Public relations is not taken seriously as a function of business or as a profession. US companies spend $150 billion annually on advertising and only $5 billion on public relations, according to eMarketer and PRSA respectively. Advertising professionals make up to 75% more than their PR counterparts, as calculated from PayScale data. While virtually all MBA programs offer courses in advertising, the Associated Press reported only 20% offer a course in public relations. In popular culture ad execs are immortalized with powerful characters like Mad Men’s Don Draper who positions Kodak’s slide projector for success in part by singlehandedly christening it the “Carousel”, while PR execs are portrayed by characters like Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones who seem to do nothing but throw parties for a living.

Yet anyone who pays attention to how decisions are influenced knows that public relations is tremendously important.

via Why public relations gets no respect – Fortune Tech.

92% of US online adults say that they read and search for content online, but no single method dominates their content discovery, according to survey findings released November 2012 by nRelate. For example, 31% claim that search engines are not their primary method of finding that content, while 51% read and click on content that is pushed to them through email newsletters from brands they use. 48% report being more likely to click on related content after reading an article, meaning that context looms large in their decisions to read or click through.Data from the “Behavior Shift: Getting Content in Front of Consumers” reveals that US adults spend an average of 7.2 hours per week looking for content, with the younger age groups 18-44 skewing higher. They read between 3 and 4 articles per session and watch between 2 and 3 videos on average.But what makes them click? A 62% majority looks for traditional news links, as opposed to related images, videos or blog posts; in short, they are looking to read. That aside, 39% report being more likely to click on an article with a related image. Once they finish an article, they are more likely to click on a link to another article 34% than to a video 15%.

via Online Content Discovery And Sharing Take Many Forms.

American businesses are in denial about the need to embrace social media. New research finds that 72% of businesses that use social media do not have a clear set of goals or a clear strategy for their social media platforms.

This lack of direction is happening despite the fact that 60% of Americans use some sort of social media, according to the Pew Research Center. Businesses, however, are not convinced that social media is anything more than a fad or a temporary phenomenon.

via Social Media Denial Common for U.S. Businesses.

For users, copying and pasting to share content holds obvious appeal: It’s almost frictionless, and it allows the sharer to choose exactly what to pass on to a friend or social network.

“You probably have a lot of friends sharing the same article,” Tynt general manager Greg Levitt said. “But when you can specifically call out a personalized, relevant aspect, it makes the story your own.”

On the search side of the equation, copy-and-paste analytics give publishers information about what content is actually driving users away from their sites.

Tynt also reported that while the vast majority of copied-and-pasted content is text, 12% of copied content was images.

via Copy and Paste Drives Sharing – eMarketer.

86% of B2C marketers are using content marketing, and the vast majority of those (84%) are leveraging social media (other than blogs), finds a new report from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs. That puts social media on par with website articles as the most-used content marketing tactic by B2C marketers. Social gets the nod over articles for effectiveness, though: 57% rate their use of social media as “effective” or “very effective,” compared to 53% for website articles.

via B2C Content Marketers Put Social To Work, Report Good Results.

For years, LinkedIn has offered recommendations as a way to get support from fellow professionals and businesses. If you received recommendations from other individuals, you garnered credibility, and were more likely to show up in searches. But now, LinkedIn’s endorsements are much easier to get. It takes someone seconds to vouch for one or more of your particular skills, versus the 10 minutes to 15 minutes a recommendation might take. In today’s time-starved world, this is a critical difference. LinkedIn hasn’t released numbers yet, but if you look at several profiles, it’s clear that in just a few weeks, many users have generated way more endorsements than five years worth of recommendations.

via LinkedIn Endorsements Changes Everything. Here’s Why | Inc.com.

While 19% of Americans are eager to be among the first to try new technology products and services, the remaining 81% prefer to wait for those products and services to catch on, according to November 2012 findings from Ipsos. This puts Americans well below the global average of 25% who prefer to be early adopters. Predictably, younger Americans are the most avid early adopters.24% of those under aged 18-35 want to be first in line, but the 35-49 age group is not far behind, at 22%. Just 12% of the 50-64 segment consider themselves rapid adopters.

via 1 in 5 Americans Consider Themselves Early Tech Adopters.

A majority of online adults find advertising that appears as content so-called “native ads” to be misleading, according to survey results released in November 2012 by MediaBrix. They feel most deceived by sponsored video ads, with 86% reporting they find those ads misleading. 57% feel similarly about Facebook Sponsored Stories, and 45% about Twitter Promoted Tweets.Their ire is not for digital media alone. 66% feel misled by advertorials sponsored editorial, which appears both online and in print, and 61% by TV infomercials.

via Consumers Feel Duped By Sponsored Video Ads, Facebook Sponsored Stories.

The European press got itself in a bitter battle against Google. In a nutshell, legacy media want money from the search engine: first, for the snippets of news it grabs and feeds into its Google News service; second, on a broader basis, for all the referencing Google builds with news media material. In Germany, the Bundestag is working on a bill to force all news aggregators to pay their toll; in France, the executive is pushing for a negotiated solution before year-end. Italy is more or less following the same path. For a detailed and balanced background, see this Eric Pfanner story in the International Herald Tribune.In the controversy, an argument keeps rearing its head. According to the proponents of a “Google Tax”, media contents greatly improve the contextualization of advertising. Therefore, the search engine giant ought to pay for such value. Financially speaking, without media articles Google would not perform as well it does, hence the European media hunt for a piece of the pie.Last week, rooting for facts, I spoke with several people possessing deep knowledge of Google’s inner mechanics; they ranged from Search Engine Marketing specialists to a Stanford Computer Science professor who taught Larry Page and Sergey Brin back in the mid-90′s.

via The press, Google, its algorithm, their scale | Monday Note.

Facebook leads all site categories along with mobile

Facebook hasn’t always been the most popular service offering social sign-ins to other sites. But it claimed the first-place mantle over a year ago and has continued to strengthen its hold across more categories of sites, according to user management platform provider Janrain.

Media sites provide a particularly stark example. At the end of 2009, fewer than a third of social network users worldwide who used social sign-ins preferred Facebook. By Q3 2012, the percentage was up to 53%, compared with an essentially unchanged 21% share for Google and a dramatically lower 11% Yahoo! share.

via Facebook Solidifies Hold on Social Sign-Ins – eMarketer.