In day-to-day life, it’s easy to get swept up in the tide of digital trends or the pressure to ‘be everywhere’. However, the latest IAB Spain Social Media Study helps bring us back down to earth: the digital ecosystem in Spain has reached structural maturity. Users have become extremely selective, their expectations are higher than ever, and they no longer give their attention away to just any brand.

The keys to how to lead the conversation in this space such a fast-changing environment according to the study can be summarised as;

The user is digitally literate, but their attention span is limited

Although most of us are familiar with around nine different social media platforms, the reality is that in our day-to-day lives we only actively log in to and use about five of them each month. There is a growing gap between the public recognising an app and deciding to integrate it into their daily routine. Therefore, forcing a presence on every emerging channel for fear of being left out is a misjudgement; the key today is not inertial reach, but achieving relevance within the select group of platforms that truly capture the audience’s daily attention.

The shift away from more traditional networks

The percentage of users who say they have completely stopped using a social media platform has risen sharply in just one year, from 33% to 42%. The platforms leading this exodus are X, with 11%, and Facebook with 10%, as 40% cite lack of use, 23% a loss of interest, and 21% openly admit to being fed up with the saturation of political debates. Certain long-standing platforms are losing the ability to sustain constructive conversations. Facebook, for example, suffers from a huge disconnect: whilst maintaining a high frequency of visits, it lags behind in time spent on the platform (47 minutes a day), making it effective for quick, wide-reaching impact but not for retaining users’ attention.

The cornerstone of corporate positioning

In contrast to the volatility of entertainment channels, the professional sphere has established itself as an extremely robust platform. When analysing exclusively the corporate strategy and commercial use by organisations and businesses (an approach very different from that of the average user), LinkedIn stands firmly as the number one professional network and the top priority for the business community. With 44% usage, it ranks as the second most widely used platform globally by organisations, behind Instagram, which tops the business rankings. This corporate focus far exceeds the presence of brands in mass-market environments such as YouTube (27%) or TikTok (19%). With a clear positioning based exclusively on employment and work, this channel is the ideal platform for projecting an organisation’s identity, allowing the company’s thought leaders and the teams themselves to act as spokespersons to build credibility in the market and decision-making circles.

Less corporate monologue and more interactive activities

There is a very common internal contradiction in content planning, as 59% of the content published by organisations focuses on conveying the brand’s values and positioning. However, it is participatory campaigns, accounting for 41% of output, that truly engage the audience by generating twice as many interactions (26%) and web traffic (26%) compared to flat institutional content, which barely achieves 12% interaction and 15% traffic. The public rejects one-way communication. If the real objective is to build engagement and drive users to the organisation’s own web assets, content strategies must shift from merely disseminating messages to designing experiences where the community is part of the narrative.

The prescriber’s paradox: credibility under scrutiny

Almost half of internet users (46%) actively follow influencers, a practice that is overwhelmingly concentrated among women and young people. The problem is that the trust they generate hangs by a very fine thread, as despite this, 38% consider these creators to be credible, compared to 40% who perceive their comments as being purely promotional. The use of third parties to endorse a brand no longer operates under rigid or purely commercial frameworks; if advertising persuasion stifles authenticity, the user disengages, so collaborations must be based on a genuine alignment of values and creative freedom to safeguard trust.

The ethical imperative of AI: transparency or punishment

Advances in artificial intelligence in content creation pose a significant challenge in terms of perception, as most users admit that they find it difficult to distinguish between real and synthetic content, particularly older users. This is fuelling a climate of widespread mistrust that is intensifying severely in highly sensitive corporate or news-related areas such as current affairs, politics or health. In light of this, there is a unanimous and cross-cutting demand for the explicit labelling of all AI-generated content. Processing tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini are fantastic allies for optimising internal workflows, structuring ideas or analysing performance data, but when it comes to the public, honesty is non-negotiable, and attempting to release automated creative content or final messages without warning exposes organisations to an unnecessary erosion of their credibility and strains trust with their audience.

