakeout in the tools and the platforms that we’re using? To write blog posts. Has a definition of blogging shifted?

I suspect it has , the original definition of, reverse chronological content and you have tracks and the track backs and pings and all that stuff. It’s all automated now. , and I think it has changed in that regard. So if you are using a blog like I am, which is, the simplest way I can describe it is to think out loud, not to pitch anything, not to persuade anyone to a particular course of action overtly, where I can register an algorithmic outcome from that.

I have no interest in doing any of those things. Thinking out loud. Might get some comment from someone. I’ve had some interesting reactions to some of the content recently, like a week or two after I published it. Someone’s encountered it via LinkedIn or Facebook. So I enjoy though those are serendipitous in my book and [00:47:00] that’s definitely makes it all worthwhile.

, let’s go through the remaining four key takeaways, in a lightning round in the interest of time. The fifth is that content formats and, , the power of original researcher in play how two guides remain the top format for bloggers. The survey suggests that original research and collaborative content, like interviews yield the strongest engagement.

Nearly half of respondents reported conducting original research, which significantly contributes to perceived authority. And SEO Jay B the content strategist underscores that original resource is more resilient against AI driven content as it provides unique insights that readers can’t find elsewhere.

Then we have, , the six takeaway influencer collaboration and editing process. Successful bloggers are often those who work closely with influencers and editors. About half of the respondents collaborate with subject matter experts on occasion, and a small successful group does that [00:48:00] Consistently.

Bloggers who involve editors in their process report better results. There’s Amanda Milligan, director of Content Strategy. Who points out that these collaborations create organic authority boosts and improve content quality by integrating , multiple perspectives, making it more valuable and credible.

The seventh key takeaway, , around video and multimedia use, , the use of video and blogs has doubled since 2015, but only about 25% of bloggers consistently use it. Those who do report positive impacts on engagement and reach, aligning with broader social media trends, which where users increasingly prefer video content will.

Reynolds is an industry expert. He advises that marketers prioritize video considering that platforms like YouTube and TikTok continue to grow. Even if bloggers themselves aren’t maintaining videos, potential or maximizing videos potential just yet. And the final takeaway is around analytics and measuring success.

bloggers who consistently [00:49:00] track their analytics are two and a half times more likely to see strong results, but only 20% of bloggers admit that they, , don’t or can’t measure their content’s performance. , Karen Hopper, an analytics expert, stresses that reliable data allows content creators to refine their strategies and demonstrate value, especially as marketing budgets come under closer scrutiny.

So those are the key takeaways. , any thoughts on those Last four, Neville? Yeah, I, the one that struck me was, what a blog is putting in their articles, , visuals, , I’ve always had that. Every single post I publish has a hero image on it. It’s there. And it, I tend to use metaphors a lot and often generate them from, an, , generative AI tool.

, I don’t look for, perfection in terms of photorealistic images, they’re metaphors. I want to use, typically, I’m actually a big fan recently of, , Adobe, , Express that has Firefly built in and stock images built in. So I probably, funny enough, I use one on a, on the post.

[00:50:00] I mentioned at the beginning of this episode about, , additional comments I made to that article. We wrote, we featured in An episode. So I used , a picture of a board, , of a, , a c-suite example, young people. And I then noticed after I’d used it about three or four days later, that the woman front of image, attractive young woman, , is holding pencils in both hands.

I noticed that you gotta pay attention to these things, but, so in any case, I use images. , looking at the metrics here that virtually all bloggers add images to their content. , some bloggers use a lot, small minority adds seven or more. Again, depends on what you’re writing. I don’t do that, but a hero image, something to break it up again, depending on it.

Subheadings I use a lot too. I don’t use video a lot. And it’s interesting. Video , is getting huge attention, but not in blogging. Partly I suspect, , it’s often not easy to embed a video. I. Unless it’s on YouTube, some places don’t do this, and I’ve seen blogs including one of my posts recently, where you don’t control that content.

So [00:51:00] something happens to it. You don’t get it in the embed working. , the worst one is ones that say, you’re not allowed to watch this in your country. Stuff like that. So the permissions aren’t right, so you have that risk. , when I publish myself about episodes that you and I create, I always include an embedded, an embed from Libsyn that will play it and link back to the show notes page.

