Influencer Marketing is difficult and often misunderstood. Let’s start at the begging to understand what it is and how can it help with a marketing strategy.
We all recognize that we live in a world where people consume and share information in a very different way than they did just 10 years ago. There is no need to convince anyone of the impact the internet, social media, and mobile devices have had in business and in life. And still, in most companies, the PR function has not evolved in almost a century.
Only a few years ago, information sources were centralized. People got their news from a handful of newspapers, magazines, and TV stations. Reporters writing for these news outlets were the main source of information. They were, in a sense, a bottleneck or a monopoly in buyer opinion and education. Inside a company, the public relations function was the practice of informing and influencing these reporters with the intention of getting favorable news coverage.
Today, this is an obsolete paradigm as newspapers are moving from print to digital or going out of business. An article printed in this morning’s newspaper is not news anymore, it is history. We learn about the news in real-time via Twitter, Facebook or online news feeds. Millions of amateur and professional writers have become publishers thanks to blogging platforms and other social media channels. Anyone can write news. The problem in the world today is that we have too many news sources, too much to read and too many point of views. Continue reading “PR in the Digital Age: Welcome to Influencer Marketing”
