For decades, search engines have been our gatekeepers to the online world. Today, social and AI matter more and more. Alex Pearmain, Co-Founder of OneFifty Consultancy, explores how this “third wave” of digital disruption is reshaping how brands are found, trusted and understood.
It’s a truism that change is constant. But sometimes, an individual moment will signify much more.
I recently became aware that recipe searches in the UK are now as great on TikTok and Instagram, as they are on Google, on the average day. Consumers are changing how and where they search for their dinner plans. Whilst the food may not change, the discovery method does. This is the third wave of digital disruption in marketing and comms, within my career span.
But let’s start with what went before.
The first major wave of digital disruption was when blogs changed the conversation, and the media ecosystem, in the mid-2000s. They elevated the voice of the individual, encouraged ‘citizen-journalism’ (sadly a concept which didn’t last), and encouraged traditional media to innovate (sadly also a concept which is struggling to last).
The second wave was the emergence of social media at-scale. People argue about the exact service that did this (and no, I don’t think Friendster counts in the UK). I’d pinpoint Facebook opening up to the wider market in 2008, and Twitter’s explosive impact on public debate from 2009 onwards. It began a golden age of openness, individual empowerment, and anti-establishment trends which, again, have sadly not stood the test of time untarnished.
So, what is this third wave disruption? The atomisation of digital discovery and information: breaking it down into ever more personalised, specific and context-laden results. We’ve seen the end of ‘mass’ culture moments, beyond sport. No live TV now exceeds low single figure millions of viewers unless a ball is involved. Consequently the concept of fixed points of objective fact is equally scarce.
This individualistic digital experience is driven in three main ways: by social search, ‘dark’ social sharing within small groups via messaging apps, and AI-driven search tailored to the individual via algorithms.
None of this is intrinsically bad. It fits within the logic of market economics, with personalised consumer preferences better ensuring the allocation of information and users.
But the underlying implications are long-term, and significant. The rise of the individual versus the collective, whether that be culture or organisation. Ultimately it leads to the erosion of the establishment, and so consensus and homogeneity are less likely to remain.
Specifically for organisations navigating this third wave disruption, the role of ensuring information discovery is key. They can do this through a) generative engine optimisation (GEO) for AI-driven search, and b) via influential third parties in social search.
It is these approaches that can take the relative stability of second wave social and Google-led discovery, and present it in the atomised third wave.
A key lesson amid all this change is that many of the principles remain the same: ensuring you create content with user needs in mind. Remind yourself that you’re creating for bots to crawl you first, users to read second, and the need to refine, iterate and repeat.
But, what changes is the measurement. There’s now no such thing as ‘ranking’, not anymore. What ranked for one person may not for another. Remember, the audiences are atomised. Once they’ve prompted and gone deeper, what do they get? How to influence AI is the next frontier. At the moment there is limited data offered by the LLMs. This will surely change, if only to attract corporate investment.
Returning to our dinner plans – and those shifting recipe searches – it is often said we think with our stomachs. As such, it’s pertinent to follow this gluttonous trend, and prepare for more areas of our daily lives to shift how we navigate them. Tasty thoughts, for those who prepare ahead.