I tend to do that a lot of visuals and make it a, an interesting visual visit so the user experience is better. That’s, I care about stuff like that and the user interface. I just don’t. Thank So I’m may, I may or may not be , a really good example to, to have this discussion with you because my, , my, , attention on this and what I believe is worth spending time on is not the same as , your typical business block.

So, Jay Bear, for instance, would probably hate talking to me ’cause I wouldn’t be able to converse with him about the same things for the same reasons. But everyone’s different. , and I think, you share your thoughts. Thought leadership is something that I pay attention to. Not the phrase so much, but the act, [00:52:00] the demonstration of that as others perceive it.

So when I get comments to things are right, , I pay attention to that , when they come in. So. That’s my take on it, by the way. I just read this week that Midjourney has released an update that allows you to edit the images that it creates. Yeah. You could have told it to take the pencil out of one of the woman’s hands.

That’s it. That’s worth knowing. She, I should try Midjourney again. I’ve not tried it for a while, but, part of it is a journey. The experimentation , we are having, , what you and I talk about, what others talk about, what others talk about when they listen to what you and I are talking about.

it’s a bit like the , notebook, LM tool that , we tried out on, , experimenting on creating a podcast. A lot of excitement about that I was terribly excited about. It’s all gone dreadfully quiet since then. And I think, , that people realize, perhaps the initial excitement, this is not the intent of this tool.

This is not a viable solution to create a podcast unless you are creating something that you use in a podcast that you’re creating now that I could see for. There may be options for that kind of thing. [00:53:00] Greeting Shea Neville, and FR lists all around the world. It’s Dan York. Greetings coming at you from Shelburn, Vermont.

Actually, not in my home office. I’m in LaMarche and I , have a special guest right here. Charlie, Bernie, I’m so excited to be here. How are you? Charlie has been a devoted member of our FYR chat that we’ve had on on Thursday afternoon Yes. That anybody can join, but just a weekly Zoom chat that shell maintains, and some of us get there together for about a half an hour and talk about social media and everything else.

Yeah. So what are you doing up here in Vermont? Well, first of all, this is for you, Jeff Davis. You can join too. I’m, I’m visiting. Thank you, Dan. I’m visiting my daughter Isabel, who teaches at the University of Vermont and coaches debate. So Charlie’s, uh, when he was coming up here, he dropped me a note. Yeah.

And so we’re, we’ve had a nice coffee and conversation hanging out here at this, uh, little cafe and, uh, figured I’d go and do this. So, um, one thing I was gonna talk about today was that, uh, blue sky just announced that [00:54:00] they had a, do you use Blue sky? No. Okay. No. Where do you spend your time actually on social media these days?

Uh, a lot of time on LinkedIn, to be honest with you. Okay. I’ve, I’ve experimented when my wife was, uh, at, under the Weather a year ago, I experimented with TikTok and I have 500 followers. They’re mostly bots, uh, on TikTok to talk about podcasting and some of the stuff, stuff I did in my booking and a little bit on Instagram as well.

That’s more TikTok followers than I have. I, I’ve also played around with it a little bit. Yeah. But haven’t done a whole lot there. Yeah. That kind of stuff. So I’m not sure it’s worth the time, but I’m there, you know, so, and, and Instagram, I tend to keep an Instagram presence on behalf of PO Bill Media as much as anything else.

So the, uh, yeah. Yeah. My and my daughters are, one is really into TikTok and one is really in Instagram reel, so that’s kind of where they, they absorb a lot of life, but, you know, with the, with the move away from Twitter and x, Sony Evil gone to, to LinkedIn Right. Has been a big beneficiary. Right. But also, you know, mastodons where I spend my time with Fred’s.[00:55:00]

Mm-Hmm. Blue sky, all this. So Blue Sky has, uh, just been taking a little bit of, you know, getting some attention and flack because they accepted a, a round of investment that had $13 million, which the big, the big player in it was a company called Blockchain Capital, which is a, a, a blockchain, cryptocurrency kind of company.

