Influence: How Social Media Influencers Are Shaping Our Digital Future book extract: On ‘influencer legitimacy’

In this exclusive extract from Sara McCorquodale's book 'Influence: How social media influencers are shaping our digital future', McCorquodale explores her path to working with influencers and setting up her agency, CORQ, as well as the relationship between brands and influencers.

The questions that had started to form in my head were these: do we have any reason to believe people with large social audiences have the power to influence their audiences beyond their number of...

22 January 2021 | Content Marketing

Digital, content and social roles on the rise in 2021, says LinkedIn

eCommerce personnel, digital content professionals and creative freelancers are expected to be among the fastest growing jobs in the UK in 2021, according to new data from LinkedIn.

The figures appear in LinkedIn's 'Jobs on the Rise' report, which analysed sectors with the highest year on year growth rates in hiring between April and October 2020.

Covid-19 has naturally played a major role in determining which roles are most sought after. In terms of eCommerce, which was...

18 January 2021 | Commerce

Understanding the importance of authenticity in corporate social activism

Over the past few years we’ve witnessed a striking shift in how brands communicate their identity, values and humanity. While companies traditionally avoid taking a public stance on social and political discourse, it seems that more and more brands are choosing to break this mould.

While some chalk up this change to progress, there are countless critics of corporate social activism that argue that brands’ motivations are neither altruistic nor pure. And certainly, when brands...

18 January 2021 | Content Marketing

Marketing predictions for 2021: Will your business sink or swim?

2020 burned hot, with global upheaval from every angle, culminating in an ongoing health crisis that halted the world, challenged communities, and strained economies. The economic future looks perilous, with 2020 expecting to set records for the highest number of retail bankruptcies and individual store closures in a single year. Holiday spending, typically a reliable boost for retail businesses, is expected to be down some 22 to 25% and total U.S. retail sales may see a 10.5%...

15 January 2021 | Best Practice

Brands need to utilise user-generated content – but only with a safe, scalable process in place

Just how much user-generated content (UGC) is out there right now? As of May 2019, more than 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube every minute; more than a billion hours of all those videos get watched every day. Facebook has more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, the vast majority of whom post and share family pics, jokes and memes.

There’s probably no way to measure all the content going up every second of every day on Amazon reviews, question-answer databases,...

8 January 2021 | Commerce

MarketingTech 2020 review: Covid-19, CMO strategy, and compassion

How tough was 2020 for marketers amid a global pandemic? In many ways, it depended on your industry. But navigating Covid-19 was a struggle for all.

It was okay to not be okay at times, with the knowledge that 2021 will - all being well - improve, and the knowledge of the marketing best practices which emerged over 2020. As Scott Brinker put it to this publication in December: "This is stressful, but you're not alone. Everyone's in the same boat, so that makes it a little bit...

4 January 2021 | Best Practice

WTF do B2B tech marketers do when the world is WFH?

Technology has really come into its own this year, with broadband straining under the enormous pressure of back-to-back Zooms (“You’re on mute…”), a massive rise in online shopping, and the digitisation of so many parts of our lives. Lenin’s famous quote, “There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen” has never felt more pertinent than this year when we look at the scale of digital transformation across business and personal...

1 December 2020 | Advertising Technology

Sherwin-Williams, influencer marketing and UGC trends: Why consumers were left shaken but not stirred

The story of a Sherwin-Williams employee who was fired after the company saw his viral TikTok channel focused on paint mixing has led to plenty of reaction around the decision, as well as discussion around wider influencer marketing and user-generated content (UGC) strategies.

Tony Piloseno, who worked part-time at a Sherwin-Williams store in Ohio, had built a 1.2 million-strong TikTok audience for his channel which showcased paint mixing. As reported by BuzzFeed, Piloseno was...

24 November 2020 | Branding

As eCommerce becomes more vital, the right content strategy is required – whatever your industry

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced marketers' hands in a variety of areas. One of the most evident is around the near-exclusivity of eCommerce - or, anything which isn't bricks and mortar.

Writing for this publication in July, Joel Davis, co-founder and CEO of Mighty Social, noted the need for change in messaging. "Take into account that during the crisis many consumers closely re-evaluated their consumption habits, what they define as essential products, as well as how to live...

17 November 2020 | Best Practice

How user-generated content can be more powerful than influencer marketing campaigns

User-generated content (UGC) is quickly becoming the most popular marketing tool ahead of online influencer campaigns. The public have become accustomed to reality stars and has-been celebrities flogging whichever never-used-gadget that they’ve been paid to promote.

Since the rise of the Insta-marketeer, the Advertising Standards Authority has prescribed new rules for promoting products and services through social media platforms and online blogs, where a paid promotion must be...

11 November 2020 | Content Marketing