Gather Round and Share

One of the secrets of good communications is recognising how, while culture and technology might evolve incredibly rapidly, human instincts and desires are much more reliable. One of the most powerful things a brand can do is fulfil familiar needs in unfamiliar territory. 

Consider the campfire. Gathering around a fire with people to share space, time, and stories would be familiar in any part of human history. That sense of community is powerful, and creating something like it can turn brief intellectual engagement with an idea into a more durable, emotional investment. 

For influence, creating a campfire means creating useful, sharable, and repeatable stories. Of course, this has been relevant since long before AI’s emergence as an economic phenomenon. Communications professionals know well that engagement starts with awareness, that awareness starts with memorability, and that people remember stories far more easily than technical details or product names. 

AI adds a new dimension to it, however. Information is becoming easier to produce and retrieve, facts can be summarised, and explanations generated on demand. But when they are not coming from people, those answers give less of a sense of participating in a shared conversation with others who have the same concerns, interests, hopes and pressures. 

That makes community an increasingly important part of building influence. Creating that emotional sense of being together around a campfire with like-minded people is something that AI doesn’t fulfil. 

This doesn’t necessarily mean building a branded online forum or running large-scale in-person events. You certainly don’t need to run a camping retreat to cast the fire’s glow on your audience. It can simply mean creating with a clearer sense of your in-group. 

Newsletters, podcasts and other subscription-led formats matter here because they change the relationship between influential people and their audiences.

“AI has made content easy to produce, but not worth reading. The people worth listening to bring real expertise, evidence, and a defensible point of view. They use AI to sharpen their thinking, not replace it, and take responsibility for what they put into the world each time.”

Petrus Malherbe, Head of Content at Powerfleet

Last year, we described digital platforms as reaching ‘critical mass’: rather than replacing established media, they became part of a broader ecosystem in which people actively assemble their own mix of trusted sources.

This takes many different forms across the Tech 500. Journalists build audiences that follow them as well as their publications. Executives become recognised voices around particular business or technology questions.

Academics and technical experts convey specialist knowledge to wider audiences. Policymakers engage their public outside of conventional political channels. And employees, meanwhile, can collectively extend a company’s reach through their own professional networks. 

None of this means established media becomes less important. If anything, these channels can reinforce one another. A strong media appearance can introduce someone to a new audience; a podcast can give them space to develop an idea; a LinkedIn post can continue the conversation; a newsletter or event can give interested people a reason to return. 

However, to nurture a community without becoming vulnerable to it is a notoriously difficult task that few brands have mastered. Given a shared identity, communities can also move in directions that work against a business’s goals or plans. 

There is inevitably a degree of control that has to be surrendered. Communities form around people and ideas, not messaging frameworks, and influential figures need enough independence to develop a recognisable relationship with the people who follow them. That doesn’t mean handing over the keys. It means being clearer about where the boundaries genuinely need to be – and where people can be trusted to exercise their own judgement. 

In a world where AI delivers more-or-less average content and style at an immeasurable volume, to be forgettable will be unforgivable, while crafting a story-led identity that people can genuinely grasp will offer a secure anchor to build real communities of engagement and influence around a brand. 

Continue Exploring: The US Top 50

Find out which US voices are having the greatest influence on Europe’s technology conversation.