Maria (Boux) Morganti Avatar

The Diary of a digital Journey

Category: General

  • TikTok and the Dopamine Connection: Why It’s So Addictive

    TikTok and the Dopamine Connection: Why It’s So Addictive

    In just a few years, TikTok has become a cultural phenomenon, captivating millions of users worldwide with its short, engaging videos and hyper-personalized content. Whether you’re watching funny skits, dance challenges, or life hacks, the platform keeps you hooked with its seemingly endless stream of entertainment.

    Some numbers around TikTok

    TikTok has experienced remarkable growth and engagement since its launch. Here are some key numbers – Source: How many users on TikTok? Statistics & Facts (2025)

    • Content categories: The most popular categories on TikTok are Entertainment, Dance, and Pranks, with billions of views each
    • Monthly active users: TikTok has over 1 billion monthly active users globally, with 150 million in the United States (growth of over 10 times in last 5 years).
    • User demographics: About 44% of TikTok users are under 25 years old.
    • Time spent: The average daily time spent on TikTok has more than doubled from 27 minutes in 2019 to 58 minutes in 2024.
    • Engagement rate: TikTok has an average engagement rate of 5.96%, making it the most engaging social media platform.
    • Regional growth: By 2023, TikTok is projected to have 682 million users in the Asia Pacific region (excluding China and India), 238 million in Europe, and 192 million in North America.

    But what makes TikTok so hard to put down?

    The secret lies in its algorithm, which curates content tailored to your interests, and its ability to trigger the brain’s reward system through bursts of dopamine—the “feel-good” chemical that reinforces pleasurable activities. This clever combination of psychology and technology creates a feedback loop that keeps users scrolling for hours.

    Dopamine is at the heart of TikTok’s addictive design.

    The app capitalizes on variable rewards—those unpredictable moments when you find an exceptionally engaging video—similar to pulling the lever on a slot machine. Each time you laugh at a funny clip, discover something new, or feel validated by likes and comments, your brain releases dopamine, reinforcing the desire to keep scrolling.

    TikTok’s endless feed and short-form content further amplify this effect, delivering quick hits of entertainment without requiring much effort. The result?

    A platform that not only entertains but also conditions the brain to crave more, making it one of the most compelling social media experiences today.

    A 2022 study from the Frontiers in Psychology journal found that TikTok is the most highly addictive of all social media platforms. TikTok manipulates dopamine levels through several key mechanisms designed to create an addictive user experience.

    TikTok’s AI-driven algorithm

    TikTok’s AI-driven algorithm is a sophisticated system designed to create a highly personalized and engaging user experience.

    TikTok’s AI-driven algorithm is a highly sophisticated system that tailors content to individual users, creating an addictive and personalized experience. By analyzing user interactions—such as likes, shares, watch time, and even pauses—the algorithm learns preferences and predicts what content will keep users engaged.

    It uses machine learning to identify patterns in behavior and pairs this with metadata from videos, including hashtags, captions, and trending sounds, to deliver a feed uniquely curated for each user.

    This real-time adaptability ensures that TikTok’s content always feels fresh and relevant, driving high levels of user engagement and fostering an unparalleled connection between the platform and its audience.

    Why It Can Be Addictive

    1. Short-form content: TikTok’s 15-60 second videos provide rapid-fire bursts of entertainment, each potentially triggering a small dopamine release[1]. This creates a short-term dopamine feedback loop, reinforcing the behavior of continued scrolling. According to a 2020 study from the University of California – San Diego, TikTok users in the United States open the app an average of eight times per day and spend an average of 46 minutes on the app.

