Scrapbook

The report, by PR Newswire, is based on the analysis of over 100,000 press releases and surveying over 665 professionals in the US and Canada. As you can imagine, it makes a strong case for using Press Releases and is ultimately a lead gen piece. But there’s some interesting info to keep in mind:

• The main purpose is brand visibility
• Also used for building relationships with journalists and influencers
• Only 4% do it as part of an SEO strategy

The biggest challenge is not generating as much media pick up as one would expect, and not reaching the right people is the second concern.

60% of Press Releases are about  product or service news, followed by events (47%) and company news (42%).

The report covers AI too – 26% of those surveyed said that they used gen AI to craft press releases. About use to to write headlines.

The two more interesting stats relate to performance:

• Action verbs in headlines – The three more performing ones are ‘Announce’, ‘Launch’ and ‘Reports/Reported’
• The following days/times performed better – 10am to 4pm Monday to Thursday

The report covers much more. It’s free – you can download it here:

State of the Press Release Report

I think this is a very important initiative – a step towards a better model for social networking.

Good that Automattic is behind it, as reported by the Tavern.

Read about the launch here: Launch of Social Web Foundation.

Leaders of the open social networking movement have formed the Social Web Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to making connections between social platforms with the open standard protocol ActivityPub.

The “social web”, also called the “Fediverse”, is a network of independent social platforms connected with the open standard protocol ActivityPub. Users on any platform can follow their friends, family, influencers, or brands on any other participating network.

ActivityPub was standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 2018. It has attracted over 100 software implementations, tens of thousands of supporting web sites, and tens of millions of users.

Advocates of this increased platform choice say it will bring more individual control, more innovation, and a healthier social media experience. But there is work to do: journalism, activism, and the public square remain in a state of uncertain dissonance and privacy, safety and agency remain important concerns for anyone participating in a social network.

I’m starting a list here but will add it to a Resources section of the website when it exists 🙂
Feel free to recommend ones you listen to too.

This Old Marketing | Marketing

Woo Biz Chat | Business

The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway | Business

Masters of Scale | Business

Uncensored CMO | Marketing

Content Inc with Joe Pulizzi | Marketing

The B2B Playbook | Marketing

WP Product Talk | Business

Post Status Podcast | Business

Growth Colony | Marketing

The B2B Marketing Podcast | Marketing

The Marketing Book Podcast | Marketing

The Mi3 Podcast | Marketing

Remote work is great unless you’re working for a globally distributed organization that hasn’t quite embraced async.

Twist addresses this, or so they say:

Instead, Chrome users will be prompted to opt in or out.

Anthony Chavez, vice president of Google’s Privacy Sandbox, said:

“Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time”

Here’s his post: A new path for Privacy Sandbox on the web

It’s still not a done deal – they are discussing this new approach with regulators.

It’s also too early to speculate whether this means that it’s business as usual or whether businesses will still need to adapt to a new approaches and new solutions (that have been developed in preparation for a cookie-less world). We will have to wait and see how many people decide to turn cookies off.

In the meantime, businesses who are setting themselves out to capture first-party data should not change their plans. It’s still a solid strategy to adopt.

From the Content Marketing Institute:

“Marketers should stop using attribution models and return to a 1985-like measurement model if they want their brands to succeed in 2024 and beyond.”

That is, before the internet and the ad / distribution channels telling us that we can measure campaigns accurately.

Can a 1985 Marketing Playbook Fix Measurement Problems in 2024?

SparkToro and Datos (a Semrish company) have compared searches that end with a click with those that don’t, giving us insight into the former too:

Here are the key numbers (for American searches):

• 41.5% of searches feature a click (70.5% of which go to the open web, 1% to ads, and the rest to Google properties)
• 37.1% end up with.. no click
• 21.4% end up with another search

So, 58.5% are considered Zero-Click searches.

Source: 2024 Zero-Click Search Study: For every 1,000 EU Google Searches, only 374 clicks go to the Open Web. In the US, it’s 360, by SparkToro

“OpenOrigins is a solution to safeguard against manipulated and AI-generated content. We prove the authenticity of digital media to enable trust in content. ”

From: OpenOrigins

My fear is that authenticity is going to lose value. People are not going to care if something is true or not, as long as they can get a fix of whatever content, notification, Like, etc… comes next.

But it’s a battle worth fighting. Particularly if live off the content you produce.

Rand Fishkin of Sparktoro (ex Moz) has written a great piece explaining what these are and what we can learn from them.
Here are the main headings of the article:

• Navboost and the use of clicks, CTR, long vs. short clicks, and user data
• Use of Chrome browser clickstreams to power Google Search
• Whitelists in Travel, Covid, and Politics
• Employing Quality Rater Feedback
• Google Uses Click Data to Determine How to Weight Links in Rankings

If you’re short of time, skip to the Big Picture Takeaways for Marketers Who Care About Organic Search Traffic part.

Read the article: An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them

Interesting article from the Pew Research Center:

When Online Content Disappears

However, there’s no big conspiracy here:

In most cases, this is because an individual page was deleted or removed on an otherwise functional website.

The article covers links on government and news sites, as well as referencing a surivival analysis of Twitter / X posts:

• 1% of tweets are removed within one hour
• 3% within a day
• 10% within a week
• 15% within a month

Source.

It makes an interesting read, and there are 6 references to WordPress.

You have to submit your details to get the report. But worth it:

State of CMS 2024 report

A State of Digital Publishing event is coming up soon: 21 – 27 May, Online

The program features five days of 1-hour sessions: presentations, panels, and workshops. You can register for a single session or the entire event.

I’m unsure if it’s free or not. I can’t find any pricing. Either way, State of Digital Publishing events are always great. If you are a publisher they are a ‘must-attend’ event.

More info here: Monetization Week – Charting Publisher Success

Drop anything interesting AND relevant here.

For example,

• A link to a really cool advert you saw on YouTube
• The latest Google changes
• A new tool that you have come across

Please note: if you’re posting about your own company or efforts use the Member News section instead. Anything spammy is not allowed.

For your reference: the Community Rules.