Trust: “trust is the currency of interactions
Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2025 3:29 am
Twitter and TikTok do not allow any political advertising. Google (YouTube) takes a middle position and announced on Wednesday that election ads cannot be targeted based on preferences. The problem is the lack of oversight, because only the platforms themselves can see all the data and what the effects are. To counter the declining number of users, Facebook is focusing on Groups. These serve as a kind of community.
Because people still prefer to share sensitive information anonymously (such as on forums), according to social media expert Matt Navarra , there are rumors that Facebook is now coming with the Anonymous Group post. He emphasizes that people increasingly need a living room feeling on social media, where they can have confidential conversations with an intimate group. The fact that organizations have access or create the Groups is of course bad for the purpose and the feeling of a community.
Matt himself set up the private group 'The social media geek out', which has 12 thousand members. Ultimately, it will come down to the really valuable conversations being increasingly shielded or anonymous. Matt's expectation is that a new Facebook-like platform with as much popularity will not come soon, but rather smaller, more niche platforms such as Nextdoor and Byte (of the old video app Vine ).
3. Technology: The Rise of Virtual Influencers
Thanks to technology, our virtual world is becoming much bigger and much more like our real lives. Think of lifelike VR games (such as FIFA), Hologram concerts (Whitney Houston 'will be' in the Ziggo Dome in 2020), chatbots and virtual assistants (Siri). At the same time, the real world on social media is becoming increasingly fake. It is difficult to distinguish which influencers are still real and authentic.
For the perfect photo, an influencer will easily take about 100 photos and apply 10 filters. Some influencers have even put together a whole team that takes and edits photos, or that enters into collaborations. Photos and stories are often no longer from that moment. They were taken earlier or are scheduled. Rocco Stallvord (author #spon) is a pioneer in the field of influencer marketing and talks about the developments surrounding virtual influencers. There are now several virtual influencers active, also in the Netherlands.
Coca-Cola used a virtual soccer player for a campaign and Calvin Klein used the world-famous virtual model Lil Miquela. The advantage of virtual influencers is that they are fully controllable, scalable and reliable compared to real influencers.
In addition, it is now also possible to manipulate images with so-called Shred bots. They show, for example, that phone number list the sky is always sunny or paste another voice or text into the fragment. This then makes it into an image that is indistinguishable from the original.
According to Business Insider Intelligence's 2019 Digital Trust Report , digital trust is the confidence people have that a social platform will protect their information. And that the platform provides a safe environment for their content. LinkedIn has been the most trusted platform for three years in a row. It's no surprise that people use it differently (and more for business) and don't have the same connections or content there than on other social platforms.
According to Business Insider, the reliability of a platform is the most important element for members, and fake news and incidents affect their advertising engagement. Organizations also want more control. A study by MediaRadar shows that while the number of printed ads is decreasing annually, the number of online ads is actually increasing.
The format is changing, however. Brands want to have more influence on where their ads are placed. The number of programmed ads has decreased, but the share of native advertising has increased by 74%. Native advertising is the use of paid ads that match the look, feel and function of the media format in which they appear. These types of ads are often found in social media feeds. Whether consumers view, believe and interact with these ads therefore depends entirely on the trustworthiness of the source and the platform they are on. That is why Rachel Botsman says in TED talks with 2 million views: “Money is the currency of transactions, but trust is the currency of interactions.”
Because people still prefer to share sensitive information anonymously (such as on forums), according to social media expert Matt Navarra , there are rumors that Facebook is now coming with the Anonymous Group post. He emphasizes that people increasingly need a living room feeling on social media, where they can have confidential conversations with an intimate group. The fact that organizations have access or create the Groups is of course bad for the purpose and the feeling of a community.
Matt himself set up the private group 'The social media geek out', which has 12 thousand members. Ultimately, it will come down to the really valuable conversations being increasingly shielded or anonymous. Matt's expectation is that a new Facebook-like platform with as much popularity will not come soon, but rather smaller, more niche platforms such as Nextdoor and Byte (of the old video app Vine ).
3. Technology: The Rise of Virtual Influencers
Thanks to technology, our virtual world is becoming much bigger and much more like our real lives. Think of lifelike VR games (such as FIFA), Hologram concerts (Whitney Houston 'will be' in the Ziggo Dome in 2020), chatbots and virtual assistants (Siri). At the same time, the real world on social media is becoming increasingly fake. It is difficult to distinguish which influencers are still real and authentic.
For the perfect photo, an influencer will easily take about 100 photos and apply 10 filters. Some influencers have even put together a whole team that takes and edits photos, or that enters into collaborations. Photos and stories are often no longer from that moment. They were taken earlier or are scheduled. Rocco Stallvord (author #spon) is a pioneer in the field of influencer marketing and talks about the developments surrounding virtual influencers. There are now several virtual influencers active, also in the Netherlands.
Coca-Cola used a virtual soccer player for a campaign and Calvin Klein used the world-famous virtual model Lil Miquela. The advantage of virtual influencers is that they are fully controllable, scalable and reliable compared to real influencers.
In addition, it is now also possible to manipulate images with so-called Shred bots. They show, for example, that phone number list the sky is always sunny or paste another voice or text into the fragment. This then makes it into an image that is indistinguishable from the original.
According to Business Insider Intelligence's 2019 Digital Trust Report , digital trust is the confidence people have that a social platform will protect their information. And that the platform provides a safe environment for their content. LinkedIn has been the most trusted platform for three years in a row. It's no surprise that people use it differently (and more for business) and don't have the same connections or content there than on other social platforms.
According to Business Insider, the reliability of a platform is the most important element for members, and fake news and incidents affect their advertising engagement. Organizations also want more control. A study by MediaRadar shows that while the number of printed ads is decreasing annually, the number of online ads is actually increasing.
The format is changing, however. Brands want to have more influence on where their ads are placed. The number of programmed ads has decreased, but the share of native advertising has increased by 74%. Native advertising is the use of paid ads that match the look, feel and function of the media format in which they appear. These types of ads are often found in social media feeds. Whether consumers view, believe and interact with these ads therefore depends entirely on the trustworthiness of the source and the platform they are on. That is why Rachel Botsman says in TED talks with 2 million views: “Money is the currency of transactions, but trust is the currency of interactions.”