    2. Infinite scroll: The endless stream of content removes natural breaking points, keeping the dopamine system constantly engaged and making it difficult for users to stop scrolling. According to the researchers of another study “the system quality has a stronger influence than information quality in determining adolescents’ experience with TikTok and that the flow experience has significant direct and indirect effects on TikTok addiction behavior” – meaning the way the algorithm chose the content to visualize and for how long influence more the experience than the content itself.
    3. Personalized “For You” page: TikTok’s AI-driven algorithm presents highly tailored content, creating a consistently rewarding experience that triggers more frequent dopamine releases. The average daily usage of TikTok is 95 minutes (compared to 17 minutes for YouTube and 29 minutes for Instagram), made possible through continuously analyzing user behavior and content characteristics, TikTok’s AI algorithm creates an addictive and personalized experience that keeps users engaged for extended periods.
    4. Variable reward pattern: The algorithm regularly incorporates new content types to discover new facets of user interests. The unpredictable nature of content quality in the feed triggers dopamine release, similar to the mechanism behind slot machines. Besides dopamine, TikTok also triggers the release of epinephrine, norepinephrine, and oxytocin, creating a complex neurochemical response that enhances the addictive potential.
    5. Real-time adaptation: The algorithm quickly adjusts to changes in user preferences and behavior. Using a new sophisticated “collisionless embedding” system, it organizes not only content but also user data efficiently (by categories) enabling better and faster recommendations. The “Monolith” system (this is how it’s called) updates its model continuously, learning from user interactions and syncing the data at short intervals.
    6. Content relevance over creator popularity: Even new creators can gain visibility if their content resonates with users. It mixes constantly contents from new creators with established ones, to enhance the possibilities to become viral for anyone, also without high number of contents.

    This combination of features creates a powerful cycle of anticipation and reward, keeping users engaged and continuously seeking the next dopamine hit. The result is a “dopamine machine” that can lead to addiction-like behaviors and potentially negative long-term consequences for users’ mental health and cognitive function.

    US is concerned: TikTok faces a U.S. Ban

    The potential TikTok ban in the United States stems from national security concerns over its parent company, ByteDance, and its ties to China. Lawmakers worry that Chinese government laws could compel ByteDance to share sensitive user data or leverage TikTok’s content algorithms to spread misinformation. As a result, legislation has been passed requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S.-approved buyer or face a nationwide ban. Despite TikTok’s denial of these allegations and efforts to distance itself from ByteDance, the pressure on the platform remains high.

  • Rethinking AI in Advertising: The Missed Opportunity in the Gemini Olympics Ad

    The recent Gemini ad that aired during the Paris Olympics has sparked significant discussion, and I find myself agreeing with some of the criticisms it has received. The ad, which portrays AI assisting a father in writing a letter for his daughter, left many with the impression that AI was replacing the father’s role in an intimate and personal task.

    In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Google’s Android chief Rick Osterloh defended the company’s decision, stating, “Clearly the market isn’t fully ready to embrace all the changes that come with AI.” I believe this is a very unfortunate way to respond to the criticism.

    Shifting the responsibility to the audience, implying they are “not ready” or didn’t understand the message, misses the point entirely and is never a good idea. It’s not about the market being ready—it’s about understanding the deeply personal nature of the relationship the ad depicted and how AI was framed in that context.

    Instead of taking responsibility for the misstep, this response seems to place the blame on the audience, which only further alienates those who felt uncomfortable with the ad’s message.

    Rick further insisted that AI technology is now so powerful that it would allow Sydney McLaughlin’s daughter to write several appreciation emails or even produce different kinds of content, like an essay or a poem. But again, this misses the essence of the ad’s intended message. The purpose of this communication campaign was to enhance the emotional bond between father and daughter in the context of sports, ideally with the thoughtful integration of AI – not to promote the “text writing” capability of Gemini, as though it were the only “understandable” and easy-to-grasp feature for the audience.

    Moreover, it’s important to consider the broader implications of the ad’s portrayal. The fact that only Black people are represented in the ad could be misinterpreted as suggesting that they are “not educated” and need help with writing because they are not capable themselves. This kind of messaging is not only misguided but potentially harmful.

    Instead of focusing on AI’s ability to write text, the campaign could have shown how AI can genuinely support and strengthen relationships, particularly in the context of a father-daughter bond in sports. For instance:

    • Performance Analytics: AI could have been depicted helping Sydney McLaughlin analyze her race performance, offering insights to refine her technique and improve her times.
    • Personalized Training Plans: The ad could have shown AI assisting her coach in creating a personalized training regimen tailored to her unique strengths, weaknesses, and goals.
    • Mental Preparation: AI could also play a role in mental conditioning, offering meditative guides or visualization exercises to help Sydney maintain her focus under pressure.
    • Injury Prevention and Recovery: An AI could have been portrayed helping her monitor her health and recovery, ensuring she stays in peak condition throughout her training.

