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How do people become truly influential in the social age?
If you, like me have been raised with the notion that celebrities, sports stars and politicians were influential because of what they do and not who they are – we’re on the same page. But when you actually examine today’s influential people and how they became influential – the picture has changed dramatically.
Influence is both a natural and learned quality that is developed over time. It can still be inherited, received by winning an election, or conveyed by a new job title – but that’s becoming less prevalent now. I’ve seen influencers in the social age drive tremendous awareness for social causes, leads for companies and votes for presidential elections.
Many of these influencers have mastered the art of communicating what everyone else is thinking or what they should be thinking. They are curious and always ask, “What’s important here?”
"I mean, influencers are a nice idea. But actually, they’re not needed. They’re no better than a couple of normal people endorsing your brand and will have no long-term impact. They’re overrated and make no difference to your business as people trust them no more than anyone else on the internet…”
Imagine if someone said this to you, straight-faced. We’ve seen it happen and it’s stuck with us. Not only do we respectfully disagree, but we’d like to take this chance to refute the above notion and actually point out the benefits of getting ‘influencers’ on your side.
Increasing customer advocacy is now a top priority for 67% of CMOs, and with 74% of customers relying on social media to guide their purchasing decisions you can begin to see why it’s such a high priority.
Here’s 8 reasons why getting widely trusted people from your field to sing your praises can only be a good thing for your business....
Every day I get nonsensical pitches asking me to become a brand advocate and write about a brand, watch a demo for a brand, or accept a guest post (about auto glass tinting, tanning beds, accounting software?). I guess it’s predictable … like anything in business, when people find a good thing, everybody piles on.
But what dismays me is that even many great companies are doing this all wrong. Like any consumer, I form relationships with my favorite products almost as if they were my friends. This notion seems to be lost on most people tapping into influence marketing.
So sitting in the seat of a company marketing executive trying to get my attention, here is what I would do. This is a personal post. I am only speaking for myself. But I think these general themes probably also apply to many other “Citizen Influencers” who have a powerful online voice.
Here is your game plan for getting your product mentioned on my blog (and speeches and classes and podcasts)....
By encouraging influential people—bloggers, customers, thought leaders, journalists, consultants, experts—to talk about your products and to recommend them, you quickly score a unique advantage over your competitors.
So how can marketers make sure that their message is the one to get heard and absorbed?
Marketers have realized that there is a better chance that their message will be picked up and acted on if it has more credibility than conventional advertisements. They have understood that cynicism among customers can be overcome when, for example, family and friends recommend a product for use.
This knowledge, and the might of social media, can be used to market products indirectly to potential consumers. By encouraging influential people to talk about products and recommend them, marketers quickly score a unique advantage over their competitors....
Maybe you still need to convince yourself that bloggers are a pretty epic way to promote your brand?Or, what I hear of often, is that marketers need to convince their bosses to board the blogger outreach train.
Regardless of the why, the who is the bloggers and you don’t want your competitor to scoop up yummy blogger mentions before you can get your brand on board. So print out this post and keep it with you because you’ll never know when you’ll have to make the case for blogger outreach....
Want sway? Who doesn’t?
We all want to be influential.
So our conversations often become about influencer marketing—you know, the fine art of getting big kahunas in your camp. To achieve greater reach and resonance (ooh, fancy marketing words), you try to win over the people who already have it. And it can be amazingly effective.
I’ve found a fair share of articles and eBooks on influencer marketing, which cover the basics, but haven’t seen many practical and powerful “go get it done” lists. Consequently, I created one....
...Today, I want to focus on one specific part of that session: how to pitch influencers. Social media and PR bloggers have been talking about this topic for years, yet I don’t see pitches getting much better. So, I’m going to take ONE MORE crack at this, today. When you are sending an email to an “influencer”, it really doesn’t matter what you’re asking them to do (write about your product, attend your event, share your post in social media) the same components of your pitch need to be present....
... Think about some industry leaders you follow. Do you place more value in information that they share? In general, people trust third party information on products or services over information provided by a brand. Zuberance found that offers shared by trusted advocates convert at a 4X-10X higher rate than offers sent by brands. This is why thought leaders are important. They provide trusted insight and opinion on an industry. Whatever they post is often viewed, retweeted and liked numerous times. And, it is trusted more than most marketing content.
Combining content marketing and influencer marketing is a great way to maximize your content strategy. A content marketing strategy with influencers in mind is a powerful asset for any brand. To combine the two, stay on top of the latest trends and tailor your content accordingly. Stories are newsworthy for a reason and influencers are always on the lookout for great content to publish. How does your brand fit into that story? How will you get people to read your story? Create content that relates to trends and includes your brand message so that influencers will advocate for you....
