In today’s digital age, hype is a powerful marketing tool on social media platforms. The social media sphere is often caught up in different waves of hype. Hype takes shape in the form of seemingly unending buzz around a particular new product, event, venue opening and so on.
As with many other marketing tactics, hype
leverages on consumer behaviour. It feeds on consumers’ need to remain updated
with the latest trends for fear of missing out. Hyped products are essentially
portrayed as extremely desirable. This lays a self-imposed, societal pressure
on users to be part of the action, resulting into a perpetuating cycle that
feeds such hype.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO CREATE SUSTAINABLE HYPE?
Yes. Some definitions of hype attach the time element to it – hype will ultimately die off over time. This is true to a certain extent, but hype can be sustainable if executed strategically.
HOW TO CREATE SUSTAINABLE HYPE?
1. MAKE YOUR MARKETING ACTIVITY PERIODICAL
Marketing campaigns that have proven to be successful can be brought back periodically. For instance, Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day takes place annually in April. This has been a tradition since 1979. Due to repeated editions of this event, Ben & Jerry’s has successfully crafted a mental note in the minds of its consumers. As a result, the Free Cone Day has since become an annual sustainable hype that Ben & Jerry’s fans participate in. What marketers can learn from Ben & Jerry’s is to leverage on successful marketing campaigns, making it a periodic event that consumers can look forward to.
2. HOLISTIC PORTRAYAL
Hype does not necessarily have to be of a particular campaign. Instead, hype can be tied to a brand name. If consumers conclude that the hype created by a certain brand is not substantial, they will tend to switch off when it comes to future hype generated from that brand. This stems from the lack of trust in a brand’s marketing tactics and reduces the desired impact of marketing activities.
Hence, it is essential for brands to paint a holistic portrayal of the product or event that they are advertising. This might seem like an arduous task as marketers tend to showcase the best aspects of the subject in hand. That might seem strategic. However, if the audience are often left feeling disappointed due to the inflated expectations, they might grow to be skeptical of future marketing hype. Hence, brands have to find the balance between unrealistic portrayals and enticing marketing.
3. THE USE OF TRIGGERS
Triggers are cues that lead to certain
behavior, which in turn reward the behavior. This is called the habit loop (Triggers -> Behavior
-> Reward). Triggers can be internal
or external. Internal triggers lie inside the consumers’ minds and emotions.
For instance, people often find themselves opening the Instagram application
when they are bored. Boredom is the internal trigger that cues them to scroll through
Instagram. On the other hand, external triggers are cues in the environment. It
can come in different forms, such as paid advertisements and mobile
notifications.
Marketers often take advantage of this habit
loop by positioning its product or service in the loop. Some restaurants have
special promotions on a specific day of the week. If Restaurant A has special
promotions on every Wednesday that will be announced on their Facebook page,
fans of the restaurant will tend to check out the Facebook page on Wednesdays. The
day (Wednesday) is the trigger which leads to the behavior of checking out the
restaurant’s Facebook page. In turn, consumers will be rewarded with the
knowledge of the promotion and ultimately the actual promotion itself if they decide
to dine at the restaurant.
Hence, triggers help to generate hype around
long-running promotions to sustain it (though the volume of hype might not be
phenomenal).
TO USE HYPE AS A MARKETING TOOL, BRANDS MUST BE ABLE TO LIVE UP TO THE HEIGHTENED EXPECTATIONS
Hype is clearly a useful tool in brand marketing – but caution must be taken when generating hype as it can play out as a double-edged sword. With all the buzz and attention, can the product live up to heightened expectations? The consumer’s experience must specifically be taken into account as that would set the tone for other prospective consumers, image of the brand, and the relationship the brand has with its customers.
All in all, the consumer’s experiences must
have a positive output in order to reap benefits from social media hype. Should
reality fall short from expectations, brand image may suffer and overwhelming
hype may backfire upon the product and the brand itself.
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The C-suite is now expected to be the face of the brand, the primary storyteller, and a digital thought leader. But despite the pressure to post more, engagement on executive content is plummeting.
Why? Because in a feed flooded with AI-generated thought leadership and corporate updates, audiences have developed a "BS detector." They are scrolling past and looking for something else.
In our recent "Future of Measurement" webinar, Prashant Saxena, VP of Revenue & Insights, SEA, pinpointed that it’s not about posting more, but about getting real. Being authentic is a daily ritual, it’s not just a buzzword.
Where do C-Suite leaders go wrong?
Why do so many capable leaders struggle to build traction on LinkedIn?
1. The "corporate bot" syndrome
Many executives treat LinkedIn like a press release distribution channel. Their posts are perfectly grammatically correct, sanitized by three layers of PR approval, and utterly devoid of personality. If your post sounds like it could have been written by any CEO in any industry, it’s not doing its job.
2. Delegating too much
It is standard practice for executives to have ghostwriters. However, the mistake lies in delegating the perspective. When a leader completely hands off their LinkedIn presence to a team without providing personal voice notes, opinions, or raw thoughts, the content feels hollow. Audiences waste no time in picking up how artificial something reads or sounds.
3. Broadcasting, not engaging
Many "Creator CXOs" view social media as a megaphone rather than a telephone. They drop a piece of "thought leadership" and leave. They don't reply to comments, they don't engage with other creators, and they don't show up in the messy, human conversations happening in the comments section.
The ritual of being authentic: A 3-step framework
During the webinar, Prashant broke down the solution into a "daily ritual of authenticity." It’s a practical framework to move from being a "corporate bot" to "trusted leader."
1. Signal the Right Values: Values mean more than titles
The Shift: Instead of sharing company wins ("We hit Q3 targets!"), share the why behind the decisions.
The Tactic: When you post about a new initiative, explain the difficult trade-offs you faced or the core value that drove the decision. What was the moral compass of the decision made?