    These examples would have demonstrated AI’s capability to augment human connections and enrich shared experiences, rather than replacing personal moments or perpetuating stereotypes.

    As we continue to explore the boundaries of AI, it’s crucial to strike the right balance and ensure that we’re enhancing human connections, not diminishing them. And when feedback comes, let’s be open to it—acknowledging the need for better messaging and deeper understanding, rather than attributing it to a market not being ready.

  • My personal Tool-kit to drive the Digitalisation of Marketing

    My personal Tool-kit to drive the Digitalisation of Marketing

    * Cat Photo Disclaimer: apparently your content online is only open if you show adorable pet images, preferably featuring cats. So I decided to start photo shooting my cat and post it here, only to captivate more views and engagement, let’s see if that works*

    Today I want to present my strategy for navigating the complexities of modern marketing and a Tool-kit that I have used to pursue this transformation within different digitalisation projects.

    But before I want to quickly talk more about the “people” element in digital projects and how important it is to being “in love” and proud with what we do.

    Don’t get me wrong, this is not a post about how to fall in love with your company or how we should all be a “family” at work. No at all, I am very aware of having a real family and life and a professional one. But for the sake of archiving the goals we aimed to, we should really learn to work together, at best driven from the same mission. And we should really all love what we do and be 100% aware of why we are doing it.

    In my experience during the digitization or digitalisation processes, the need for constant intercommunication became particularly evident. Let’s consider how we communicate with customers, for example. Traditionally, marketing in B2B manufacturing companies relied heavily on personal interactions, as customers were considered valuable assets. This emphasis led to significant focus on activities aimed at maintaining good relationships and keeping customers satisfied and informed. The strategy revolved around nurturing strong relationships with key customers and further developing them through mutually beneficial connections. This approach ensured that industry development aligned closely with the needs of major customers, who relied on trusted partners to prioritize their requirements and ensure certain volumes or quantities.

    That is particular true in my experience during the digitization or digitalisation transformation processes. For example, let’s tak about how companies communicate with customers. In the typical scenario, marketing departments have multiple ways for engaging with customers that primarily occur on a personal level, recognizing existing customers as the most valuable assets in the company.

    This emphasis led to significant focus on activities aimed at maintaining good relationships and keeping customers satisfied and informed. The strategy revolved around nurturing strong relationships with key customers and further developing them through mutually beneficial connections. This approach ensured that industry development aligned closely with the needs of major customers, who relied on trusted partners to prioritize their requirements and ensure certain volumes or quantities.

    The companies across various industries continued to develop and innovate based on their main customers needs. The large customers would have counted on a trusted partners that were sure they would have kept prioritized their wishes and needs and would guarantee certain quantities / installations or deliveries. This is the model witnessed in many manufacturing B2B industries for the last decades. Actually a good model that would perform and keep the economy stable as in constant balance between customer – industry needs.

    However, with the advent of globalization and digitalisation, this model began to undergo significant changes. The effects were initially felt in the manufacturing and production sectors, with processes becoming more specialized and production outsourced. While this initially led to financial benefits, digitalization facilitated constant communication and increased transparency among producers of similar products. Consequently, industries (across various markets) began exploring partnerships beyond the traditional big manufacturers, opening up new opportunities.

    So the industry (again very broad sense, really in many different markets) was now finding the possibility to partner not only with the old “trusted” big manufacturer as they used it but it opened up a whole new world of opportunities.

    So, what did this mean for marketing and communication?

    It meant that newer companies / start-ups could adopt more agile marketing approaches, focusing less on long-standing customer relationships and more on innovative ways to find new partners. These newcomers are often smaller, younger, and characterized by a more flexible, rapid decision-making process. This shift initiated a wave of digital strategies that disrupted traditional marketing approaches that had been effective until recently.

    This evolution posed a significant challenge for larger multinational companies, which had to quickly adapt by adopting new ways of working, collaborating, and communicating with customers while maintaining established relationships and “old” ways to interact and keep them happy. This adaptation is particularly challenging given the same team dynamics and normally the same number of resources within the marketing / comm Teams.