Marketing Strategy - Nearly two-thirds (61%) of marketers say one the biggest challenges of influencer marketing is identifying the relevant persons who can truly help their brand or campaigns, according to a recent ...
Pop quiz: what famous celebrity do you associate with JELL-O pudding? I’m guessing you had no problems coming up with Bill Cosby, which isn’t surprising given the fact that his spokesperson relationship with JELL-O lasted nearly thirty years.
For some companies, it’s far more valuable to hire an affordable spokesperson with a track record of good ROI. Someone with a built-in community, social reach, and real world expertise in brand collaboration.
That’s where online publishers come in. It may seem far-fetched that a blogger has the potential to wield as much influence as, say, Bill Cosby — but the fact is, times have changed. When it comes to influencing purchasing decisions, celebrities simply don’t hold the sway they used to.
And bloggers — independent website publishers — are powerful influencers. Here’s a case study from an Altimeter Group research presentation that covers an enterprise technology company’s campaign...
I recently received a letter from Dale Dixon, the author of a new public speaking book called Sweating Bullets: A Story about Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking.
Until I received his note, which was accompanied by a copy of his book, Dale and I had never communicated. But the tone of his pitch letter was perfect—and a great example of the right way to pitch a stranger....
I hear a lot of buzz about influencer marketing — how it has evolved, how it comes in different flavors and how brands are using it — but I never hear anyone talk about Google’s plans to change it… dramatically!
An Emerging Channel When brands first began to capitalize on the power of influencer marketing, they tried to do so with casual and subtle efforts that often included complimentary products or other perks. Moreover, they usually kept their efforts “under the radar.” Traditional blogger outreach programs are a good example of this, where brands would give product samples to bloggers in exchange for a blog post or two.
But traditional blogger outreach has changed considerably. Large blogger communities like Triberr, Sverve and TapInfluence have evolved into transparent marketplaces where influencers and brands can collaborate to develop content and get the word out. Such marketplaces allow influencers to post their offerings, audiences and pricing so that brands can select the profiles that best align with their needs....
Important online influencers are opinionated hard workers and socially active. Here's how to approach them.
...What is an online influencer according to LEWIS PR? Everyone can share his opinions about products, services, business or specific topics nowadays. A ‘real’ online influencer is someone who has the potential to alter the attitudes and sentiments of others, more than “others”.
They are often strongly opinionated and have a large network. However, the ability to influence how others look at products, brands or certain matters, is more important than the abstract numbers. Especially since online influencers tend to be highly specialized in a specific domain....
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“How do people become truly influential in the social age?”
Clearly, Mark and I admire many of the same people. His article is full of examples where he showcases leaders in new media marketing and speaks to their qualities.
Monsters of Influence
The Forbes article inspired me to create my take on the qualities of a person of influence. It became a slide deck with a fun Halloween-themed twist and earned a spot as SlideShare of the Day.
I hope you enjoy it, share it, and comment below with your feedback and any ideas you have about the qualities of influential people.
What is the source of my influence? I create content, yes. I engage consistently, of course. But at the end of the day it gets down to trust, right?
That’s why the emerging Citizen Influencers have to be very judicious in their relationships with brands. Likewise, brands have to be discerning about their expectations from influencers.
If brands become too exposed with too many bloggers, both parties will suffer. If the credibility of the blogger declines, the effectiveness of their advocacy is doomed.
“No” is a legitimate strategy
That’s why I am saying “no” to most opportunities right now. I have to be incredibly selective. First, it has to be a company I truly, authentically believe in and second, I have to limit how much I do because if this blog ever becomes filled with spammy sponsored posts or suspicious brand advocacy, you’re going to go away. And you should....
The crux of the matter is this: while everyone’s capable of making ripples, an elite few actually have the power to make waves. They’re influential. Readers care what they think, are more prone to buy into their points of view and act on them.
These influential types, which we conveniently call “influencers,” serve as a proxy to the online universe. They amplify the messages they choose to. They point the way. They help the common man focus his limited time and resources on the most powerful channels and conversations.Let’s cut to the kill. They sway purchasing decisions...
...The fundamental problem with influencer marketing is not that some people aren’t more influential than others, but that there is little, if any, evidence that influencer strategies—other than celebrity endorsement—are viable. Yet all is not lost. There is a way to consistently increase the likelihood of viral chains.
