The term "de-influencing" has gained popularity in recent years as people have become more aware of the potential negative effects of social media on mental health, self-esteem, overall well-being—as well as the environment and your wallet. It is a harkening to pay attention to the ills of influencing such as pollution from fast fashion or labor violations or zero sustainability. Although, it is difficult to pinpoint a specific date or instance when the term was first mentioned—albeit lately it’s being mentioned quite a bit with influencers jumping on the bandwagon left and right.

Throughout this post, we will use Affinio with the help of Talkwalker to unravel sentiment around a PR crisis— namely the #BoycottHersheys hashtag. Powering your PR communications with audience intelligence and audience sentiment is a powerful way to understand if a crisis is real or merely fake news.

This week, we would like to dive into Facebook’s 2023 Trend Analysis report. Although these types of annual reports provide valuable insights into consumer behaviors and preferences on specific platforms, we at Affinio are on a mission to validate whether these trends can be considered ubiquitous or just “channel-native” in nature.s