2017 Podcast Highlights

Podcasts are a cultural phenomenon that cover everything from pop culture to business practices. 2017 has been a great year for Podcasts, especially in the human interest and culture verticals. These are some of the highlights for content this year.

S-Town

From American Public Media, who produced Serial, S-Town is a complex human story about an Alabama town and the people living in it. S-Town explores John B McLemore’s claims of corruption, murder and other unpredictable problems in the community. The podcast is a wild and impactful story that feels like a mix of true-crime and human interest.

Sincerely, X

TED Talks are universally known for inspiring audiences, but there are topics that have value to listeners that are sometimes better kept anonymous; whether they may be damaging to the speaker or too sensitive to share with an identity attached. Sincerely, X by TED and Audible allows the speakers to share stories that range from costly burnout for a doctor, PTSD, and other often delicate confessions.

LaVar Burton Reads

LeVar Burton, famous for his roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Roots and PBS show Reading Rainbow made dreams come true for many adults with the debut of his podcast LaVar Burton Reads, which to many brings back the feeling of watching Reading Rainbow. Burton, who reads with a focused and measured tone, shares short stories that he has hand-picked to share with listeners. With a five-star review on iTunes, this podcast is dynamic, funny and heartwarming to the nostalgic fans of Reading Rainbow.

Missing Richard Simmons

Fitness and pop culture icon Richard Simmons disappeared suddenly from the limelight in 2015. This disappearance triggered a response that brought us Dan Taberski’s Missing Richard Simmons, a weekly real-time report of the progress in the search for answers. The ethics of the show were questioned, but still became a topic of mass interest, a phenomenon for many in the age of defining the nature of celebrity.

Which Podcasts have you enjoyed this last year?

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Marketing and PR Fails of 2017

This year was filled with great moments in advertising and PR, from Honda’s “Yearbooks” and the all-new HoneyBaked Ham company’s “KellyBaked Ham” commercial to the Domino’s Pizza wedding registry and BrewDog’s puppy parental leave, there have been a lot of spot-on moments. But all of these hits don’t come without some misses, whether it’s just a flop or if there were bigger issues at hand in the PR department. These were some of the worst fails in marketing and PR this year.

Pepsi and Kendall Jenner

Pepsi’s “Live For Now” spot aired in April and was pulled shortly after, when it was received as ill thought out and in poor taste of the current social and political climate. The ad features Kendall Jenner abandoning a modeling gig to join a protest. Tensions begin to mount between police and protesters until miraculously, Jenner’s opening of a can of Pepsi eases the conflict.  The ad was so unliked that Wired claimed it “united the internet”.

Adidas Boston Marathon

After finishing the Boston Marathon, runners received an email from the sponsor of the race, athletic brand Adidas. The message read “Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!” The responses to this message were quick and harsh, as many wondered how the messages deeper meaning had not been thought through. If you recall, in 2013 three people were killed and over 260 were injured during a bombing at that year’s Boston marathon. Adidas released a statement officially apologizing for the email

Walker’s #WalkersWave selfie campaign

Automated Twitter campaigns sound like a great idea, until they aren’t. British company Walkers Crisps launched a campaign to bring attention to the brand by having Twitter users send in selfies to be featured in the #WalkersWave, with a chance to win Champions League tickets. The selfies that ended up being submitted were, frankly, less than ideal. From mass murderers to disgraced TV stars, the PR stunt that was intended to be lighthearted and fun backfired in a way that was in one word: incredible. Walers issued an apology and shut down the campaign shortly thereafter.

The Oscars mix up

Following the botched announcement of the winner of Miss Universe, no one would have expected the same thing to happen on the biggest night in Hollywood. At the end of the night, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway went onstage to present the award for best picture, and read the card with the results, one that stated “La La Land”. However, Beatty was handed the wrong envelope, and during the celebration of their win, the cast and crew were interrupted to announce that, “La La Land” was not, in fact, the winner, but the film “Moonlight” was. Mass confusion ensued, and PricewaterhouseCoopers the accounting firm that has overseen the Oscar ballots for 83 years issued an apology and launched an investigation into how the mistake was made.

United Airlines

2017 was rough for United Airlines, with multiple damaging PR situations including a violently removed passenger, overbooked flights and passenger dress code uproar. The United PR team and CEO Oscar Munoz have had lukewarm responses to all of the incidents. The non-apologies and disappointing initial responses caused United’s stock price to fall by half a billion dollars. Social media users spoke out about the airline’s policies and responses, and there didn’t seem to be a strategy to fix it, making this an even bigger PR disaster.

Dove

Dove has worked hard to align itself as a brand that is for everyone, especially with their “Real Beauty” campaign that has spanned a decade. But this year missed the mark in some pretty major ways, with the series called “Real Beauty Bottles” and an ad on Facebook that was immediately criticised as being racist. The bottles were an awkward misstep that meant to show inclusion and Twitter users ripped the campaign to shreds.  The ad for Dove’s body wash showing models removing a skin toned shirt to reveal another model was more recent, but since its release, the backlash surrounding it has caused Dove to issue an apology and pull the ad. You can read what one of the featured models thinks about the controversy here.

