With the proliferation of digital media, influencer marketing is becoming more and more important for inbound marketing to generate traffic and help drive leads, but it’s now also more challenging to do than ever before.  

We’ve spoken a little bit about influencer marketing when discussing it as part of the PESO (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned media) model that guides modern PR and even more so inbound PR that is strongly orientated towards digital and inbound.

Basically, influencer marketing is getting others to tell your story, and not just any others, but people who have somewhat of a celebrity status within their area of expertise and have a fairly big audience due to their popularity and reputation. When we say celebrity, that doesn’t necessary mean an actress or a singer. It could, for example, be a fitness blogger with a huge Instagram following.

The problem with influencer marketing, though, is that it’s hard, you cannot control the results, and with the rise of other influencers such as YouTubers or Instagrammers and no longer just journalists or bloggers, the sheer of influencers has made it even more complicated to pick the right ones. 

And there’s, of course, the notion of not knowing how to approach those influencers as it is still rather new and very different than traditional media relations. Influencer relations is the Wild West now.

2016 is just around the corner! It's time for predictions! And educated hopes.

I’m sure you’ve seen quite a few 2016-prediction posts going on and I thought it would be worth sharing my reflections of the past year and my views for the new one with you too.

Time really does fly… I can’t believe how much has happened over the last year in my professional and personal life, but also in our non-silent-always-on digital economy.

Things change in seconds; they get adopted, adjusted and forgotten unbelievably quickly. Our world doesn’t sleep, ever.

I’ve observed many passing and growing trends over 2015 that have given me an indication of what will be happening more and more in 2016 and where brands should focus their efforts on.

My predictions-advice list is short – just 5 things, but if you master them, your 2016 will be a true success.

5 Key Things for Brands to Focus on in 2016:

After being away for two weeks – first at INBOUND15 in Boston, then at dmexco in Cologne – I had so many things  to take care of so I used my weekend to deal with some urgent emails and to catch up with my reading: there were about 350 unread articles among the 40 subscriptions that I have in my feedly.

I’ve managed to get down to 88 articles now, so this was a productive learning weekend.

Anyway, there were so many good articles which I thought would be useful for the other Channel Consultants in my team at HubSpot so I emailed them a list of 10 fantastic reading recommendations.

Then I thought, these articles would surely be of interest to my readers too and so I decided to share them with you as well. I hope you enjoy them and they inspire a powerful start to your working/study week.

10 Reading Recommendations to Power up Your Week:

#1: The Most Common Mistakes Companies Make with Global Marketing

This is some fantastic advice from our very own Nataly Kelly – our VP of Marketing Localisation at HubSpot – in the Harvard Business Review. The world may be going global, but local is super important in business. 

I absolutely love, love, love infographics! They are such a great way to transmit a message and engage with people, don't you think? 

You could say that I am addicted to them because even though I don't have any design background, I've already created seven distinct infographics. (You can check them out on my SlideShare and Visual.ly profiles.) 

It's all about being inspired, having an idea and getting creative. And there are so many tools you can use today - go Canva, Piktochart or even PowerPoint. I've used them all. 

Infographics are a fantastic marketing tool. Leveraging this type of content can help you extend your reach, drive traffic, increase social sharing and engagement as well as help you stand out among all the noise out there. 

I've said it before: visual content is king. Infographics can not only boost your traditional comms efforts, but also take your digital content marketing to the next level by being able to create content that truly fascinates.

 Here are nine crucial reasons why you should start creating infographics now:

Our behaviour as consumers and shoppers has changed dramatically over the past few years. We now not only buy online, but we do research on-the-go or in-store, we compare vendors and products on our smartphones, we rely on social media for recommendations and ideas.

As a recent report by PwC points out, we are inclined to shop multi-channel – the power of choice lies in our hands, it is up to us to decide where to buy and when to buy.

The consumer and buyer journeys have become increasingly complicated and so understanding and actually creating a sales cycle turns out to be an almost impossible task for companies.

One is certain though – brands cannot ignore the digital revolution. They are required to use digital technology and create new buying experiences that are better fitted to the way we now like to explore, learn, buy, try and recommend. And that’s largely mobile and online. 

Even Google has realised that – coming April 21^st, Google will start penalising websites that are not mobile-friendly, which will have significant impact on search results and companies’ ability to rank for consumer queries.

And let’s not forget that many of us are now addicted mobile windows shoppers – we may make the actual purchase more on our desktops or in-store, but it is mobile that inspires us and drives us to buy. It is Instagram that we learn about new products, it is Facebook that we get recommendations from friends and families, it is Twitter that we learn about brand fails – and we access those networks mostly through our smartphones.

So, what can brands do to be part of our consumer journeys?