The real priority of the ecosystem

When professionals who manage the digital landscape are asked about their organisations’ priorities, the consensus is clear: the top objectives are improving search rankings (72%) and increasing brand awareness (65%), clearly outstripping immediate conversion goals such as direct sales, which stand at just 38%. Social media functions, above all, as a platform for reputation, trust and public perception. In a mature market, the success of a strategy does not lie in making more noise or dominating more screens, but in understanding the codes of each channel, respecting users’ demand for transparency, and accepting that the value of intelligent entertainment is the only real price the public is willing to pay to pay attention to us.

La entrada How to lead the conversation in a constantly changing ecosystem se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

comma’s communication trends report listens to and analyses social media posts and media hits on industry topics; Analysing society’s understanding of communication is essential to address the challenges facing the sector in a contextualised way;

Metrics

In this second four-month period of 2023, around 17.183 news items on communication in a total of 4,146 media outlets in Spain; The activity generated in the digital ecosystems (social networks, forums and blogs) is 30.532 posts, which had a reach of more than 129 million potential impressions;

Analysis of digital communities: a segmented study of narratives

This new edition focuses on thecommunity analysis. This way of structuring the conversation in terms of the relationships between the individuals who participate in it has allowed us to segment the different audiences and then delve deeper into the narrative trends that each one of them yields;

The report ends with a series of recommendations aimed at suggesting improvements in the positioning of opinion leaders as well as actions to reinforce the reputation of the sector.

Main findings

In addition to the fragmentation of content and the struggle for attention with superficial content discussed above, the report reveals an absence of verifiable data, reliable information or references to enrich the conversation as a result of a growing obsession with going ‘viral’; dramatically narrowing arguments to the anodyne;

With regard to the analysis of digital communities, the report reveals that those communities that have generated the most conversation in the period analysed are those of a political nature; On the other hand, it is the media and magazine communities that have the most relevant profiles in the conversation (47%);

In the analysis, the digital conversation is organised around two large blocks: one focused on political issues, which have a more generalist approach; and another block with more specialised profiles that mainly discuss current sectoral issues;

Within the type of conversations, there are recurrent and cross-cutting themes in the policy dialogue, such as:

• Increased distrust of the media due to its relationship with public and private advertising.
• Strategy versus authenticity; The actions and publications of certain public figures and political parties are seen as false authenticity, pure marketing strategy;

In the sectoral communities, the most relevant cross-cutting themes are:

• Responsibility and social change, with sustainability and equality as highlights. Consistency between what is done and what is said is considered paramount;
• Technology, AI and the future of the profession.

Recommendations for the sector;

From a communication perspective, the narrative trends present in the content sample highlight the importance of transparency, consistency and authenticity in organisational communication.

Corporate communication should avoid conveying this perception of manipulation and ensure that messages are consistent with the organisation’s actions.

In addition, building public trust requires reinforce transparent communication, which accurately represents the company’s values and objectives.

In an environment where political agendas and economic interests influence communication, companies must strive to maintain its independence and demonstrate a strong commitment to ethics and social and environmental responsibility.

La entrada Trends in communication: viral superficiality or expert but isolated content? se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

Why is media monitoring important?

The qualified monitoring of news by current affairs, sector, own brand, competition…, is a fundamental job for companies and especially key in the framework of different communication campaigns; Good data collection, analysis and monitoring will enable us to:

• Knowing the market and the environment in which we operate, which is essential to offer customers the best service, with a daily reference of the real situation in which events are taking place.
• Identify possible crises that may occur, since by monitoring the day-to-day, it enables us to detect possible threats, anticipating and giving us the possibility of defining an ad hoc strategy based on verifiable facts.
• Just as it can help us to detect threats, it can do so with opportunities. When the information is daily, focused on your coordinates of interest and agile, you will be able to detect the insights best suited to your strategies.
• And finally, it gives us the ability to get a better understanding of consumers, as well as the competition, through relevant news that involves them.

Therefore, for companies like AuditMedia, a Spanish media monitoring agency with more than 15 years of experience, investment in knowledge, R&D and production teams is essential to meet the increasingly complex and intense needs of brands.

It is essential for media intelligence companies to have own tools with which to correctly monitor, select, segment and analyse media, thus providing excellent 24/7 customer service. The information overloadin which we live increasingly demands an immediate, efficient, easy and excellent qualitative and quantitative assessment, and with a global approach that allows us to obtain the clearest picture of the reality we are experiencing.