And, and now, I mean, if you go back, you know, Jack Dorsey was behind the creation of Blue Sky and that stuff. Right. And he’s big into that whole world. Yeah. So this should not be a surprise on one level, but, but Blue Sky talked a good bit about how they’ve, they’ve grown, they’ve opened it up. They now have 13 million people.

They’ve, they’ve got Federation, they’ve got some people doing separate servers using this, the AT protocol as they call it. Mm-Hmm. They’ve got, um, custom feeds. They’re gonna be building more stuff that they’re doing. So they’re talking all about what they’re, what they’re trying to do here. And so that’s, uh, that’s their big news.

They’ve got a a, a lot of things happening, a lot of stuff going on that has not been universally well received because many people have been saying, you know, Hey, [00:56:00] here we are. This is the acidification, you know, is coming at some point. Because here we go with, with that. And over on Mastodon, where I spent a lot of time, there’s of course been a lot of commentary around, you know, here we go, VC investing, all this stuff, right?

And, uh, Eugene or Eugene Racho, who’s the kind of the co-founder or the founder of Mastodon, he had a post that said, Mastodon is financed by crowdfunding instead of venture capital. Not because we don’t know that venture capital exists, not because we don’t have bills to pay and not because venture capital isn’t willing to give money to new social media platforms.

VCs don’t want a sustainable business. They want a big exit. Every VC backed business is on a timer to deliver or die. And, and that’s true. That’s but true. It’s a, it’s a great. Soundbite because it’s absolutely true. You, it is absolutely true. I’ve worked at a couple startups that were VC backed and you had a timer.

Yeah. You had to, you know, this was your, your schedule that you had to go and do. It’s crazy. So, so that’s [00:57:00] kind of the big, the big thing. That’s, um, it’s a big deal. Yeah. It’s going on. So we’ll see. We’ll see what happens. You know. We’ll, uh, we’ll, blue Sky, sky, the timer just started on blue sky. Right. Will they deliver what their, what their investors need?

Yeah. Or not, so, um, so you were telling me a little bit earlier when we were talking too. Mm-Hmm. You use a product called Riverside FM to record some of the podcast that you take. Right. And you were telling me about some of the cool new stuff. So maybe what is Riverside fm? Well, Riverside, so of course with the, with the, the pandemic and quarantine, we had to use much more zoom, much more remote podcasting, uh, than we ever did before.

We were doing it before sending out kits, sending out com, Rex lines, but then everybody got very used to Zoom. We built studios every got. Most people, and it’s talked about on this show, got better microphones, better headsets for their Zoom calls at Home. Riverside is is a step above Zoom and when I was at podcast movement a couple months ago, [00:58:00] the crew at Riverside told us they were coming out with a whole bunch of AI developments, better tools inside the unit.

So we did two hours of just the staff at Pod Media last week running through all the advancements that this new update in Riverside has. I couldn’t possibly list them all here. The AI searchability, the transcription, you can do word search, you can create social media assets, you can fine tune those, do them by topic.

It’s, it’s absolutely overwhelming. We are thrilled by these new tools, which most people aren’t using, but we are using now as of of today. What’s an example? So it’s a real advanced what’s, yeah. What’s an example of one of the tools that used to take you hours, but now you can do an in minutes? Well, let’s say you and I do this and I’m gonna go back and try and make a 62nd clip based on Blue sky.

I’ll take this audio and or audio and video back to Riverside and, and say, create a [00:59:00] 62nd clip on the word blue sky. I don’t have to do any of the work. All I have to do is the post editing, which you might have had to do after one or two people. Found that clip sourced the clip, it might give you five different versions of that that you can choose from.

And then do that sort of super editing process so you don’t have to search. Find the time. You don’t have to mark. Mark down the time when you were having that conversation like we used to. Oh yeah. Oh, at three minutes and 20 seconds. I did. I was talking with Dan about blue sky, none of that. It’s all taken care of.

So you just go and say, I want make me 62nd clips on Blue Cloud blue or blue sky and goes, wow, that’s really cool. Including, including subtitles. I mean, all the bells and whistles that we do manually can be created. You still can’t take the person out at the end of the editing process. Right. ’cause as, as you guys have talked about, as we’ve talked about, there are errors.

