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The lesson from the influencer marketing scandals of the past year is that using people who are influencers merely because of their follower count is a losing proposition. But that doesn’t mean influencer marketing is not valuable. The key is to seek out relationships with influencers who have truly earned their influence. You should be looking for people who have real respect, trust and authority in your industry, or in an area that at least relates to your industry. The pitch here is a genuine exchange of value, where you bring something to the table for the influencer (other than just a hefty check), and they contribute their sincere endorsement and amplification to their audience.

when a user gives Facebook a phone number for two-factor authentication or in order to receive alerts about new log-ins to a user’s account, that phone number became targetable by an advertiser within a couple of weeks

I’ve been trying to get Facebook to disclose shadow contact information to users for almost a year now. But it has even refused to disclose these shadow details to users in Europe, where privacy law is stronger and explicitly requires companies to tell users what data it has on them.

To test the shadow information finding, the researchers tried a real-world test. They uploaded a list of hundreds of landline numbers from Northeastern University. These are numbers that people who work for Northeastern are unlikely to have added to their accounts, though it’s very likely that the numbers would be in the address books of people who know them and who might have uploaded them to Facebook in order to “find friends.” The researchers found that many of these numbers could be targeted with ads, and when they ran an ad campaign, the ad turned up in the Facebook news feed of Mislove, whose landline had been included in the file; I confirmed this with my own test targeting his landline number.

“I think that many users don’t fully understand how ad targeting works today: that advertisers can literally specify exactly which users should see their ads by uploading the users’ email addresses, phone numbers, names+dates of birth, etc,” said Mislove. “In describing this work to colleagues, many computer scientists were surprised by this, and were even more surprised to learn that not only Facebook, but also Google, Pinterest, and Twitter all offer related services. Thus, we think there is a significant need to educate users about how exactly targeted advertising on such platforms works today.”

There are certainly creepier practices happening in the advertising industry, but it’s troubling this is happening at Facebook because of its representations about letting you control your ad experience. It’s disturbing that Facebook is reducing the privacy of people who want their accounts to be more secure by using the information they provide for that purpose to data-mine them for ads.

When I asked the company last year about whether it used shadow contact information for ads, it gave me inaccurate information, and it hadn’t made the practice clear in its extensive messaging to users about ads

on the TV front – we work with connected TV ecosystem companies like Shazam, Cisco, and others that are building Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) into HD and 4K displays. In the increasing model of TV/mobile co-viewing/browsing, a sponsor could deliver a message that is first seen on the TV but is also sync’d to become a Call-To-Action (CTA) on the mobile device of the viewer.  And as the ad will know the location of the user, they could tailor the message to direct the customer to the nearest retail location of the brand advertiser.”

In 2011 we worked with Fox TV and our member company Loopt on the show 'Bob’s Burgers.' They approached us with an LBM idea –they wanted to build a fanbase as the show was just starting.  So, we partnered with the California-based chain Fatburger in 64 locations to rebrand them as Bob’s Burgers.  On one of the episodes, one of the animated characters checked-in on their mobile device.  We’re also worked with Bravo on shows like Real Housewives and Top Chef – to drive viewers to real-world retail locations that the characters on the show frequent.”

Let’s take a big retailer like The GAP – they spend $$$ on great TV ads with great music.   Instead of The GAP saying 'Check in on Foursquare today at the GAP and save 20% on a pair of jeans'  – essentially giving their margin away, wouldn’t it be better if I could say 'Hey, you know that great commercial you saw that got you into the store? Let me give you a free copy of that song as a download right now.'  So we’re seeing a shift from just discounts and coupons and moving toward an exchange of valuable content.  The producers and broadcasters of that content have a huge opportunity to participate in that.”

Regarding the potential for backlash against location-based marketing, Khan is optimistic:  “The way we look at it is, if you can demonstrate real value and relevance to an individual user, they will be willing to share their location data. It’s almost a mathematical equation.  You have to articulate opportunities around the value exchange.   Four years ago, the stats for Foursquare showed that more than 82% of the location data (check-ins) were driven by men.

Boeing has found itself playing defense to a storyline that suggests the company was more interested in profits than people in the rush to produce an aircraft that accounts for about a third of its revenue.

According to crisis communications scholar Timothy Coombs, corporate openness is defined by a company’s availability to the media, willingness to disclose information and honesty. Boeing failed in all three regards. And the few statements it has issued are chock-full of platitudes – such as “safety is a core value” – and lack meaningful information

. The best way to demonstrate its commitment to safety is not with platitudes but concrete actions that reveal openness and accountability. Research has shown that transparency and honesty are key to effective communication in a crisis.

I think that it’s human, it’s personal, it’s relevant, it isn’t greedy, and it doesn’t trick people. If the recipient knew what the sender knows, would she still be happy? If the answer to that question is yes, then it’s likely it’s going to build trust.