The important thing is the team

New technological tools are enabling a faster and more efficient progress in media intelligence work; But the truth is that, in order to produce a quality news summary, it is necessary to have multidisciplinary and qualified teams – journalists, documentalists, analysts…, capable of working on management platforms such as Metaclipwhich brings together in one place the objectively selected and generated information, without noise or omissions from all and in all print, digital, social and audiovisual media; whose software is capable of managing, searching, segmenting, editing and obtaining reports, graphs, data and evaluations in a customised environment that is totally adapted to the needs of each client.

How media intelligence helps communication

For both communication and marketing departments, media intelligence will be an essential ally in their daily work;

In communication, media monitoring is a basic part of their responsibilities and is an indispensable part of their day-to-day work; It allows you to be aware of what is happening out there; of what is happening in society, in the economy, in politics; of what is happening in the sector in which you develop your activity or in those other sectors that, not being your own, can affect you; of what your main competitors say, do or talk about; of potential crisis situations… And, what is more important, of what is said about your own brand.

For marketing departments, this type of service will allow them to contrast the information they already have – such as traffic or leads – with the impact of a news story in the media; In addition, it will be able to measure the public perception and thefeedback on it with information. By tracking and analysing data, companies can assess which messages, channels and formats work best for their audience; This allows campaigns to be optimised in real time, adjusting budgets to get the best results;

The importance of measuring KPIs

Measuring KPIs is a fundamental aspect of evaluate the impact and results of the strategies in place. Without proper measurement, it is difficult to determine whether these strategies are generating positive results; KPIs provide data on reach, engagement, conversion and other key aspects that help evaluate the performance of media actions;

If results show that certain strategies or channels are not generating the desired results, adjustments can be made in real time to optimise performance; This allows for greater agility and adaptation as audience trends and preferences evolve;

This is why media intelligence plays a fundamental role in the measurement of KPIs, thanks to this tracking they can be measured and analysed to make informed decisions and thus obtain a complete and up-to-date view of the company’s performance in the different channels.

*Article by Francisco Javier Muñoz Fernández, business development director of Grupo Auditmedia

La entrada Media intelligence: the service that makes it possible to be well informed; se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

Three keys:

• We found a gap between the more generalist conversations and profiles and the sectoral ones;
• The communication sector does not generate its own agenda or provoke its own conversations or narratives, but is subservient to the mainstream agenda;
• Communication opinion leaders are present in industry communities, but their relevance is limited to the niche;

To reverse this situation, the sector needs visibility, dissemination, impact… But also to network, to connect with other professionals and entities, to collaborate to lobby and thus enhance their own narratives; In short: the communication sector is not using its own tools to identify and discuss key narratives;

Analysis of opinion leaders and digital communities

The conversation around the sector in digital ecosystems is made up of four large blocks, called digital communities or tribes, grouped by the association between profiles within the group and opposition with the rest of the profiles in the network.

Two of these communities are very focused on communication, and are made up of industry profiles (media, magazines, entities and communication professionals), have less impact and feature more specialised content; the other two communities are political in nature and are opposite each other online.

Aggregate trend analysis

The trends with the greatest impact are the most generalist, those that mention public figures, political figures or well-known brands. In contrast, sectoral trends are less relevant, albeit with significantly more positive sentiment.

Diagnosis: recommendations for the sector

EXTERNAL FRAMEWORK

Keywords: visibility – dissemination – impact – outreach

1. Relating industry content to current issues can be an opportunity, as long as it is balanced.
2. To position the sector in these current issues, seeking to provide an expert vision but with sectorial narratives in an accessible and informative tone.
3. In the quest for impact, let’s be aware that connecting with public figures is effective, but carries the risk of detracting from the conversation.

INTERNAL FRAMEWORK

Keywords: connection – network – corporatism

1. Social media is not being used as an agora for discussion of sector issues.. It is important to make these a real meeting point for specialised conversations between professionals, organisations, associations and the sector’s media;
2. For the benefit of the industry, the key is not to promote your own content, but to connect narratives of mutual interest.