You can’t just post that. Right. ’cause then it blames on you, but it does take out the first edit, maybe the second and third. Wow. Then you’re in there going, [01:00:00] okay, does it sound better if I cut it here or there? But that first draft is taken care of for you on the podcast, on the social media assets.

That’s just one of the features. It’s really, really, really robust. That’s cool. Riverside do com. Well, I gotta wrap it there for the show, but, uh, it’s great to see you Charlie. Nice to meet. It’s great to meet after knowing you virtually for so long that I know it’s a face to face know. Look for our selfie.

There you go. Well, thanks. Uh, she Neville for, uh, this opportunity to talk and say a little bit more people. You can find more about that at Riverside. Ff and Charlie, where can people find you on social media? Well, as a result of listening to for immediate release, for many years I started podcasting and now run a media production company called Pod Ville Media.

So Pod ville Media one word.com. And please look me up or I’m just Charlie at Pod Bill Media. All right. Yeah. Thanks everybody. Thanks Deb. Yeah, thank you. Back to you. She Neville. Bye for now. Just a little PS I was recording that with [01:01:00] Charlie in the cafe using a new device I got called the Holly Land Lark, M two wireless lav mics.

They’re two little round circular microphones that you can just put on the shirt with a magnetic thing. They go to a connector. In this case that was going into my iPhone. There’s also A-U-S-B-C and also a connector. It can go into a, a camera or an audio device. But I was quite pleased we didn’t even use the noise cancellation feature that, uh, that is also there.

So again, it’s a Holly Land Lark M two, if you wanna play with something new, very inexpensive, very nice. thank you so much, Dan. I cannot tell you how it warms my heart to hear you talking with Charlie, Bernie. I saw the photo that you shared as well of the two of you together. , just knowing that FIR brought people together who would’ve never otherwise met, is just a wonderful feeling.

And, , also, of course, the [01:02:00] content of the report was interesting. blue Sky. Yeah, I’m spending very, very little time on Blue Sky. I would say threads between the two of them has really captured my attention more. , but , this investment, , might, boost their fortunes. So our next story, it follows a tragic death of Liam Payne, the former member of the One Direction Boy Band who fell from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Last week, a local news platform in the West Midlands in the uk owned by reach PLC, posted over 80 articles within 72 hours each. Aiming to garner online engagement. This was nothing less than the strategy of milking Liam Payne’s. Death for Clicks says Dan Slee, an award-winning, communicated with decades of experience in public sector communication in the media.

He argues that this highlights a shift in local journalism, which now prioritizes clicks over community relevance and sensitivity. This approach led to substantial [01:03:00] backlash with nearly half of the comments on the local news platforms article, expressing frustration at the perceived exploitation of Payne’s death.

Many readers criticized the flood of coverage suggesting it was disrespectful to Payne’s family and intrusive. SLE points out that modern news platforms like Reach PLC, prioritize digital metrics over traditional reporting resulting in loss of trust. This specific example of using repetitive emotion driven headlines reflects a widespread shift across local media where the focus is now on high traffic content rather than nuanced storytelling.

Slee emphasizes that while the if it bleeds, it leads mantra, once sold print papers. Today’s readers are quick to spot sensationalism. They expect higher standards from news outlets, particularly in times of tragedy. Tragedy in essence, slee cautions that reach PLC’s approach risks alienating its audience in the long term.

He suggests that while this strategy may succeed in the short term for engagement, it [01:04:00] ultimately devalues the community connection that local journalism wants upheld. Building on Dan s Lee’s critique author and crisis PR consultant, mark Bakowski adds a powerful layer about the consequences of this media machine on celebrities themselves in an opinion piece in The Guardian.

While Slee critiques reaches tactics as commercially unsustainable, Bakowski suggests that such practices are ethically fraught, diminishing the humanity of public figures like pain. Together these perspectives offer a comprehensive view. While outlets like reach exploit celebrity news to maximize engagement, they contribute to a dehumanizing culture that disregards the wellbeing of those at its center.