In 2001, Jonah Peretti had an e-mail exchange with Nike that went viral on the Web. He was fascinated and, a year later, he met Duncan Watts at a conference. The two struck up a friendship and then a collaboration. They did a number of projects together that had promising results, which they published in Harvard Business Review.
Their approach, which they called big seed marketing, does not rely on identifying a small number of special people, but rather on harnessing the power of a large number of ordinary people. By reaching a mass audience, and encouraging them to share, you increase the likelihood that a viral chain emerges and, even if it doesn’t, you still improve performance.Peretti went on to co-found Huffington Post, which was sold to AOL for $315 million in 2011. His second company, Buzzfeed, is now valued at $850 million. In his extended interview with Felix Salmon, he credits not influentials, but “a constellation of connected things” for making his articles go viral so consistently.
So if you want things to spread, forget about special people with “rare qualities.” Be interesting, reach as many people as you can and encourage them to share....
LinkedIn has more than 313 million members worldwide. With such a thriving community of business professionals, there’s no question you’ll be able to find the person you need to enhance your business while using the platform. It has grown to become one of the most useful places to find leads, learn about other companies, and discuss ideas in the working world. You can create content using LinkedIn Publisher, follow industry leaders using Pulse, and even join relevant LinkedIn Groups to connect with other like-minded individuals.There’s honestly so much to LinkedIn (we haven’t even scratched the surface in ourprevious posts) that it’s common that new users to the platform have trouble getting started. Once you create your profile and import your current contacts, what’s next?...
The influencers in your niche are probably receiving hundreds of friendly requests a day. Hence, the trick behind successful outreach is to stand out among your peers and catch the intended party's attention.
The success probability may be bleak, but influencer engagement is not exactly rocket science. And it can drive significant results with the right strategy and social media practices....
In the past, I’ve written about how to NOT pitch a blogger. The saga continues as I get an endless stream of unprepared public relations professions who don’t have the information I need to promote their client’s products or services.
It took a while to actually get a pitch that was worth showing. I received an email from a social media strategist with Supercool Creative. Supercool is a creative agency specializing in online video creative and production, viral marketing, video seeding, integrated social media campaigns, viral videos, branded entertainment and webisodes. This is an incredible email!...
“Every brand, large or small, service, CPG, and beyond, should be moving their efforts to include IRM [influencer relationship marketing] to be a pillar in their communication and marketing plan,” Massura said. “IRM is important not only to affect purchase decision and consideration, but when deployed strategically, it can benefit reputation, employee retention and recruitment, and diffuse crisis.”
From the glowing online content about influencer marketing blanketing the webto Danny Brown and Sam Fiorella’s much-buzzed about book “Influence Marketing,” almost everyone seems to value the power of IRM. However, almost everyone does not include NeedTagger CEO Vernon Niven....
Identifying the right hashtags is critical when it comes to social monitoring and engagement. This allows us to find the conversations where our target audience hangs out.
By adding value to the conversation, we can start to build up a relationship that could possibly leads to a business transaction (or at the very least awareness).
I have developed this three-step method using a few favorite Twitter tools – Twitonomy, Hashtagify.me, and RiteTag....
Take a look at LinkedIn today, and it’ll bear little resemblance to the LinkedIn of just a few years ago.The design is slick. The mobile apps are polished. And the site has begun to look like a full-fledged consumer social network, replete with content that you actually might want to read.
In that vein comes the next phase of LinkedIn’s evolution: Personal publishing. On Wednesday, the company announced that everyone can now publish personal, long-form content to their LinkedIn profile pages, providing the site’s 277 million-plus users with their own professional blogging platform....
The tide of influence hunting on the web is rising beyond public relations and social media to digital marketing at large. In particular, there’s growing attention being directed towards influencers as gateways to new audiences.
Influence as the ability for a person to inspire action amongst a community is a very powerful thing and therefore, increasingly appreciated by digital marketing and PR pros alike. An influencer program that identifies, qualifies, engages and maintains relationships with industry influencers can serve as a formidable “force multiplier” for everything from content amplification to product feedback to content co-creation. Beyond the “brandividual endorsement”, people with a strong center of influence can provide valuable context and credibility to a company seeking to connect with an audience of buyers. But in an age of information overload and the ability for anyone, anywhere to publish, finding those influential connections in your industry can prove to be a challenge.
Here are 9 of many tools that can be used for the initial task of finding influencers aligned with specific areas of subject matter expertise. Several go beyond discovery and also support filtering, managing, engaging, monitoring and reporting....
Want a quick & easy way to connect with influential people on Twitter? This blog shows you 2 easy ways to find top influencers on Twitter.
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Keeping the good side out :)