Nothing can be more central to who we are as people than the choices we make. And we in the marketing and communications industry make our living affecting those choices. Now, we have access to increasingly powerful persuasive technology – new ways to find, analyse, and persuade people. It is time for a code of […]
Read more "It’s time for a code of ethics for AI in marketing and communications"We’ve been discussing this a lot in the team here at Edelman London. I think this decision will be harder to implement than it sounds. It’s like my colleague Penny Lipsham said: “You can take the political ads out of Twitter, but you can’t take the politics out of Twitter.” You can ban political ads […]
Read more "Twitter bans political ads. Is it the right move?"Influencer marketing and engagement work continues to grow and become more complex. We need a robust framework for assessing (and ideally quantifying) a person’s level of influence. We can do this by breaking influence down into four dimensions: Relevance, Authority, Reach and Accessibility (the RARA system). Together, these dimensions allow a quantifiable, data-driven and robust […]
Read more "A Four-Dimensional System for Quantifying Social Influence"Image: Wikipedia Over the past few months, Facebook has made three changes to the way influencer marketing works. Together, these changes give Facebook Inc. a very strong position in influencer marketing, and a good shot at eating a big slice of the global influencer marketing money pie. So what have they done? First, they’ve made […]
Read more "Knockout: Facebook positions to take a piece of global Influencer marketing budgets"Influencers with millions of followers can command a lot of attention, and with that attention they can bring in a lot of media dollars. So when an article appears like the New York Times’ exposé article on the fake follower economy, it’s bound to shake things up. So is influencer marketing doomed? What’s really going on […]
Read more "Real followers, fake followers, and real influence: fallout from the Devumi exposé"Mark Zuckerberg made big news last week when he announced that Facebook is changing the way its algorithm works. Zuckerberg positioned this as a move aimed at maximizing user well-being. There may be research to back that up. But it’s also a canny move that will give Facebook a way to capture an ever-bigger slice of the […]
Read more "Checkmate – Facebook’s influencer marketing gambit"For a long time I’ve been wondering when Facebook would reach out and claim a slice of the huge and juicy influencer marketing money pie. With influencer marketing budgets growing at an astonishing rate year-on-year, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before the biggest social media platform in the world tried to take a cut. […]
Read more "Influencer Marketing: Facebook is Staking its Claim"The evidence shows that influencer marketing campaigns can increase discussion around a specific product. But the social web is a complex place, and in complex systems effects propagate in complex ways. Some fascinating research from Inyoung Chae, Andrew Stephen et al. shows that a brand executing product-focused influencer marketing campaigns might expect some side-effects – […]
Read more "Pushing Product, Hurting the Brand? Influencer Marketing’s Surprising Side-Effects"This is the text of a letter I sent this morning to my Member of Parliament in London: UPDATE: Victoria Borwick, my MP, answered my letter within a week. I’ll append her response after my text. Victoria Borwick MP House of Commons London SW1A 0AA Dear Ms Borwick, I am one of your constituents, […]
Read more "Letter to my MP: Stand Up for Democracy and the Rule of Law"This year we’ve seen a huge decline in trust across the globe. Trust in government, in business, in NGOs and in the media has dropped to some of the lowest levels seen in 17 years, as reported in the Edelman Trust Barometer survey of 33,000 respondents across the globe. What lessons can communicators draw from […]
Read more "Individual influence and the collapse of trust"