This combined perspective emphasizes that today’s media, by constantly feeding on the lives of celebrities, not only risks alienating audiences, but also enforces an unsustainable cycle of scrutiny on public figures. As Slee warns of the audience backlash against relentless clickbait, Bukowski’s insights encourage [01:05:00] people to consider the emotional toil on celebrities and ask if a change in how we approach celebrity culture is overdue.

Together they argue for immediate landscape, and that balances engagement with respect and empathy, acknowledging the impact on both audiences and those in the spotlight. A remarkable story in some regards. , just the chutzpah of a, of an organization to take that approach, , around something so tragic, , and yet unsurprising, , especially with the sensationalism that so many publications feel is necessary in order to draw eyeballs.

, unfortunate. But I think it’s just the way things are these days. You mentioned the old, if it bleeds, it leads mantra and that hasn’t changed. you’re, you’re no not going to see a story about, you know, it was a sunny day and people walked in the park. , the media is attracted to those types of stories in which people are [01:06:00] hurt or bad things have happened.

, that’s not gonna change, but this is different. , this is almost the glorification of a tragic event as opposed to, , incessant coverage of that event. This wasn’t more reporting or more analysis. , this was just hammering people with the fact that it had happened. And I can see why their audience was not happy with it.

This particular company reached PLC, published a number of tabloids in the uk and a swath of local newspapers up and down the country. , they’re in the news for a different reason. It’s , very related, I think, which is , the whole business model is geared to. Clicks on questionable content, on articles that lead you to click, they’ll talk about something happens in, in, in an industry and this particular company is gonna do X and they mention the company, you gotta click to get more information.

I’ve seen some people talking about, , the way in which they treat their employees, the reporters in particular [01:07:00] where they are incentivized to just literally churn out. Sheer volumes of content, , day in and day out, and manufacture stories where frankly there is no story. If you look at some of these papers, , I dunno what it’s like in the US shell, but local media in this country, broadly speaking, you go to a local media website and you are absolutely surrounded with popups, ads, the works and stuff popping up all the time, encouraging you to sign up and do this or whatever.

, and the illustrations within an article are typically third party, other articles from the likes of Tabula and those kinds of companies that sell this kind of content. So you know that your visit is being tracked inside out and back to front and upside down every time you click something. So they are, they seem to be at the forefront of this.

And so I expect to see more news like this criticizing reach PLC. , but like you said, the cynicism kicks in quite easily. Is anything really gonna change? I admire Mark Bukowski’s encouragement., to [01:08:00] think about this more than we tend to. And he’s written, , actually his article is really , worth reading.

, but will it move any needles in any meaningful way for anyone? I, I wonder, so is this something that regulators need to do anything about? I honestly can’t see that. it’s the business model. The people running this business are the ones who need to be in the frame for accountability. It seems to me.

Yeah, this won’t come as a surprise to anybody, but I did hear a journalist, I think it was at the PRSA conference, re recalling the days where they could spend all day working on a story, working their sources, getting more quotes. Yeah, getting more information, putting Polish to the finished product.

Now they’re expected to turn out five, six stories a day just to keep that flow of clickbait coming. Even the journalists aren’t necessarily happy with this, but it is sadly the state of affairs because there has to be a way for media companies to create revenue, otherwise they’re not gonna be able to.

Produce this content. And despite the fact [01:09:00] that there is, I understand low trust in the media, these are the folks who go out and spend the time, using up their shoe leather, , getting the facts. Getting the details, yeah. , and reporting them in coherent ways that are meaningful to people.

There, there has to be a way to maintain this. Is it public funding? I don’t know. , but there, there has to be, , a model for maintaining professional journalism. Not that I’m gonna call the publication that you highlighted, , professional journalism. Well, they get paid to do it. Right.

So it’s professional journalists, just not good professional journalism. No, this is the landscape, shall I agree with you? And, and it’s not a pretty site. That’s a fact. Something needs to happen. He says, , I dunno what though. Over the past few years, a lot of workers have become increasingly disconnected from their roles, from their peers, even from their employers.

We’ve seen this in trends like Quiet, quitting, and the Great resignation, both of which were topics here on FIR. For some, this fractured relationship is partly a [01:10:00] reaction to the uncertainty and isolation that was brought on by the Covid Pandemic, which fundamentally altered the way we work. In response, there are a lot of leaders who are asking employees to RTO, that is return to the office, believing that being physically together will foster better connections, drive collaboration and boost engagement.