As a main conclusion, we observe that the communications sector is not using its own tools to identify and discuss key narratives. The presence of industry leaders – such as dircoms, company spokespersons or experts – is relegated to the background, restricted within industry conversations and not connected to the general public;

La entrada The communication sector: how to use our own tools to achieve impact se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

The latest trends report on the communication sector is now available. A resource for professionals, in summary format, to find out the latest news and trends in communication, thanks to the analysis of the most important topics in the social-digital debate, the most relevant news and opinion leaders;

The conclusions of the March analysis revolve around the sustained sound communication on AI and inactivity and the absence of specialised debate in the communication sector on the Ferrovial affair;

The trends in March were:

• The announcement of Ferrovial’s move of its headquarters to the Netherlands has generated a stir and a digital and social debate, but we have seen the absence of the communications sector, which has not expressed itself in this reputational crisis of the company.
• The second important trend is related to 8M, International Women’s Day.. Most of the news and impacts refer to information about female talent, in a generally positive and rather naïve tone; The few criticisms found speak to the pay gap and the lack of women’s voice and representation in the sector and in management positions;
• The third trend has to do with the rise of the podcast. Audio communication is a growing trend that is already making use of artificial intelligence to get the most out of this format;

La entrada Monthly communication trends March 2023 se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

The cryptoasset industry and theblockchain industry is at the center of a social debate that is increasing or decreasing in volume depending on the current state of the industry. The conversation around their technological innovations and the potential economic and social revolution they entail has always taken place in dialectical termswith a high degree of opposition between the perspectives covered and the representation of the sector itself, which has ended up leaving a series of clichés to which society in general has assumed to approach a tremendously complex phenomenon with few options to be understood by the majority and in its entirety.

The media, blogs and social networks have been no exception; moreover, they have contributed to the polarised messages about this industry grow exponentially. They have amplified some positions against others and have magnified certain Manichean clichés inherent to the division between good and bad, which in this case have ended up installing a dichotomous climate around blockchain and cryptos.. It can be summarised in two main aspects: technological revolution (favourable public opinion) versus speculative bubble (unfavourable public opinion);

Industry reputation is holding back the adoption curve

All of the above has had an impact on the adoption curve (or Rogers curve) of these new technologies, and has had an overwhelming influence on the socio-cultural factors that influence the successful implementation of a given innovation. The sector has not succeeded in consolidating the Early Majority, which has prevented the leap into the Late Majority. Moreover, there has been a phenomenon in which skeptics have actively opposed this adoption,backed by institutional voices, monetary authorities and investment gurus such as Warren Buffet, Charlie Munger or Jamie Dimon, etc. who have set the rules of the narrative around cryptos and have established a set of beliefs that the rest have followed: they are a scam, they are worthless, it is the Wild West, etc.

Industry developments in 2022: the ecosystem decline Terra and the crisis in the crypto-lenders – and the bankruptcy of the crypto-asset platform FTX, have served as a justification for these positions and narratives, and have caused a reputational crisis, amplified by the treatment of non-specialist media; The result is a communication gap between one and the other that the sector has perceived and regretted that, with notable exceptions, the kind of media coverage it receives is carried out without knowledge of how it really works. And that the media have not had the tools to reduce;

The report ‘The cryptoasset sector and blockchain. An analysis of media coverage and the digital conversation’

For its mission as a strategic financial communications consultant to many of the firms that have participated in this industry, comma has observed these trends, has perceived the polarisation, increasingly palpableand the sector’s difficulties in addressing a public opinion that has distanced itself from the phenomenon;

For this reason, it has carried out an extensive and comprehensive analysis of the digital conversation generated in 2022 around the news spread about the blockchain industry and digital assets; comma has studied, through an ‘Analysis of news and media content’ and an ‘Analysis of digital narratives and media territories’ what the media say, how they say it, what narratives emerge from media coverage and how these themes of the digital asset industry are related. If that wasn’t enough, it has gone a step further to identify what climate of opinion each of these narratives generates and their impact on the reputation of the sector.

The result is set out in the report ‘The crypto-assets sector and the blockchain; An analysis of media coverage and digital conversation‘ which analyses the above-mentioned gap, its nature and where in the social dialogue it is larger or smaller and therefore has the potential to be closed. More importantly, how this gap with the media establishes a stigma towards the sector and a climate of mistrust in society; In addition, it has a mission to equip the industry with tools to cultivate your relationships with the media, in the interest of driving those narratives about blockchain developments that will generate positive impact and shore up the industry’s reputation.

