TWTWTW #27 🚂 Joe Biden's train ride on Twitch

Welcome

👾 Biden on Twitch and Iceland's maverick corporate affairs director

I've got lots of interesting stories for you this week. My favourite is the story of how Joe Biden livestreamed his train tour on Twitch because he's not a gamer, but he is an authentic Amtrak fan. I've also got a social media guide from NATO and how Iceland's maverick corporate affairs director survived jokes about wanting to have sex with young students, but finally came a cropper when he described the Welsh language as gibberish - not the best of ideas at any time and definitely not if you head up PR for a company headquartered in Wales!

News

🏉 Facebook battle with the Australian government has significant implications for PR

What are the implications for the global PR industry of the battle between Facebook and the Australian government? Former Edelman CEO, Enero NED and Stickybeak co-founder David Brain provides expert insight on how it's not as simple as old media vs. big tech.

🎧 Spotify is letting employees work from anywhere — while still paying premium salaries

The work from home juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down now employers and employees are discovering there are far more benefits than the negatives. The latest announcement is from music streaming supremo Spotify. Unlike Facebook and Twitter it isn't using it as an excuse to slash employee pay as Spotify is maintaining pay rates if people choose to relocate away from its office in expensive San Francisco. If employees don't want to, or are unable to, work from home it will pay for a co-working space.

Travis Robinson, Spotify's head of diversity, inclusion and belonging says it will improve work-life balance, employee happiness and inclusion. He added it will help the company to attract talent regardless of location. I see that as one of the biggest benefits for both employers and employees. Previously companies were restricted to recruiting to people who already lived close enough or were willing to make personal and family sacrifices to relocate. It was impossible for companies to recruit the best people so they made do with the capable or even the available.

The photo isn't anything to do with Spotify, but is of James Coley, a talented young musician I know.

👑 London Bridge is down

This weekend I've seen several people sharing this old Guardian article on London Bridge is down, the not so secret plan for the days after the Queen's death. It was Easter 2002 when the Queen Mother died, so we haven't had to cope with the death of a major Royal in the social media era. A lot of companies and organisations are now dusting off their plans.

Corporate affairs

🐉 Iceland fires its maverick corporate affairs director

Iceland is a UK supermarket specialising in frozen food that has made a name for itself in the last few years for taking a bold stance on a wide range of ESG (environment, society, governance) issues. This week it fired its long-standing PR adviser Keith Hann for saying the Welsh language was gibberish. That's not the wisest thing for any PR professional to say, let alone one who heads up a company with its headquarters in Wales!

As I explain in this Communicate article Hann has a history of off-colour comments such as in a BBC documentary where he joked about once wanting to be a Cambridge Don so he could "shag lots of young students" and of the difficulty of convincing "hard-core Guardian-reading media conscious people in London that Iceland sells anything other than total crap." In the article I explain why I suspect there is more to his sacking than just his latest offensive remarks.

You can watch the clip from the documentary on the BBC website and also read this blog post from Welsh-born Rob Skinner, director of reputation, risk and change management at PayPal.

🌈 Help the PRCA research into climate crisis misinformation and COP26

The PRCA has launched an initiative to fight the spread of misinformation, ahead of a bid to promote the importance of ethical communication at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). Please complete the Opinium survey to help shape the PRCA's response. Via Koray Gomez.

I'm already speaking to clients about how I can help them benefit from the COP26 taking place in Glasgow. Let me know if you'd like to talk about how you can get involved in COP26.

🤖 Digital transformation and leadership report from MIT

A new report by MIT Sloan Management Review examines how while digital transformation is happening in many companies and organisations there is one crucial element being overlooked - leaders.

This MIT report is free to download if you register, but it does remind me how inaccessible traditional academic papers can be as they are hidden behind expensive paywalls so only easily available to other academics. This has been discussed on Stephen Waddington's Lockdown Facebook group where Tony Byng shared an idea that I've used in the past.

Simply ask the author. If there is a paper I want to read I contact them and say "I don't think practitioners spend enough time learning from academics and the abstract of your paper on 'whatever' looks interesting, but unfortunately I don't have an academic subscription." You don't even need to ask them to share it.

CommTech tools

📅 Automate scheduling video meetings

I've experimented with various tools to help me schedule meetings, but they've all fallen short in some way. In Zoom.ai I've finally found one that just works. Ignore the rather confusing name as it is nothing to do with Zoom video conferencing. In fact one of its best features is how quickly and easily you can set it up to work with Teams, Google, RingCentral, Webex or indeed Zoom and other video conferencing platforms. The basic version is free but I'm using the professional version at $8 per month.

Zoom.ai's strength is its slick integrates with so many calendars, contacts, CRM, file sharing, chat systems and more. I still need to set up some extra features such as taking payments to run remote 1-2-1 advice sessions and custom landing pages to confirm meetings.

To see how it works why not book a virtual coffee break with me?

AI, digital and social

🚂 President Biden's data-driven social media strategy and Twitch train

Unlike Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) Joe Biden wasn't a natural fit for Twitch (a live-streaming platform for gamers), but he was an authentic Amtrak train fan. There's a community that watches live streams of trains so when Biden did a train tour his communications team put a camera on the back of his train and streamed it on Twitch with a soundtrack of lo-fi hop music. Authentic Joe Biden on Twitch.

This is one of the nuggets from a fascinating MarTech Today interview with Sarah Galvez, social media director of for President Biden's election campaign. She shares how the campaign used social and how it tracked social media metrics and KPIs and tied them to impact such as fundraising.

LinkedIn is the latest social network to jump on the creator bandwagon

You'll all of heard of creators and influencers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok so it should be no surprise that LinkedIn has become the latest social network to launch a creator management platform. This is one that is likely to be of interest to public relations and communications professionals in the corporate affairs and public affairs space. I'll be keeping an eye on what happens and advising clients what it means for them.

How to and tips

📻 Benefits of brevity in broadcast interviews

I've helped everyone from CEOs and senior politicians to community activists and scientists prepare for media interviews, so I'm always on the lookout for new tips and ideas or to affirm that what I'm advising is still true. This is a great article by broadcast journalist and presenter Adrian Chiles on the benefits of brevity. He cites the example of former FBI director James Comey who gave Adrian such succinct answers the recorded interview didn't need editing.

🕵 NATO guide to social media monitoring - yes you read that that right, it's NATO

You might not immediately think of NATO as a prime source for sound advice on social media. You'd be mistaken as its StratCom COE unit has an impressive track record of not only doing great work, but of sharing tips, insight and advice. This comprehensive guide includes a comprehensive list and description of different types of social media and platforms, as well as how to monitor effectively and potential monitoring tools. As you'd expect from a defence alliance it tackles the thorny challenge of monitoring disinformation.

Stuart Bruce Associates

Don't lose your training budget

If you are approaching the end of your financial year then don't risk losing your training budget. I've already had clients contact me to spend their budget before the year-end so they can arrange training for later in the year. If you've got budget left then please don't delay in speaking to me or Karen to buy training credits you can redeem later.

The photo shows a face-to-face crisis communications workshop I ran in Kyiv, Ukraine before the lockdown. At the moment I'm still delivering lots of effective workshops remotely which means some strange times because of time zones, but cuts down on my travel as I'm still running them all over the world.