For some years now, we have been living under a new type of authoritarianism, that of the attention economy. A perverse dynamic that has trapped companies and brands as well as content creators. It has even trapped public institutions themselves, political parties, and social organizations. It is about competing, capturing, and retaining people's time. An increasingly valuable and scarce commodity in a world saturated with information and content. The explosion of communication technologies generates so much information that there is no human capacity to process it, so audience attention equates to money and generates commercial value.
In this logic, a large attention industry has been generated. New influencers through social networks or digital media wage an intense battle to gain followers, views, likes, or impacts. The objective is no longer to inform or entertain, but to monetize attention through advertising, generate valuable data for big tech companies, and sell new products and services. In this perverse circle, we wanted to believe that the larger the audience, the greater the influence seemed to be, often confusing celebrities, that is, notoriety, with true influencers, notability and real influence. The result has been the generation of a multi-million dollar industry around digital content creators.
But something is changing, and a great conversation is emerging about what some call the fall of influencers. Beyond fleeting trends, it is actually a symptom of transformation, or rather, of maturation, of our societies and a symptom of the limits of technological determinism. Just as our societies have mutated towards phygital environments, where the physical and digital worlds are inexorably linked, in the field of communication, marketing, and content, we must move towards an intelligent marriage between the attention economy and the reputation economy.
It is premature, and probably not very accurate, to announce the end of influencers. The data from the report and study The fall of influencers in Spain: from social fatigue to brand risk, confirms significant losses of followers in certain profiles, but mainly in the field of lifestyle and general entertainment. It would seem that there is a certain fatigue and selective rejection towards a certain type of content creator and not a generalized crisis of the ecosystem. The report collects, based on data from IAB Spain cited by Control Publicidad, that the sector in Spain moves in an approximate investment of 158 million euros in influencers with a year-on-year growth of 25.9%. Others, such as El Economista, even point to a business that moves around 400 million annually in the entire ecosystem.
"For many years, attention has been confused with trust. You can gain attention and lose the ability to influence"
We could conclude that the problem does not seem to be in the ability to reach audiences, but in the loss or lack of trust and saturation among some content creators. The study's data is revealing. 56.4% of Spanish internet users follow an influencer, youtuber or streamer. But among those who follow them, 69.8% perceive the use or abuse of covert advertising and 61.9% consider that most of their comments and publications are advertising in nature. This could largely explain the phenomenon and the need to revisit some of the fundamentals that have prevailed in recent years. People will continue to be in the digital environment, but it is no longer enough to connect or capture their attention. The fundamental challenge is to generate influence based on trust and thus manage to modify a perception, a decision or a behavior.
For many years, attention has been confused with trust. You can gain attention and lose the ability to influence. A million followers can make a video go viral and generate millions of views, but it can be an accelerator of reputation destruction, as we have seen in some cases. Audiences are learning how the algorithmic economy works. We know that repeatedly criticizing content also generates interactions and fuels its distribution. Unfollowing, stopping following them, does much more damage, as it directly affects one of their most important assets, attention. Unfollowing content creators becomes a new form of reputational pressure.
All this evolution or mutation in the perception of influencers has consequences for brands. Until now, a part of influence marketing contracted reach, but increasingly, reputation and credibility will matter. When a brand partners with a content creator, it is not just doing a marketing action and a commercial or service transaction; it is a reputational operation. Part of the brand's and product's credibility is transferred to the influencer, with its risks and contradictions. That is why reputational due diligence of influencers is becoming more common. Before a collaboration, it is no longer enough to analyze their authenticity, their followers, the engagement they generate, or demographic affinity. Their values, trajectory, controversies, behavior in the community, and the coherence between the creator and the brand must also be analyzed.
Both in the world of companies and brands, and in politics or social organizations, we must transition from the influencer to the prescriber, from popularity to authority, and from impact to trust. That is the logic of the reputation economy. We are not facing the end of influence; on the contrary, it will be more important than ever, but perhaps in a few years, influence will not be measured solely by how many people follow you, but by how many people trust you thanks to a defined, recognizable, and shared purpose, and what you do with that trust they give you. Having an audience generates attention. Having credibility generates influence, but only sustained credibility and trust build reputation.
Reputation is the new influence, and it can and should change hands. While a portion of influencers are starting to show symptoms of saturation, new categories of micro-influencers are emerging who build their authority in a different way. They are scientists, writers, professors, journalists, entrepreneurs, or popularizers who don't need to have an opinion on everything or at all times, nor turn every publication into a commercial opportunity. These new prescribers base their credibility, influence, and authority on judgment rather than popularity. Most have much smaller communities than the big stars of Instagram or TikTok, but they possess something much more valuable: audiences that trust them. Faced with the fast and furious world of quick content, unboxing, or virality, depth, knowledge, and cultural relevance prevail. A trend I anticipated years ago in my book The Republic of Reputation.
In short, true influence is not about getting millions of people to see you, but about getting certain people to trust your judgment and recommendations. In the field of marketing and communication, whether commercial, political, or social, the next generation of metrics must incorporate other ways of measuring what is called engagement. Credibility, authority, consistency, reputational affinity, or community quality will be fundamental to deploying a real capacity for prescription. The market itself seems to be evolving in that direction. Brands are stopping buying reach and are starting to value specialization, affinity, and credibility with measurable results. This is one of the most interesting paradoxes of the age of artificial intelligence. Producing content will be practically free and unlimited, and precisely for that reason, we will need people to help us interpret all that immense noise. The true value will be in judgment, authority, and reputational capital to exert influence, and not in the generation of content. The great asset of the new generation of influencers will be knowing how to intelligently manage the possibilities and opportunities generated by the marriage of the attention economy and the reputation economy.