A two-phase analysis

The first of the analyses (news and media content) examines in a qualitative and expository way the digital conversation that took place throughout 2022 around the cryptoasset and blockchain industry, according to the links that had the most diffusion and impact on social media networks and divided into five categories: crypto ecosystem, generalists, financials, business and technology and on the basis of identified thematic axes. A discursive analysis is also carried out in order to identify the potential impact on the population of the media content disseminated on social networks.

The second analysis (digital narratives and media territories)delves into the narratives or debates that emerge from the dissemination of the news previously analysed; Using graph analysis (SNA), it detects social media posts that include URLs to previously detected crypto sector news; To identify which type of conversation – narrative trends – is associated with which type of content;

News and publications on Social Media in 2022 in figures

Seven keys to media coverage in 2022

On the basis of the two analyses described above, we have found that seven trends in news reporting on crypto-assets and blockchain:

1. Distinguimos three main narrative blocks: ‘BTC’, ‘Investment’ and ‘Industry’.which evolve throughout the year;
2. The news with a negative impact tends to become more viral,but when it comes to the conversation on RRSS about industry news, there tends to be a more positive sentiment.
3. Some issues appear to be oversized in terms of impact – the more generalist ones- They generate greater reach and dissemination, which in turn leads to a feedback loop; Although they fail to establish themselves as trends within the sectoral debate, they do make an impression on the general public: they are a constant trickle of information that contribute to a negative climate..
4. In contrast, the more specialised narratives, from sectoral media, generate more debate and yet, are less viralised and have less impact on the general public.
5. There is a segmentation of media coverage -where each media outlet talks exclusively about certain topics- with little permeability between them. What causes the emergence of opinion bubbles.
6. As a result, there is a polarisation throughout the year in the selection of the news and its treatment. It leads to an over-dimensioning of potentially critical issues for the sector’s reputation and an under-representation of diverse issues around the industry;
7. Also, a number of bridging narratives are identified in 2022with the potential to grow by 2023. Those associated with more cross-cutting coverage, which appear throughout the year in debates of various kinds, and therefore have a lower rate of isolation within the conversation;

Recommendations;

As discussed above, this has led to a polarised situation, which usually has two reactions from the subject group; On the one hand, radicalisation, activism and evangelism; on the other, to distance ourselves from the polarised debate and continue to construct parallel narrativesso as not to be relegated to this dichotomy, albeit at the risk of remaining isolated.

Thus, comma makes a series of recommendations, always taking into account our analysis.

For the sector:

• Transcending the combative and victimising stanceto strengthen the constructive and unified voice of the sector;
• Moving away from generalist and polarised narratives without losing sight of the goal of expanding the audience to connect with the wider public;
• Intensifying industry outreach work, with narratives capable of entering the minds and debates of the general public, using planned and professional communication strategies;
• Fostering bridging narratives, giving more weight to those that present less potential reputational risk to the sector, encouraging moderate and objective voices;
• Diminish the gap between the media and the sector, incorporating expert, academic, professional and independent voices that are able to find ways to convey the multiple contributions to society.

For the media:

• They are required more hinge or bridge media with sufficient relevance to encourage more transversal media coverage, and which make information more accessible to wider audiences, with a language that breaks away from the specialisation of sectoral media.
• A greater effort by the less specialised media to listen to the crypto industry.by expanding its sources;
• Provide journalists with training, professional conferences and meetings with the sector so that they can deepen their information.
• Appreciate the emergence of new worlds around industry and different technological developments, as they present an informative opportunity; The key to this is that journalism must be open to new specialisations, new narratives and new subjects;

From analysis to action

The way to dilute the discursive polarisation of the blockchain and digital asset industry reflected in this in-depth analysis is for all players to become aware of the situation – with objective data and not merely by intuition – and to start acting accordingly;

This exercise will undoubtedly require a change of attitude. It is a matter of abandoning some of the defensive, victimising or arrogant positions detected in the analysis in order to begin to create – under the umbrella of a coherent, planned and unified communication strategy – bridges that facilitate the disappearance of echo chambers and biases; The ecosystem has the challenge and opportunity to find our authentic voiceto, from there, participate in the professional outreach of society, correct misinterpretations and create a unique narrative.