    As we can understand, huge challenge. So how to approach this?

    This is my personal Tool-kit to support the digitalisation of marketing based on 3 Pillars:

    Digital Education – Central Framework and Local Outputs – Constant Intercommunication

    Digital Education

    It’s crucial to start educating marketing and communication teams about digital skills early on. Digital competencies are not innate. Therefore, ongoing education should be a priority, focusing not only on training sessions but also on explaining the rationale behind digital strategies during project collaboration.

    According to a study examining the effects of training and development activities on organizational innovation, the authors specifically suggested that “the training and development investments of an organization affect its innovative performance“
    Their research found that when companies invest more in internal training, it leads to better interpersonal relationships and organizational learning practices. As a result, this improvement in learning and collaboration boosts the company’s ability to innovate.  

    It is critical to start as early as possible to educate the marketing and communication team about digital skills. Those skills are not assumed and do not belong the classic marketing / communication background. Even recent graduates I bet didn’t learn how to code Jave or HTML websites nor how to build a Google Analytics tag manager. Although you might not need to be an expert in all areas, if you are now in marketing and communication and want to stay in this field of the next 10 years, you need to have a higher digital knowledge than other areas.

    Over the past two decades, marketing has focused primarily on customer care, excelling in this aspect. However, it cannot be assumed that they have also developed IT/digital competencies and skills during this time.

    But in my opinion, marketing and comm people are more than open and willing to learn. So part of the job in a digital transformation is to continue educate in every possible way. It is not only making the pople attending Trainings but using every occasions to explain why things work in the way they do, what are the mechanism and background behind as well as clarify questions and doubts.

    Central Framework and Local Outputs

    Companies should provide marketing and communication teams with centrally managed tools and platforms, ensuring proper setup, compliance, and security. This allows for creative freedom while maintaining centralized control and administration.

    This is what I call a “central digital hub Spot” where the platforms and tools are managed, properly setup, ensure that they are compliant and secure. Meanwhile the “users” can be creative and use them to produce their outputs the best way they’d like.

    For example:

    • Digital Asset Management (DAM) System: A DAM system centralizes the storage and organization of digital assets such as images, videos, and documents, making it easy for the marketing team to access and share content
    • Content Management System (CMS): A centralized CMS allows the marketing team to manage and update website content, ensuring consistency across all pages and sections.
    • Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software: A CRM system centralizes customer data and interactions, enabling the marketing team to track leads, manage contacts, and personalize marketing campaigns effectively.
    • Social Media Management Tools: These tools allow the marketing team to schedule posts, engage with followers, and analyze performance across various social media platforms from a centralized dashboard.
    • Analytics and Reporting Tools: Centralized analytics platforms provide insights into marketing performance across different channels, helping the team measure the effectiveness of campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

    Constant Intercommunication

    Working together in large projects requires continuous updates and real-time assessment. The interconnected nature of digital projects means that every step is dependent on the others, making close collaboration essential. This level of interaction facilitates the identification and resolution of issues, leveraging diverse skill sets within the team.

    Why is this level of interaction so crucial? Well, for starters, digital projects often involve a series of interconnected steps. A delay or misstep in one area can have ripple effects throughout the entire project. Without constant communication and collaboration, identifying and addressing these issues becomes exponentially more difficult.

    Furthermore, the complexity of digital projects often necessitates diverse skill sets. No one person can possess all the knowledge and expertise needed to tackle every aspect of a project effectively. By working together closely, team members can leverage each other’s strengths, fill in knowledge gaps, and ultimately produce a more robust final product.

    But let’s not sugarcoat it—constant intercommunication isn’t always easy. It requires patience, active listening, and a willingness to adapt. Frustrations will inevitably arise, whether it’s a technical glitch, a missed deadline, or a difference in opinion. In these moments, having someone to talk to, bounce ideas off of, or simply vent to can make all the difference.

    So, how can teams foster a culture of constant intercommunication? First and foremost, they need to prioritize transparency and openness. Encouraging regular check-ins, brainstorming sessions, and feedback loops can help ensure that everyone stays on the same page

  • Navigating the Complexity of Digital Project Management: A Structured Approach

    Embarking on a new project, be it a website relaunch or the creation of a company newsletter, often prompts a desire to involve a diverse array of perspectives. So you organize large group sessions with various name: Kickoff meeting, “Brainstormings”, creative exchanges and all kind of encounters of this kind.

