The Full Monty — November 14, 2016

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What polling data missed and social media analytics picked up; Facebook grapples with its role regarding fake news; video advertising stats and moves; Twitter is worth saving; being caught dead on Facebook; why major banks aren't supporting Uber's IPO; the role of AI in HR; VR grapples with trolls; another week, another two data breaches; the Podcasting 2016 study; how to make your marketing organization more agile; five blogging trends to watch; the helpful role of anger and more in this week's edition of The Full Monty. Get trivia and the poem of the week exclusively on The Full Monty podcast.

Virtually everything you need in business intelligence. If you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links — and those that didn't make the cut for publication — by subscribing to The Full Monty Magazine at smonty.co/fullmontymag.

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

• I'll be speaking at the Richmond AMA chapter on November 16.
• And at a company event in Miami on November 29.
• Attending the CMO Data Summit December 5-7.
• Social Media Marketing World 2017 in San Diego, March 22-24, 2017

Industry

• The election of Donald Trump as the 45 president of the United States shocked many. It became a digital version of 'Dewey Defeats Truman.' How did the media miss it? "The misfire on Tuesday night was about a lot more than a failure in polling. It was a failure to capture the boiling anger of a large portion of the American electorate that feels left behind by a selective recovery, betrayed by trade deals that they see as threats to their jobs and disrespected by establishment Washington, Wall Street and the mainstream media."
  • Forget polls. An Indian company used an AI algorithm that mined social media data to predict a Trump win.
  • Could it be that Trump won because of Facebook? Facebook's massive reach, abundance of emotionally charged fake viral stories, and lack of traditional gatekeepers helped Donald Trump win.
  • Mark Zuckerberg said that it was "pretty crazy" to think that fake news on Facebook "influenced the election in any way."
  • But then Facebook began to question its influence and Zuckerberg made it clear that Facebook is dedicated to eliminating fake news, saying "We have already launched work enabling our community to flag hoaxes and fake news, and there is more we can do here." 
• After all of that effort, it turns out that social media can lead some users to rethink political positions. 20% of social media users say they’ve modified their stance on a social or political issue because of material they saw on social media, and 17% say social media has helped to change their views about a specific political candidate. Just don't bother with the Trump-supporting trolls on Twitter.
• AT&T, even before its proposed purchase of Time Warner, may be in violation of net neutrality rules with its DirecTV division. The FCC says that AT&T's "zero rating" of DirecTV streaming content without counting against mobile data caps may not be acceptable while AT&T is simultaneously charging other companies for the same privilege.
• It's difficult for journalists and brands to forge their way into the cozy environments of Snapchat, WhatsApp and others. The appeal of these messaging apps, for many, is that they allow people to have private group chats with a trusted network or family and friends. These private chats aren’t searchable, and new members have to be invited in. Enter the digital fixer. And see the Facebook Messenger item below.
• Adobe is buying video ad company TubeMogul for $540 million. The deal will give Adobe a larger footprint in video programmatic advertising on multiple screens and allow it to combine it with its marketing, content, and analytics services. Advertisers will have access to a demand-side platform to plan, buy, and measure video ads using an automated system.
• Meanwhile, Videology has a report on TV and digital advertising insights. Two big shifts in linear TV advertising: 1) marketers want to use more data to further segment their audiences beyond age/gender and 2) suppliers want to increase yield by packaging data with inventory.
• Here are seven trends in social media for 2017, which are mostly about the evolution of existing trends, including a demand for more vicarious experiences (hello, 360 video and VR!), imagination and inspiration will be rewarded, and the diversification of existing platforms.

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Platforms

TWITTER / PERISCOPE / VINE

• Twitter has been through a lot lately. But Ben Thompson makes the case for Why Twitter Must Be Saved. “It is Twitter that has reaffirmed itself as the most powerful antidote to Facebook’s algorithm: misinformation certainly spreads via a tweet, but truth follows unusually quickly; thanks to the power of retweets and quoted tweets, both are far more inescapable than they are on Facebook.” 
• With the significant layoff that are affecting Twitter — particularly in the sales organization — it should be no surprise that Twitter COO Adam Bain is leaving. Bain was a long-term employee at Twitter, weathering the revolving door of leadership there, and helping to build a strong ad platform for the company.
• Some welcome changes to Persiscope: users can broadcast to specific groups, ranks their most-dedicated watchers, and lets viewers login on Periscope.tv to make comments and search.

FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / WHATSAPP

• A glitch on Facebook caused many users' profiles — including Mark Zuckerberg — to show them as deceased. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "The likes of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
• Facebook will no longer allow marketers buying housing, employment and credit-related ads to target ethnic groups. Check out our commentary on this practice in Episode 16 of The Full Monty.
• LinkedIn is now square in Facebook's sights as Facebook launches a new Jobs feature on Pages for admins to create job postings and receive applications from candidates. Between this and Facebook at Work, we're seeing Facebook turn into a more professional, multifaceted tool in the office.
• All developers will have access to Sponsored Messages in the newest version of Messenger. And so the invasion begins. Maybe the digital fixer won't be required in Messenger.
• Facebook is buying the social analytics company CrowdTangle, used by BuzzFeed, CNN, ESPN, others to track how content spreads online, for an undisclosed sum. With it, they'll attempt to determine how news goes viral. Real news.
• Instagram is working on live video. Because, who isn't?
• Instagram Stories is expanding its functionalities to allow users to add URLs, tag friends and create Boomerangs (one-second video loops) without using the Boomerang app.
• Bringing the Facebook ad model to Instagram has helped Instagram's ad revenue trajectory immensely.