And I have heard this from a number of people throughout the business world that, with people working remotely in hybrid, there’s less of that. Serendipitous encountering of somebody in the hallway where the conversation leads to a brainstorm or the solving of a problem. We need to get people back in the office, but according to the NeuroLeadership Institute and Akamai’s, latest research, physical presence alone.

Probably isn’t gonna deliver the results that you’re looking for. Forcing people back isn’t necessary necessarily a solution to disconnection. In fact, it [01:11:00] can backfire. Productivity can decline, and organizations risk losing some of their most seasoned employees. So how can organizations truly foster connection?

The researchers propose what they call the Clear Model, an acronym that breaks down the workplace connections into four types, colleague, leader, employer, and role. So let’s quickly review these. The Colleague Connection is what most of us envision when we think of a workplace connection relationship we have with our coworkers.

Colleague. Connection enables trust, support, and collaboration. Embracing both individual and team performance. Leader Connection looks at our bond with our immediate leaders who play a significant role in shaping. Our work experience, a good manager provides opportunities, clarity and balance Feedback research shows it up to 70% of engagement variants can be con attributed to the quality of this connection.

The employer connection considers the alignment between the employee and the organization’s mission and values. [01:12:00] This connection can be pivotal in shaping how meaningful and fulfilling one’s work feels, and the role connection. This is inspired by the concept of flow. A role connection is about how well a person fits with and enjoys the job.

It’s the engagement and clarity an employee feels in their specific role, knowing how their efforts can advance them personally and professionally. , these four elements suggest that connection is multidimensional, not a one size fits all. Solution. Leaders should consider this model when implementing return to office policies.

Take a mandate that only prioritizes colleague connection. It could inadvertently strain leader connection if employees feel their autonomy is being overlooked. That’s one of those intrinsic values that people hold dear employer. Enroll connections might also suffer if people feel undervalued or micromanaged simply for showing up in person.

And in fact, if you decide not to go the return to office route, the clear framework. Pretty clearly shows us that [01:13:00] nurturing all four connection types creates a stronger workplace connection. Even if people aren’t necessarily coming to the office. You might adopt a patchwork principle that accommodates different ways of working for different teams or individuals, rather than a single blanket policy.

But businesses are wrestling with low engagement, , wrestling with rapid change, diminished trust. It’s really important for leaders to recognize the nature of workplace connection and approach, approach it with intention and the clear framework, which by the way, came out of a Harvard Business Review article, , is an opportunity to rethink the workplace, aligning it more closely with the diverse needs of the workforce that we’re coping with today.

Yeah, that makes total sense. And one thing struck me from the Harvard Business View article, , is how things change over time. And, the precise wording that caught my eye, our connection preferences can also wax and wane depending on what’s going on in their lives. Change a big life events.

Someone got [01:14:00] married, perhaps, , takes up a hobby, , that materially alters their desire for partnership at work. , and I’m also thinking that this whole thing about working from home in particular arose during the pandemic and the strong efforts made by companies everywhere to, provide an appeal for employees to do that, to finance their offices home equipment.

And that’s now four. Since that happens suddenly reverse gears. , you gotta come back to the office. Now , you’re talking about material effects on people, again, wrenching them outta something they now got used to with the encouragement of their employer officially, even if some managers don’t like it.

, and indeed we were talking earlier that, , some managers are just blinked at this. Totally. You’ve gotta come to the office. I don’t believe any of this stuff at all about the benefits work at home. Nothing works except you physically being in the office. That doesn’t all go well for employer employee relations, particularly if that’s a senior person talking like that.

I [01:15:00] get the clear analogy. , but , , the article does go on about, the consequences if employee employers insist on return to the office, a blanket return to the office. We’ve talked about this before. We’ve written about it too. And I’ve seen lots of articles, , that tend to pop up , when some companies in the news, ’cause they’re insisting everyone goes back to the office.