    Many people from different background and expertise, joining without having any preliminary discussion or briefing, having different experiences and knowledge as well as understanding of the purpose of the project. What is happen is that normally the loudest and more talkative person take the stage and becomes somehow the “authority” in the room, some people follow what he/she says and make small adjustment or amends, a few might have different points of view and try very carefully to point them out, being carefully not to be creating too much fuss, and the rest, let’s say the majority don’t actually say anything. Probably because they know they either won’t be heard or think what they would say don’t bring any value.
    At the end of such meetings, the result is obviously very biased and don’t take in consideration “unheard” needs or different perspective. Setting the project off with a shaky start

    After years of navigating this common scenario, it’s evident that these meetings often fall short of delivering positive results for various reasons:

    Absence of Key Decision-Makers

    The presence of decision-makers, especially executives like the CEO, is crucial in shaping the direction of a project. Without their input, discussions may lack the necessary strategic guidance, potentially leading to decisions that require reconsideration or adjustment.

    Exclusion of End Users

    Projects designed to benefit end users suffer when those users are not actively involved in the early stages. The absence of user feedback and engagement in the development process can result in solutions that miss the mark, failing to address the specific needs and preferences of the intended audience.

    Lack of Uniform Problem Understanding

    Assumptions about shared understanding can be perilous. Not everyone may grasp the intricacies of the challenges at hand, leading to misguided decisions or oversights in addressing critical issues. A comprehensive understanding of the problems is vital for crafting effective solutions.

    Diminished Concentration in Group Settings

    In-person meetings, despite their intentions, often lead to diminished concentration spans. This observation, though not formally studied, has practical implications. Participants may grow fatigued, hindering the effectiveness of discussions and potentially compromising the quality of outcomes.


    In my recent experience on working with several different teams across the globe on the same digital projects (let it be website relaunch or company newsletter) I realize that the most difficult thing is outside the typical “IT” world, to apply the same way of working with peoples not used to it, as basically in all other fields and professions, you are not though a method to work together.

    In marketing or finance, or any sociology kind of studying field, there is very high probability that you never heard of the “Agile methodologies, or the Scrum framework”: basically learning how to to truly understand others need and being able to reflect them into the final outcome of the project.

    I am not saying everyone should work like a typical “IT person” (although with increased use of technology in all fields of our life it might not be a bad idea) but I am say at least we should switch our mind-set approach to a more structured way of working together when it comes to digital projects.

    Here are key insights and recommendations:

    1. Establish a Robust Project Management Framework

    To foster efficient collaboration, create a project management framework tailored to your organization’s needs. This could be a dedicated tool, a shared folder, or even a WhatsApp group. The goal is to provide a centralized platform for seamless communication, file exchange, information sharing, and task assignment.
    It could be anything that works in your organisations, but as organiser you should start putting the basis and establish a platform where you: – Communicate within your team – Exchange Files / Documents – Share information and give tasks – Update Timeline

    Avoid relying solely on emails, as they can lead to information loss and hinder transparency. Reserve emails for quick requests, reminders, and project summaries.

    2. Identify and Engage Internal Stakeholders Early

    One of the biggest risks in project management is overlooking key stakeholders. Take the time at the outset to identify and engage all internal stakeholders who may be impacted by the project. Beyond the obvious roles, consider regional or department-specific needs. This foresight ensures a comprehensive understanding of the project’s scope and the involvement of all relevant parties.

    You might realize only afterwards that you didn’t spend enough time in the first stages of the process to really think about who is going to be impacted by this process and who/which departments are going to play a role. You start thinking that for a website relaunch you need products managers and HR colleagues but afterwords you realize you need to understand regional / local needs in particular field (like Recruiting within a particular country) or your finance team might need to have a page for shareholders or your colleagues in manufacturing might want to put more emphasis on the operational excellence of your company. And if you didn’t involve them previously enough in the development of the project, it might be too late and / or very costly.