2. Share the "Behind-the-Scenes": Perfection is intimidating; progress is inspiring.
The Shift: Move away from only posting the "highlight reel."
The Tactic: Share the messy middle. Did a product launch almost fail? Did you have to pivot your strategy? Posting about a challenge you are currently navigating (or recently overcame) invites empathy and engagement that a polished success story never will.
3. Leverage Third-Party Proof Points: Validation is stronger when it comes from others.
The Shift: Stop being the only one talking about how great your company is.
The Tactic: Elevate the voices of your employees, customers, and partners. Repost an employee’s win with your personal commentary on why you’re proud of them. It shows you are listening and that your leadership has a tangible impact on real people.
C-Suite leaders who “get it”
Who is actually doing this well? Here are a few leaders who have mastered the art of engagement by being human first and executives second.
1. Satya Nadella (CEO, Microsoft)
Why he wins: Signaling values. Satya rarely posts generic corporate updates. His content is deeply philosophical and tied to his core mission of empathy and empowerment. Even when discussing AI or cloud computing, he frames it through the lens of human impact. He doesn't just sell Microsoft; he sells a worldview that people want to align with.
2. Melanie Perkins (CEO, Canva)
Why she wins: Behind-the-Scenes reality. Melanie is famous for sharing the rejection letters and the "no's" she received in the early days of Canva. By sharing the struggle, she makes her massive success feel earned and relatable. She frequently highlights the culture and the team (the "Canvanauts") rather than just her own accolades.
3. Ryan Holmes (Founder, Hootsuite)
Why he wins: Third-party proof & engagement. Ryan understands the platform mechanics. He uses polls, asks questions, and champions other entrepreneurs. He frequently shines a spotlight on industry trends that validate his company's mission without being overtly salesy. He acts as a curator of industry wisdom.
The bottom line
As Prashant Saxena highlighted, reputation is a downstream outcome of an upstream habit.
If you want to fix your engagement, sounding like a "Creator CXO” does a lot of harm to one’s personal brand. Starting to sound like a person who happens to be a CXO would be so much better.
Interested in viewing the whole recording? Watch our webinar here.
Alternatively, contact our team to learn more insights into meaningful measurement, KPIs and communicating using the right dataset.
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Blog
Why is CXO engagement dropping (and how to fix it)?
We explore how CXOs can move from a corporate bot to a trusted leader and improve their personal branding online.
The media landscape is accelerating. In an era where influence is ephemeral and every angle demands instant comprehension, PR and communications professionals require more than generic technology—they need intelligence engineered for their specific challenges.
Isentia is proud to introduce Lumina, a groundbreaking suite of intelligent AI tools. Lumina has been trained from the ground up on the complex workflows and realities of modern communications and public affairs. It is explicitly designed to shift professionals from passive media monitoring back into the role of strategic leaders and pacesetters.
“The PR, Comms and Public Affairs sectors have been experimenting with AI, but most tools have not been built with their real challenges in mind.” said Joanna Arnold, CEO of Pulsar Group.
“Lumina is different; it is the first intelligence suite designed around how narratives actually form today, combining human credibility signals with machine-level analysis. It helps teams understand how stories evolve, filter out noise and respond with context and confidence to crises and opportunities.”
Setting a new standard for PR intelligence
Lumina is centered on empowering, not replacing, the human element of communications strategy. This suite is purpose-built to help PR, Comms, and Public Affairs professionals significantly improve productivity, enhance message clarity, and facilitate early risk detection.
Lumina enables communicators to:
Understand & Interpret: Move beyond basic alerts to strategically map the trajectory and spread of narrative evolution.
Focus & Personalise: Achieve the clarity necessary to execute strategic action before critical moments pass.
We are launching the Lumina suite by making our first module immediately available: Stories & Perspectives.
In the current fragmented, multi-channel media environment, communications professionals need to be able to instantly perceive not just how a story is growing, but also how it is being perceived across different stakeholder groups.
Stories & Perspectives organizes raw media mentions into clustered, cohesive Stories, and the Perspectives that exist within each, reflecting distinct media, audience, and public affairs angles. This unique functionality allows users to:
Rise above the noise: Instantly identify which high-level topics are gaining momentum or fading from attention.
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Catch the pivot point: Precisely identify the moment a story shifts—from a strategic opportunity to a reputation risk—or when a new key opinion former begins guiding the conversation.
"Media isn’t a stream of mentions," said Kyle Lindsay, Head of Product at Pulsar Group. "But rather a living system of stories shaped by competing perspectives. When you can see those structures clearly, you gain the ability to understand issues as they form, anticipate how they’ll evolve, and act with precision. That’s what we mean when we talk about AI built for communicators, and that's what an off-the-shelf LLM can't give you."
The Lumina Roadmap: AI tools for the future of comms
The launch of Stories & Perspectives is the first release of many. Over the upcoming months, we will systematically roll out the full Lumina roadmap, introducing a comprehensive set of AI tools engineered to handle every phase of the communications lifecycle.
The full Lumina suite will soon incorporate:
Curated media summaries: AI-driven daily summaries customized specifically to the priorities of senior leadership, highlighting only the most relevant stories.
Reputation analysis: Advanced measurement tracking how critical themes like ethics, innovation, and leadership are statistically shaping corporate perception.
Press release & media relations assistant: Tools designed to accelerate content creation and craft hyper-focused, personalized pitches that reach the precise contacts faster.
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Want to harness the power of Lumina AI for your PR, Comms, or Public Affairs team? .
Complete the form below to register your interest.
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Blog
Announcing Lumina: The purpose-built AI suite for PR, Comms, and Public Affairs
An intelligent suite of AI tools trained on the language, workflows, and realities of modern public relations and communications.