I’m not. A kind of a wholesale action like that anymore if I’m judging it by what’s not being reported anymore in the mainstream media, let’s say. It’s not something I’ve paid huge attention to recently to get a sense of how serious is this return to the office thing, , as a mass return.

I don’t see that happening. But nevertheless, it’s, , it’s troubling when you hear people still saying that nothing happens outside the office, so you’ve gotta come back. That’s simply not true anymore. , not only because of the changes that have happened since the pandemic, but that just isn’t true. I like to think this is true.

I haven’t researched it, but I was in a session, , at a conference, I think it was at the IEPC conference in June where the speaker [01:16:00] said there’s actually no empirical evidence at all that being in the office leads to these serendipitous encounters in the hallway that produce brainstorms or problem solutions, at a rate that’s any higher than other means of doing it.

That , it’s just a myth. I would say if it’s so planned , and strategized, and it ain’t serendipitous in that case, these are chance encounters. I remember, yeah, I used to be a smoker. I haven’t had a cigarette since 1991, but I used to be a smoker. , and some of the best conversations I ever had was outside at the ashtray because you had to go outside and there were people from all different departments there.

And man, the information exchange , was terrific people that you wouldn’t be talking to otherwise. This is why I always like to tell clients, I say, if you really wanna know how information moves through this organization, go hang out with the smokers outside. , but does that lead to solutions that are going to produce revenues, , or solve big problems for the [01:17:00] organization somehow?

I doubt it for all those conversations that I had out at the ashtray, I can’t remember one of them. Leading to something big, , whether it was me producing that outcome or somebody else who was out there having a smoke. like you, I was a smoker. I didn’t stop actually until 2008, so that’s a good 15 years or more longer than you.

But I remember one job I had actually, it was at Mercer, , actually where my boss’s boss was a heavy smoker. And, catching up with him in the smoking group was always very beneficial, very relaxed, , and it was nice to have a chat with him. But the other thing, it may have been the only place you could go catch up with him, right?

You couldn’t get in to see this person. Otherwise, , those were the serendipitous moments I remember. I must have been anyway, this debate is not gonna go away anytime soon. This whole thing about come back to the office or not. We look forward to talking about it again in the upcoming episode, I’m sure.

Our final story in this month’s episode is [01:18:00] another report that we’re gonna take a look at. , but this is, , not like the blogging report. This is about AI and, , unlike the way you conducted that one, she, I’m not gonna talk so much about , the content of this report. We have a link to it , in the show notes.

It’s a big read. With a huge amount to unpack, , much of which, , is gonna be complex to many communicators. And indeed, that takes away the focus of what we want to focus on in this, which is, , something that’s utterly relevant to communicators who are seeking to understand AI’s business landscape. So the state of the AI report is what it’s called, published in mid-October, just a week or so ago.

, shows an industry at a turning point with AI expanding into new domains and redefining sectors while grappling with significant challenges around regulation, sustainability, and safety. , as I mentioned, it’s a big read, but this breakdown is. Geared, I hope to helping us [01:19:00] communicate is understand what’s actually important about this and what takeaways we can get from support without actually reading it.

So we are here to help you with that, but I encourage you to read at least the executive summary and then dive into some of these segments ’cause it is worth the takeaway. So the first of these five key insights, , is that AI is increasingly relevant across industries that were not traditionally tech heavy.

It moves outta the tech landscape entirely. So communicators should prepare to bridge these interdisciplinary opportunities, crafting narratives that resonate with diverse fields from healthcare to engineering. The second, the emergence of content creation. Startups suggest a new array of tools for business communicators, particularly in video and audio.

However, as model and hardware costs remain high, it will be crucial for communicators to advise on the cost benefit equation and to gauge the sustainability of AI driven solutions. Third, with regional regulations growing, it’s essential for communicators to articulate [01:20:00] compliance measures and to guide stakeholders in navigating the complex regulatory landscape.

Communicators have a role in demystifying these laws and explaining their business impacts, especially in Europe and the us. One tip I’d add to that is something I did. If you take for instance, the eus , AI law, I’ve forgotten the formal title of, it’s a massive document and ask chat GPT plus to summarize it all and highlighting certain things, , it will do that.