    3. Compile a Comprehensive Requirements List

    Before diving into the project, create a list of requirements that align with the project’s goals. For instance, in a website relaunch, requirements could include multilingual support, mobile responsiveness, and a focus on lead generation. Engage in individual discussions with each stakeholder to collect their input, forming a collective “wish list.”

    In this way you first reach a deep understand of everyone’s need and truly hear what everyone has to say. Second you obtain a higher Involvement from the start if you have a single conversation with the responsible person. A digital project is ALWAYS a group project, so you need to have all stakeholders on-board before starting. If you think about the website, the person responsible for content will feel engaged if it was taken in considerations from the beginning and he/she will be ready and willing to deliver their parts timely and in a higher constructive way.

    4. Foster a Culture of Continuous Improvement

    In addition to the foundational steps, instill a culture of continuous improvement within your project team. Encourage open communication, feedback loops, and adaptability. Embrace agile methodologies, even outside the traditional IT realm, to respond effectively to changing circumstances and evolving requirements. This iterative mindset enhances collaboration and enables the project team to navigate challenges seamlessly.

    In conclusion, a structured approach to digital project management, encompassing effective communication, stakeholder engagement, comprehensive requirements gathering, and a commitment to continuous improvement, sets the stage for success. By incorporating these principles, you can ensure that your digital projects not only meet the needs of the team but also deliver value to the end users.

  • ONLINE Reputation and the chiara ferragni case

    If you live in Italy you know what I am referring to for sure. But as Italy is a very small country and besides I don’t live there anymore and most of my audience is not even able to speak Italian, I want to share with the rest of the world this interesting case of “Image damage” of an influencer (the biggest one in Italy in this case) and what I would do if I was her.

    Let’s start saying that Chiara Ferragni popularity is with no doubts a result of excellent use of the social media platforms. She is born in 1987 and moved her first steps into the fashon world as a model when she was only 16. Her journey to fame began in 2009 when she launched her fashion blog, “The Blonde Salad.” Initially, the blog documented her personal style, travels, and daily life, quickly gaining popularity for its relatable content and Chiara’s distinctive fashion sense. She was only very creative in posting all kind of outfits and being always authentic and spontanes.

    As the fashion blogging landscape evolved, Chiara Ferragni’s platform transformed into a lifestyle empire. She became known for her collaborations with renowned fashion brands, showcasing her impeccable style and influencing fashion trends globally. Chiara’s innate ability to connect with her audience and her genuine approach to sharing her life contributed significantly to her rapid rise to popularity. She was always very smart in catching the trends and making them as she would participate into their success.

    Her Follower base counts almost 30 Million Followers.

    Her Target Audience has always been younger predominantly female fashion-lovers but with the time that range of followers expanded into an older audience, not gender specific and more generalist.

    In 2022, during the Christmas season, Chiara Ferragni served as the spokesperson for Balocco, a renowned brand specializing in “Panettone,” a traditional Italian winter sweet. The promotional campaign centered around a charitable initiative linked to a special edition of this sweet, bearing Chiara Ferragni’s branding. The campaign pledged to allocate a portion of the sales proceeds to fund research for a specific type of cancer affecting children.

    However, a year later, the Italian regulatory authority responsible for ensuring transparent communication and fair competition discovered discrepancies in the execution of the promised charity. Contrary to the communicated information, it was revealed that the anticipated donations had not proceed as outlined. Specifically, Balocco had made a singular donation of €30,000 to a hospital for disease research prior to the commencement of the campaign. Subsequently, neither the influencer, Chiara Ferragni, nor the company Balocco had followed through with any additional contributions following the sales of the branded sweets. Note that one of this Panettone costed more than twice the normal price with the argument, clearly written in the product packaging, that the sale would have help the hospital in this research.

    Geographic

    When she was a model she was pretty famous internationally as well. Her outfits were often taken in various magazine and other fashion endeavor as well as other international star. In her Blog she focused purely on fashion, trends on Italian Followers more than international after she got married with the singer Fedez, who clearly didn’t have any visibility outside his home country.

    Her website https://www.theblondesalad.com/en/ lost 26% of traffic Share* in 2023 in United States where she detain the majority of the traffic. This is why I am saying:

    Forget about Italy: move away and build your audience outside

    Ok you screwed up.