SNAP

• Stay tuned. You'll be able to get Snap's new Snapchat glasses in a vending machine.

Collaborative/ Autonomous Economy

TRANSPORTATION

• MIT and Uber are teaming up to address the future of urban ride-sharing. The Institute’s Senseable City Lab and the San Francisco-based company recently announced a research collaboration in which they'll explore how ride-sharing networks could impact urban transportation further down the road.
• Two of the world's largest banks won't participate in Uber's IPO — because Uber isn't willing to disclose any financial details about its business. That would seem to be a deal-breaker for banks.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / BOTS / BLOCKCHAIN

• The Digitalist has four ways that AI will make human resources better in 2017, including fixing unconscious bias and dealing with data.
• Messaging app Line is abandoning the U.S. and is focusing on AI to help it succeed in four key Asian markets.
• Facebook's chief technology officer is betting big on AI, VR and better Internet access. Diversification will help shield Facebook from exposure in any single technology or revenue stream.
• Adobe's new audio software can mimic human speech. Project VoCo can produce the sound of someone saying something they didn't actually say, kind of a like a Photoshop for audio. That can't be good.

Virtual Reality / Audio

VR/AR

• Take a virtual reality walk on the moon, thanks to the imagery provided by NASA. A creative use of archival material with VR.
• Another platform, another outlet for trolls. Virtual reality isn't ready to handle abusive trolls. When we can't handle them in Twitter, what makes us think we can handle them as we're wandering around with goofy goggles strapped to our heads?
• This ends in the only way it could: a man and a woman were playing with VR in a parking lot (that's right — with the goggles obscuring their view of the real world) when they got hit by a car. No word on whether the driver was also wearing them.

AUDIO

• Here are seven new podcast facts and statistics for 2016, including how many Americans know about podcasting, how often they listen, and the effect on website traffic. All of these figures are from the 2016 Podcast Advertising Study (download the PDF) from the IAB and Edison Research.  
• Program of the Week. This week, our recommendation LifeAfter. From GE Podcast Theater and Panoply comes this 10 episode series that follows Ross, a low level employee at the FBI, who spends his days conversing online with his wife Charlie — who died eight months ago. Which begs the question, if you live online, where do you spend eternity? Tune in every Sunday beginning November 13 to find out.” Do you have a program to recommend? Add yours to our Google Sheet: smonty.co/yourpodcasts
• And don't forget to subscribe to ours via email or oniTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spreaker or  SoundCloud.

Content / Customer Experience / Influencer Marketing

• What do B2B customers want in the digital age? Pretty much the same thing as everyone else: customer focus and a service orientation.
• So it should be no surprise why buyers are increasingly avoiding salespeople during the buying process. Sales reps tend to prioritize a sales agenda over solving a customer’s problem. 
• New research reveals five blogging trends to watch and what the current status of each is: time and effort that goes into blogging; length and format of blog posts; frequency; content promotion; measurement.
• Email is still a powerful method of communication, and here are eight promising business models for email newsletters.
• What's the difference between a brand loyalist and a repeat purchaser? According to the Facebook IQ study, it's largely a difference of emotion vs. function.

Privacy / Security / Legal

• This week in security breaches:
  • The data of tens of thousands of Tesco customer accounts was accessed and the company has reiumbursed some 9,000 customers so far.
  • A massive data breach targeting adult dating and entertainment company Friend Finder Network has exposed more than 412 million accounts, including deleted accounts. LeakedSource determined it could crack 99% of all of the network's passwords.
• Just when you thought you heard it all: people are buying USB condoms to protect their devices from catching nasty viruses. Wrap that rascal.

Measurement / Metrics / Data

• McKinsey has a step-by-step guide of making your marketing organization more agile. Agile, in the marketing context, means using data and analytics to continuously source promising opportunities or solutions to problems in real time, deploying tests quickly, evaluating the results, and rapidly iterating. The money quote: "Simply put: if you’re not agile all the way, then you’re not agile."
• Social media analysis predicted a Trump win, according to data collected by BrandsEye.. Looking at the right data is key, and the company based its predictions on "accurately listening to over 27 million social media conversations by almost 3 million authors".

Essential Watching / Listening / Reading

• Emotions ran high in the days following the edition, so here are a few articles that help with understanding and healing:
  • Revenge of the Forgotten Class looks at white workers in small Rust Belt towns, many of whom voted for Democrats in previous elections, but decided to vote for Trump in 2016. And another article looks at additional reasons behind the results.
  • With many people unfriending people because of whom they voted for, one writer needed to address the elephant in the room: To My Friends and Family Who Voted for Trump.
  • And one of the more surprising headlines: I'm a Muslim Woman and an Immigrant. And I Voted for Trump.
• There's been quite a bit of anger during and after the election. A Zen master helps us understand the four types of anger and its paradoxical constructive side.
• Ending on a completely different note, the AOL "You've got mail!" guy is now driving for Uber.

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I speak to groups and advise brands and agencies to help them embrace the fundamentals of human communication in the digital age. You can join these other top-notch clients by reaching out if you'd like to put my experience to work.

Photo credit: Shock by Raquel Baranow (Flickr)

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