It will give you something digestible that you could take away from, or start to develop further and ask more questions to fine tune this. It will even do things like, tell me what this means from a professional communicator perspective, once you define what that kind of audience or persona is, actually is very handy.

, the fourth one. Is trust building around AI will be essential as companies emphasize deployment speed communicators can support transparency efforts by addressing safety and ethical considerations. This proactive approach [01:21:00] will help allay public concerns and sustain consumer confidence in AI products.

And the fifth one, increase adoption and retention of AI products indicator maturing market ready for long-term solutions Communicators have an opportunity to spotlight customer success stories and articulate the distinct advantages of new AI-driven products. So to summarize, overall communicators should be prepared to guide stakeholders through AI’s growing complexities, crafting messaging that clarifies both its transformative potential and the responsibilities it entails.

What do you reckon? Shell, isn’t it interesting that so many people are worried about job loss as a result of AI being able to do the work that they do? And indeed, there have been copywriters who have been laid off from advertising agencies because AI has taken that on. But if you look at this report and, uh some others like it.

For communicators who are strategic, , and who [01:22:00] are paying attention, AI is job security. There is so much that communicators can do to help organizations adopt, , and maximize , the potential of, , and use AI ethically. That this should keep us , very busy, , on top of our, our regular duties.

I, think it’s the first technology I have seen, and as you know, I’ve been paying attention to the technologies that impact communication since desktop publishing. But I think if, if we’re. Just staying current with all of this and developing a solid understanding, not just of how it can be used to write and create graphics, but the impact on the organization and how it can impact the organization, , both from the outside and the inside, and encouraging employees to use it effectively.

And the list goes on and on. , there’s just [01:23:00] a ton of work for us to do and we can demonstrate to the organization that we’re the ones to be doing it. These five points are made are just these, there’s a lot more you could dive into in this report. I just plucked out what I felt would’ve been, , some obvious ones to communicate.

They’re all to, all of these are aligned with what , you’ve just been saying. So yes, there is opportunity and it doesn’t really require anyone to tell you what to do. you, if you are a communicator, you’ve got a golden opportunity here to grasp this and take it to that next level that will benefit your organization.

Impress your boss, and, your job will be secure. This is as secure as any job can be, but it’s, it’s opportunity knocks. Yeah. And it, it’s important for communicators to read reports like this and. Ethan Malik’s book and follow him online , and follow Chris Penn and listen to some of , the better AI focused podcasts.

, I was just at , this meeting of construction [01:24:00] communicators. I was at, two of them had gone to Macon, , the marketing AI conference, which is just getting rave reviews. People love this thing. And, , the guy who runs that organization and one of his senior leaders do a weekly AI podcast, but I think , it’s just the two of them talking, but it’s excellent , what they cover.

So there are resources out there that make this easier to stay up to speed than there were with previous technologies. So really need to jump into those. And that’ll wrap up this episode of Four Immediate Release. You Dear Listener, have not heard the technical problems that we’ve had because I will have edited all of those out, but this has been a very challenging episode.

, our next episode, we’ll be doing the midweek shorter episodes now that we’re both back in the office. Although I will be gone for one week. I am speaking at an internal comms conference in Toronto the week after next, but we’ll get several of our midweek episodes up. Our next long [01:25:00] form monthly episode will drop on Monday, November 25th, so we’re recording that on the 23rd.

In the meantime, we hope that you will comment on anything you have heard here or on any of our midweek episodes. There are a number of ways to do that. The way that most people are doing that these days is by leaving a comment on the LinkedIn announcement of the Post, but we also announce those on Blue Sky, on threads, on Facebook, on Mastodon.

So whichever one of these you follow, , leave a comment. We’ll find it and we’ll share it. But you can also send an email to fir [e-mail]. You can attach an audio file or record one on the FIR. Podcast Network website. Just click the record voicemail at the right hand side of the page and we will play your audio.

Man. We haven’t done that in ages. Nobody’s sent us any audio. Sent us [01:26:00] audio. , and you can also leave a comment in the post, on FIR podcast network.com. , and we hope that you will leave a review and a rating, , wherever you get your podcasts. And that will be a 30 for this episode of four immediate release.

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