I've been talking to a lot of people about influence recently. In may ways, influencer marketing today reminds me of social media marketing 10 years ago. There's certainly a number of companies breaking new ground and doing interesting work - but many are still exploring the landscape and making tentative first steps.
Read MoreDuring a recent job interview, a senior PR person asked me an interesting question: "What have you learned about our industry from your job search?"
This got me thinking. In the past few months, I’ve had more than thirty interviews with senior PR folks and recruiters. While the agencies I’ve spoken to have ranged from the biggest companies in our industry to disruptive start-up firms, one recurring theme struck me: the challenge of selling genuinely integrated services to large clients.
Read MoreSpin. Smoke and mirrors. Propaganda. Fake news. My chosen industry, public relations, is dogged by derogatory terms. To most people, PR is used to twist the truth. The mainstream media usually only mention ‘PR’ alongside words such as ‘fiasco’ or ‘crisis’.
Read MoreI’d recommend creating some kind of long-form publishing platform (your own blog, publishing long-form on LinkedIn, or a company or public news site). This content ‘home’ will help you show depth beyond social updates, and will be a place for more specific discussions about your content.
Read MorePR is about storytelling and you want to show prospective employers that you can tell your story in a compelling fashion. That said, recognize that many recruiters and hiring managers will use software to assess your resumes. So don’t put it in a pizza box.
Read MoreI attended an AMA session last week on artificial intelligence and marketing run by Mike Moran (Google him, well worth it). The presentation opened my eyes to the gap between AI's promise and agency application.
There's so much being done by gut feel today and while PR will always be a mixture of art and science, with AI developments, the science is getting a lot more interesting.
Read MoreIt's great to see a global perspective on digital's impact on communications.
This piece from Forrester's Thomas Husson reinforces how brands are going to have to get much closer to their audiences than ever before in order to win their trust.
Read MoreCaught this question on Quora and thought I'd share my POV...
I’ve used several over the years, most recently Traackr and Appions. Both had strengths and weaknesses. I think they certainly save time in identifying influencers, but the key is that their methodologies can assess influencers against a wider pool using known behaviors.
We’re in the midst of the most significant shake-up our industry’s ever seen. The writing is on the wall – by 2022 we’ll be in the age of ‘post-digital’ marketing. This refers to a time when ‘digital’ marketing activities are no longer separated from other activities. Just as e-commerce became ‘commerce’, ‘digital’ will be part of the whole, perhaps a more flexible and quicker way of achieving marketing goals.
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