One of the most fascinating things about the digital world is how new concepts are thrust into the spotlight, celebrated, scrutinized, and then slowly fade into the background – all within a relatively short period of time.
A great example is influence, which was all the rage not that long ago. Everywhere you turned, there were people talking about the growing role and power of influencers, brands were scrambling to figure out how to discover and engage them, and Klout was poised to become the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Remember, those days?
So, what happened to the influencer? Klout is still around but it’s attracting dramatically less coverage than it used to get, and the conversations about media/blogger coverage about influencers has been dialed way back.
Have influencers become less important or relevant within the digital landscape? The answer is probably “no” but like anything shiny and new in the high-tech and digital worlds, the fascination with influence was overblown and given far too much importance as the most interesting trend…ever.
Like anything that captures the spotlight, influence has blended into the background. It doesn’t mean influencers aren’t important or brands have given up trying to build relationships with them. Instead, it suggests influencers have become part of the digital mix along with other key factors such as community building, engagement, inbound marketing, content marketing and sales conversions.
The fact that influence and influencers have lost their lustre should not be seen as a negative development but an indication the hype has disappeared.
More: Check out this Forbes story on Tom Scott, who created a satirical version of Klout called Klouchebag that mocked Klout.
As we all know, social media is home to just about every brand and retailer imaginable. It dictates buying decisions and increasingly has become the place where consumers look for information, guidance and deals.
So, let’s see a show of hands for anyone who has seen an interesting article on Facebook, and instead of letting the app access your information, you simply searched Google, Bing or Yahoo! to find the article and read it more “naturally”.
This past weekend superhero movie fans finally got to see The Avengers. They have been waiting four years for this movie event, since it was first teased after the credits of the original Iron Man movie in 2008. Well, they got what they were waiting for and from what I can tell, they weren’t disappointed. The movie broke box office records as well by making $200.3 million domestically and $641.8 million in total world-wide just in its first three days. Not only did bring people out to the theater in droves, but it also got the entire internet up in a buzz.
For the past eight years, Facebook has been the master of its domain.
Social media is popular and offers great value and utility, but it is not without some absurdity.
Do you Stumble or, more specifically, do you use 
We’ve published some posts recently about the other side of social media, including 