    Leaving the ethical aspect aside, which is in my opinion unforgivable, your target audience in your home country is lost or at least your sponsors are lost. There is no way to gain it back, because even if the fan base stay (and we should ask how many of them just stay in your channel as haters just to see you going down), the companies don’t want to sponsor any Influencers who might be attached to a negative image.

    But outside Italy, no one really knows about all this right? This is one of the few advantages when you live in a country whose language is unknown outside of it. So why not start to build your audience back in other countries, focusing for example in the US? For sure the competition is higher over there and you are going to be “one of many” instead of being “the best” like right now, but hey at least you can growth and build your brand new.

    Thematic

    In this new trend of being “famous” for who they are and not what they do, she attracted other fans who didn’t really care about fashion, rather were more interested on the life of the couple and their initiatives. This of course made the couple very attractive for these kind of sponsor that might use them as “window” for their products. Basically they were acting as a living Truman Show where every moment of their lives was a good opportunity to showcase a brand / product. Ok, nothing wrong with that… It is only very dangerous.

    In this new way of communicating, the influencer needed to find always something new to say, to keep people interested in the channels. And that is much more difficult if you don’t have any external inputs to use, like newest fashion trends, but you have to constantly make those input yourself. And even more difficult if you are basically a “typical” family with children living at the end a “normal” life. Normal meaning pretty standard, like going to the supermarkt, bringing your kids to school/Kindergarten and so on…

    So what happen is that you want to find new things to say and at the same time find things that people is interest in. In a recent Podcast, the Communication Expert Matteo Flora correctly stated

    “When a company finish things to say, they talk about charity”

    And that is what happen with her. At that point, for her Italian “new” audience she had, she finished the things to say and started therefore to share charity and “good” voluntary actions to continue keep the attention and resonance around her.

    Be aware, the pick of your search in Google happen only when there is a scandal involved…

    Google trends Screenshot

    Go back to the origins of being a Fashion / Stylist Star

    Chiara, your popularity went hand in hand with your fashion skills. You have always been “ahead” of the trends and even inspired new ones, with a very particular characteristic: being the most recognized “feminine” , classy meanwhile stylistic and elegant fashion influencer.

    You were the one against ballerina, all in favor of skinny again large, avoiding anything confortable large skirt or pants always favoring stretch and somehow minimalist and very detail oriented. Very Colorful outfit has always been a strong recognition in your brand image, use it. You should own this unique mixed “snobby” posh style and being more than ever everywhere (expect Italy) on social media talking / posting / sharing all about this fashion life.

    Play with these topics and keywords in your channels well and improve/increase your content in english and your customers based will developed even stronger and quicker than before. But keep in mind…We are in a global network and the bad press might expand and be picked up by outlets abroad…And then it’s too late.

    *Source: Semrush SEO Platform

  • Digital should be for everyone, hence how to make the complex easy

    Now more than ever, with the fast development of technology and the increase of complex software/cloud solutions, it is becoming more and more difficult to understand what a product does or what is exactly its new function. If we think about an old Mobile Phone, the old-fashioned NOKIA to understand, the only ability was to make/receive calls.

    Afterwards it was made able to send SMS’s, play simple games and memorized telephone numbers. After a while it came the possibility to send/receive emails (I still miss my old Blackberry…for Boomer like me that remains still the very best Smartphones for professional use). But that for many people was already somehow very complicated to manage.

    If we look at the Smartphones now there is nothing we can’t do anymore! From E-Mails, Games, Apps of all kind, steps measurements, navigators and much more. But not only that: security passwords with finger scanning or eye/voice recognition, localisation, mobile payments and many other functions. Are all of this making our life simpler? Well in my opinion, it depends. When we understand how these new functionalities work, of course. But is everyone able to learn that quickly? Not really.

    How many of us spent hours to understand how to set the iPhone new mode connected to Cloud. And the synchronization? New Updates? Privacy settings in Social Media? New functionalities? Of course there are lot of people who will say that was easy and actually took 5 minutes…Well I am sure there are also many who agrees with me that it didn’t take 5 Minutes and could have been much easier if was better explained.

