People with years of experience and carefully built reputations are losing share of voice to people with none of those credentials. During COVID we watched as misinformation travelled faster than the facts that experts were using to stop it. Rumour won over reality and no-one knew what to believe.
None of this means that trust has stopped mattering, but it does mean that trust and influence, which our industry as seen as interchangeable, are no longer as closely connected. Being trusted is not the same as being heard (and believed) and being credible is not the same as being compelling.
For most of the last century, a media brand’s reputation was enough to carry the credibility of what was written inside it. Now the product is engagement. Platforms make their money when we keep scrolling, not when we are better informed, and that means everything is done to keep us engaged. Attention is bought, sold, optimised and gamed. Content that provokes a reaction will reliably outperform content that is merely true.
Those that produce carefully compiled, verified information are competing in a marketplace that was not designed to reward them. At the same time, institutions that once held the public’s attention are watching it drain away, whilst sustained campaigns erode public confidence in their authority.
And the result of all these changes? Quite frankly nobody knows what to believe any more, there is less certainty about what people are reading, hearing and seeing. Add the sheer volume of content now being produced, and the rise of AI generated material, and it becomes harder to tell what is real, what is synthetic, and what is simply designed to keep us engaged. People are overwhelmed and that has made them more selective than ever.
That helps to somewhat explain why traditional methods of communication can seem to feel a little out of date. Jargon-heavy corporate material, overly polished spokepeople, complex storyhouses, all can read as distant and out of touch. What now cuts through is communications that is authentic, simple, real and engaging.
Politically we have seen a massive shift. Elected leaders are starting to bypass the political press entirely, going directly to podcasts and platforms where they can control a different type of narrative. Individuals can now control their messaging with posts and videos that shape the public conversation beyond anything that appears within traditional media. This means they can respond quickly to news events with their opinion, pulling topics out of context and into culture war territory where the question is no longer what you trust but whose side are you on.
So, if trust is no longer enough, what is actually driving influence? What do the people cutting through have that the people being ignored do not? And what does any of this mean really for anyone whose job is to move an audience?
The good news is that the answer isn’t complicated but it isn’t always easy. It is much easier to hide in corporate speak and cliches, it is far harder to be clear and simple. It does require a shift in how we work. Our job is to build on authority and experience but inject personality and curiosity. We have to be honest about whether the content we are producing is actually interesting enough to stand up against the whole of the internet, not just act as a chat amongst peers.
When the BBC is quietly telling its own correspondents to prioritise TikTok and Instagram over the Today programme that tells you how far the bar has moved and how far we all need to go just to keep up.
Download the full report below for global insights, analysis and commentary from Woodrow's leaders and network. https://woodrowcommunications.com/journal/woodrow-launches-the-influence-economy-report
This isn’t an endorsement of the individuals featured, their political views or their agendas. It’s a data-first analysis of where influence now lies and how organisations can build theirs as the landscape continues to shift.