We see a clear opportunity for private and public entities, associations and industry professionals to radically change a proactive, professional and conscious communication model. It is about pooling our knowledge, experience and projects to win because communication is power:

• To be able to share this reality in a clear and non-technical way, with depth and expertise;
• To be able to showcase new developments and applications in the real world;
• Power to put expert, academic and professional voices at the service of the mainstream media;
• Power to collaborate in the development of an active lobbying policy, multi-brand communication and public relations campaigns or the consolidation of an active meeting place for the industry;

In order to start acting and go beyond intentions, we present the NFT ‘comma, blockchain and digital assets’; With this NFT, created in partnership with PriorityGateas a technology partner; we take the first step and materialise our commitment to create a community capable of working in a coordinated and united way to overcome the obstacles that the analysis has shown us and start transforming the narratives of the industry from within; The bearers of this NFT will be members of this community that aims, in the medium and long term, to consolidate this philosophy of co-creation of a new narrative reality around digital assets;

La entrada The communication gap between the blockchain industry and the media: analysis and tools to shore up the crypto sector se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

• The Spanish Government’s announcement of the new budget for the institutional advertising campaigns has raised controversy as every time it is made public, but this year fuelled by being an election year.
• The second major trend is related to the emergence of artificial intelligence in communication; This month we have observed – even more so – a realmedia and conversational boomwith pros and cons of this technology..
• The third trend has to do with the latest measures taken by Netflix and the reactions among consumers; It seems that the platform has listened and has decided to back off in our country, although the pilot test is still underway in other countries.

La entrada Monthly communication trends February 2023 se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

The conclusions of January’s analysis revolve around media polarisation and brand identity and authenticity in the digital sphere.

Trends of the month:

• Following theviralisation of Shakira’s song BZRP, Brands such as Casio and Twingo have been trending thanks to the song’s huge impact and the activity of parody corporate accounts;
• The second major trend is related toextreme polarisation, around the founder of Mercadona, Juan Roig. A debate in which political and other leading figures have participated, and which has also been fuelled by journalists and the media;
• The third trend of the month has to do with the launch of several reports on communication, including: the EDELMAN barometer, the LLYC report on Trends in corporate communication and, finally, the IAB Top digital trends report;

La entrada Monthly communication trends January 2023 se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

Here we share with you the latest trends report on the communication sector; A resource for professionals, in summary format, to find out the latest news and trends in communication, thanks to the analysis of the most important topics in the social-digital debate, the most relevant news and opinion leaders;

Several of the conclusions of the December analysis revolve around the intrinsic responsibility of the communication function, understood as a duty in favour of a collective benefit;

Trends of the month:

• This month highlights the viralization of the Christmas campaign by J&B ‘She’, which, in addition to the flood of emotional messages, was caused by the divergence of opinions it raised.
• The second important trend is related to scientific communication and dissemination, specifically the dissemination role of professionals who, on some occasions, have more impact than the institutions they work for;
• The third trend of the month has to do with the debate about whether or not social networks are a means of communication; The debate has been revived in the wake of statements by Elon Musk claiming that Twitter is apublisher (media), which can have very negative legal and economic consequences;

La entrada Monthly communication trends December 2022 se publicó primero en Agencia comma.

Once again this month, we share the communication trends report. A summary of the latest news in the sector that serves as a resource for the latest developments, the most important topics in the social-digital debate and the most relevant news and opinion leaders of the month;

This third report includes an extra analysis: a network of the best positioned keywords on communication within the conversation.

In this November, the main conclusion of the analysis is the rise of digital, which consolidates its position as a transversal axis within communication, since all trends are influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by some digital agent; Derived from this, we draw two other conclusions:

1. AI emerges as a topic of debate in communication;
2. Controversy and provocation, double-edged weapons for gaining visibility through the viralisation.

In the analysis of the top issues – those that have had the greatest impact on the conversation and media coverage – we find one that has garnered much more attention than the rest: Elon Musk’s behaviour and the future of Twitter. Musk is mentioned in articles on leadership and internal communication, and other alternative social networks such as Mastodon are also referred to;

La entrada Monthly communication trends November 2022 se publicó primero en Agencia comma.