    That is the message of my post today. Makes things complicated, easy, it’s not exactly an „easy“ job. All the way through the digital journey it has always been my prerogative to simply all around the digital experience and functionalities, in order to make it possible for everyone to work with them. Technology is meaningless if not understood and ultimately used. And too many times I experienced cool features and really helpful tools that might have really made an impact in a certain process or within a department, if only it was used. And I can’t blame the users for not doing it. When the strength to learn something new is higher than its benefit, it will simply not been done.

    „I don’t understand anything here. It’s just too technical“ – how many times have we heard this? And if they don’t say it, believe me they think it. And it’s not about being lazy here, it’s really about prioritizing. Between all daily activities it is human to choose the ones who bring more benefit with less effort and something difficult to understand and very detailed is not less effort, is a huge effort.

    It is very hard to have in the same mindset the ability to concentrate and deep think about complex schemes and in the same time visualizing the idea of the result in a way that other people see the benefit and the advantages, without all the processes behind.

    Generally speaking, digital experts, similarly with their IT peers, are „their products”, meaning they know all details and are so deeply immersed in it, that they might not remember the final benefit for the end user anymore, or better they know it but at some point it’s for them become „assumed“. This is why it is for them very difficult to explain again and again what are the benefits for their users and more importantly how to get them.

    5 Tipps for a “simple” digital mind-set

    1. Tell and show ONLY what the users NEEDS to see, adapting it according to the target. There is not need to explain the backend of a system or very complex processes through the various tools and channels. Just explain the function and the simple steps to archive it.
    2. Using very simple words. Not everyone knows what is an IP-Adresse or the meaning of RAM or ai. Yes, for the IT people it’s obvious, but in any decision process there will be more than IT involved. Please keep it very child-simple, to the extreme of using word like „memory“ or Database. It might not be 100% accurate but the users understands it.
    3. SEO likes simplicity. Being found in Google is something that every company can’t avoid anymore, and how are the search made? With complex words or very difficult expressions? Even the most expert person in their business will start looking for a simple key-work in their Google search, think about it.
    4. From simple – > complex is always possible, the other way around not. My advice? Start always from the very first and most intuitive benefit and effect of your program/solution and from there start going more and more in details.
    5. Mental associations. The ability here is to compel good product stories, appropriate analogies and memorable metaphors so that the end user immediately knows what the solutions does and wants to know more. The users wants to know and capture at maximum within the least amount of time. In Marketing Material, this translates into a demand for the most useful information in the minimum amount time.

  • The start of the Journey

    To often as a marketing managers I was bombarded from content about how to digitize the marketing activities, how to relaunch the website, the best practices in lead generation and now of course how to best integrate ai in our work.

    Well what I never read anywhere is to actually do all these things in companies, in the real workplace within the real Environment. I guess because most of all this content has been written from agencies or consultants, who have the time to produce it and who is also paid to do it, who basically is “forced” to produce such content.

    Professional in companies don’t have neither the time or the need to write “guide” or educational content to help other peers in the same situation. They already struggle enough in their own one, let alone communicate what they have been through in any kind of form.

    This is why I decided to start a diary in this journey, which I am embracing right now in the company that I am working on.

    Following are my propositions:

    • Document every steps: so that I’ll able to recall the decisions making process, especially important if in the long run not successful
    • Clarify my thoughts: when you put things in writing, you are forced to think through
    • Weekly update: I want to post something every week because consistency is necessary to be effective
    • Stay neutral: it is not about the company or the team, it is about what I want to archive and how

    The intention is to use this as tool for myself as well as heritage of this journey.

    When I started with this company I brought with me the proposition of digizing the marketing acitivities and being able to measure and track all marketing activities in order to analyze them and make data-drive decisisions.

    What I realize this is much more than just “marketing” or “communication”. The transofrmation should start in the processes first. How we collect the leads should come after we define what is a lead and what parameters define it.

    And to be able to understand that, there is much more to know and find-out inside an organisation, that goas beyond the department of marketing or sales or any other department.

    This is why I want to write down the process, the phases and the stages, because I know there are times where you feel like you are not moving, you are not making any progress and it is all for nothing. Yet in those moments I will look back at these pages and remind myself, yes we are moving and yes things are changing, don’t give up.