Patterns of Adaptation: How the communications industry is adapting to generative AI

Yesterday I joined the Unconference on AI at Berghs School of Communication, one of the world’s leading creative industry schools. It was a fascinating chance to hear from professors, students and practitioners trying to figure out how to incorporate AI tools in their work. The pressure is on; according to recent research, it seems likely the communications and marketing […]

The Secret Link Between Influence and Media Fragmentation

How to break through bubbles and make an impact in a fragmented media environment There’s a fundamental connection between our fragmented information environment and the way influence works online. They may seem like separate dynamics, but they are actually profoundly linked. In order to get our message across effectively, we must understand the role that […]

A Four-Dimensional System for Quantifying Social Influence

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 […]

Knockout: Facebook positions to take a piece of global Influencer marketing budgets

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 […]

Real followers, fake followers, and real influence: fallout from the Devumi exposé

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 […]

Checkmate – Facebook’s influencer marketing gambit

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 […]

Influencer Marketing: Facebook is Staking its Claim

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. […]

Pushing Product, Hurting the Brand? Influencer Marketing’s Surprising Side-Effects

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 – […]

Individual influence and the collapse of trust

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 […]

Why most influencer marketing fails

The wave has peaked, and we’re sliding down the frothy slope now: people have realized that most influencer marketing is bullshit. Thank God. It’s about time the industry saw some sense. A bit of context: this article appeared a couple of days ago in Digiday, featuring some revelations from an anonymous social media marketing exec. With nearly 37 […]

Philip Trippenbach

Communications strategy in the age of intelligent machines

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