Fyre Festival

Who can forget the Fyre Festival? In April, the fallout from a failed blowout music festival in the Bahamas was astronomical. From lack of promised amenities to the infamous cheese sandwich, the festival that promised everything delivered nothing. Those who purchased tickets (with prices ranging from several thousand dollars up to $250,000 for deluxe packages) were either blocked from flying in or ended up stranded on the island. The organizers of the event have remained quiet, save for citing “unforeseen and extenuating circumstances” for the postponement of the event and promising free entry for next year to all of those who purchased tickets. There are currently multiple lawsuits filed against the event organizers which include accusations of negligence, fraud, failure to provide funds and breach of contract. Spin’s timeline of events outlines every misstep and incident from the very beginning.

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Content Marketing Tools to Boost Your Strategy

Content marketing is becoming more important to everyone’s marketing strategies than ever before, but it can be hard to keep up with for many, with both time and creative needs to manage, especially for those without dedicated content teams. Use these tools to create, curate, manage and schedule all of your content for maximum effectiveness.

Feedly

Streamline your searching and content curation by using this tool to find articles and posts that match your interests. Choose sites to follow, verticals to focus on and mark the things you’ve already read. Feedly also has the option to integrate with your workflow with IFTTT automation. See how IFTTT recipes work here.

Canva

Create everything from business cards to logos and resumes that are built to impress, even if you aren’t a professional designer. With Canva you can use one of the many provided templates, or you can create your own design from scratch.

Airtable

Create a content database that will link similar content, share with your team, filter and sort your content in multiple arrangements and at the same time make a more visually streamlined content calendar and pipeline for ease of access. Airtable also allows you to create IFTTT recipes and integrate this database with many of the apps you might already be using including MailChimp, Evernote, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.

Contently

Master your content strategy with the Contently platform. If you’re looking for a one-stop shop, then this is your best bet. From content generation and scaling to insights and strategy, Contently allows you to create a strategy that will have visible and transparent results, with built-in analytics and a holistic approach to digital content. See how it works here.

Buffer

Manage your social media quickly from one simple hub. Buffer allows you to create and schedule your social media content while measuring key metrics and performance analytics. By allowing all of your social content to flow from one dashboard, you have complete control of your posts and how they look and sound without having to move from platform to platform.

Visual.ly

If content development is not your thing and you need a team that can handle that for you, visually can help you achieve great content without needing an in-house team. Simply discuss what you need for your project with a Visually representative for a quote, talk about the goals you hope to achieve with the content and get matched with a team of creatives that will develop everything you need. Learn more about the Visually process here.

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Marketing Trends To Expect in 2018

As 2017 comes to a close it’s time to look to the future to predict what will be the biggest trends in marketing. With only a month left in the year, now is the time to reevaluate your current strategies and start working on new ones to match the technologically focused consumer. Here’s what you should be looking for this coming year.

Death of organic reach on Facebook

In the past, it was easy to see results when marketing on Facebook just by having a page out for people to find. Those days are in the past, as many marketers are reporting decreased organic traffic, leading to slowed growth and decreased conversions from social media to the website. This is due to changing algorithms that make it more difficult for non-sponsored posts to reach into the newsfeeds of consumers, but also because of the steadily increasing presence of businesses on social media.

What to do:
Start investing in a paid Facebook strategy. Over 50 million businesses use Facebook, and most are feeling the effects of the shift from organic to paid reach. Buffer’s Facebook advertising guide is a great resource for those new to the process.

Landing pages

The landing page is often overlooked, but it is one of the fastest and least expensive ways to increase conversions. A website is always a necessity, but a landing page is a focused way to ensure that your customer is seeing exactly what they want or need to see without distractions and multiple calls to action that distract from the main goal.

What to do:
Build focused landing pages for each campaign. Follow these steps for great form optimization. Build more pages for more conversions. This Hubspot article will tell you why this is so important for growth.

Integrated influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has become increasingly important to marketers, and because Instagram is becoming (for many) one of the top social media platforms, the use and understanding of influencer marketing in all verticals is becoming a valuable tool.

What to do:
Prepare for a boost of companies using influencers, especially on social media. Many companies will begin building long-term partnerships with influencers, allowing them to become brand ambassadors. However, be aware of the FTC’s strict rules and regulations about endorsement posts. The key measurements to track this year for influencer marketing are KPI and ROI.  Learn the basics of influencer marketing here, and learn how to find the right influencers here.

Personalized content

Personalized content has been having a moment lately, and the moment will continue into the new year. Hubspot reports that personalized content does 42% better than non-personalized content. It is important to understand your audience and to use the new shift towards emotional content to engage with your customers and to increase that “shareability” of your content. Storytelling with creative content will be a big theme this year.

What to do:
Begin with gathering information about your audience, even if it is as basic as their name and email address. Make the content you use to acquire this something relevant that will grab attention and encourage conversions. With the information you gather, you can begin to target your users, and provide them with content that matches their needs and lifestyle. Read more about personalized marketing here.

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Holiday Ads of 2017

The holidays are right around the corner and the commercials that are airing right now are becoming more festive, heartwarming and gift focused. So far, these are some of the best ads from around the world this holiday season.  

Waitrose: “#ChristmasTogether”

John Lewis “Moz the Monster”

Marks and Spencer “Paddington & The Christmas Visitor #LoveTheBear”

Cost Plus World Market “The Performance”

Heathrow Airport “#HeathrowBears”

Apple “Sway”

Audi USA “Parking Lot”

Amazon “Give”

Old Spice “Ye Olde Exploding Yule Log”

Spanish Lottery “#DANIELLE”

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