See, you are absolutely right here. When I think about how much money someone like Gillette spends, the question is: Why doesn’t Gillette just build the most important online magazine for men, one that’s more important and more read than GQ or Esquire? Because in a zero-marginal-cost world, it’s cheaper than ever for them to do that.

I think part of the challenge is that we have to redefine what business we’re in. I think that most big companies come from the business of either knowing how to use TV advertising to build a mass-market product, or knowing how to build factories to build average stuff for average people. I think we have to shift to a different way of thinking.

My new book, What to Do When It’s Your Turn, is all about the fact that what we get paid to do for a living is to expose ourselves to fear. That’s our job. If the people we work for aren’t up to that, then maybe we should go work somewhere else.

There’s sort of a parallel there with the debate over the ethics and merits of native advertising. How do you feel about sponsored content? There are two kinds of native content: There’s content I want to read and content I don’t. If you’re putting content I don’t [want to read] in front of me, it doesn’t really matter how much you got paid for it—I’m probably not happy.

Snapchat's focus on "sound-on" video ads has been appealing to its entertainment clients.

The behavior on the app is very different as you want to focus more on shorter content, whereas on Instagram, people tend to watch longer videos."

Snapchat says its vertical video ads are "as good as television" — and in some ways better — because users can choose to skip ads, swipe up to interact with them, and advertisers can use more granular targeting than TV. But with AdAge reporting in November that the average Snapchat video ad lasts less than three seconds and Snapchat counting a video "view" as soon as the video opens, it remains to be seen whether its ads are more effective than those on TV

News Feed has turned into a black hole and collapsed under its own weight."

Facebook can come up with algorithms to surface the best material, but Evans says it's just "a hack." The deeper problem is that the "underlying product is broken."

Facebook fails to deliver those messages 84 percent of the time.

It goes back to what Facebook wants to be. They’re going after the easy buck with display ads targeted with the same criteria as ads anywhere else. If all they want to be is Yahoo or MSN, they’ve made great strides.

Don’t be blinded by revenues. Marketers are exceptionally dissatisfied.

What they fail to understand is marketer satisfaction is a leading indicator for spending, not the other way around. If Facebook doesn’t address those problems, more marketers will act on that dissatisfaction.

If you only reach out to people when you need them, what’s the benefit for them? I’ve long believed that the journalist/PR relationship needs to be a two-way street.

I’ve often been in situations where a journalist needs something that I either don’t have or can’t provide. For the sake of the relationship, when that happens, I will go out of my way to help them out, even if it means me pointing them in the direction of the competition.

#8 – Your own news isn’t what always gets results

Finding and creating opportunities between the launches and the announcements. If you succeed there, you’re doing something right. A good example of this is when you’re able to interject your story into the current news cycle. This works particularly well when you’re positioned as an expert.

Let’s be honest – a lot of media coverage is ego-driven. There’s no shame in wanting exposure for reasons beyond brand awareness and the bottom line, just make sure you balance it with messaging that transcends ego.

Behind every effective PR strategy there are many, many questions, but the most important question asked is “Why are we doing this?”. If the answer doesn’t address a specific business need, then it is worth reconsiderin

user-generated content is also the most influential content consumers reference when making purchasing decisions. Most consumers say that they’ve made purchasing decisions based on user-generated visuals - 57% have made plans to dine at a particular restaurant, 54% have purchased a consumer packaged good and 52% have made plans to travel to a specific destination based on a consumer-created image or video.

While it is a relatively small player in the digital ad industry so far, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +1.92% is among the companies emerging as a potential rival to the duopoly. The retail giant is projected to bring in $2.89 billion in U.S. digital advertising this year, a 64% increase over 2017.

Snap Inc., though still a small competitor, is forecast to grow its U.S. digital ad revenue by 82% to more than $1 billion in 2018 while increasing its share to 1%, according to eMarketer.

Twitter faces more obstacles. The social-media company’s digital ad revenue in the U.S. is expected to decrease 4.9% to $1.12 billion in 2018.

On Stories, Zuckerberg says Facebook is doing even better. Over 1 billion people use its Stories features across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp each day, compared to 186 million daily users on Stories inventor Snapchat as a whole. Stories are where the majority of Facebook sharing growth is happening, and Facebook Stories are gaining momentum after a slow and buggy start.

Google+ is a data mine. The unified login means Google can start tracking users' interests and behavior around the Web.

What Google Authorship also does is help rank that author in search for original content all over the Interwebz. Can you say guest posting anyone? How about blogging communities? (Just so you know, The SMB Collective is accepting new bloggers; it’s a blogging community I established in 2010 that is ebbing out of dormancy.)