influence marketing

Influence Marketing: A Business Book for the Next Wave of Influence

This is a cross post with the Influence Marketing blog.

Since Sam and I announced our book at the end of last year, many people have asked us one primary question about it:

Is it for people looking to increase their social score, or is it something different?

The one sentence answer to that is fairly simple:

This isn’t a book about improving your social score; instead, as you’ll see below, this is a business book around the topic of influence and how it shapes marketing as well as other business verticals.

While today’s influence market is (arguably) led by social scoring platforms, we see things very differently.

We’ve already shared where we see the future of influence marketing and which platforms will be leading the way.

With regards the audience best-suited to the book and what it offers, below is the full overview.

Influence Marketing: A Business Book in the Truest Sense

Since we announced our book at the end of last year, many people have asked us who the book’s audience is. Is it for people looking to increase their social score, or is it something different.

The one sentence answer to that is fairly simple:

This isn’t a book about improving your social score; instead, as you’ll see below, this is a business book around the topic of influence and how it shapes marketing as well as other business verticals.

While today’s influence market is (arguably) led by social scoring platforms, we see things very differently.

We’ve already shared where we see the future of influence marketing and which platforms will be leading the way.

With regards the audience best-suited to the book and what it offers, below is the full overview.

Influence Marketing: Why You Should Buy This Book

The practice of influence marketing, popularized by Daniel Edelman in the late 1960?s with celebrity endorsements, is enjoying a renaissance in the social media era.

As more and more consumers migrate to online communications, the concept of branding and advertising has been democratized.

Increasingly, consumers are making decisions based on the attitudes and recommendations expressed by the masses and their peers, with whom they now have immediate and around-the-clock access to.

Businesses are now competing with ? and often losing to ? ?the wisdom of crowds? in the branding battle.

Therein lays the opportunity that has spurred on the growth of modern influence marketing: identifying individuals who sway consumer opinion and solicit them to advocate on your behalf.

Yet the early adopters attempting to capitalize on this opportunity by offering influence scoring platforms have been marred with criticisms of faulty algorithms, unethical behavior and lack of measurable impact on the bottom-line.

Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing analyzes the renewal of this marketing practice, the factors that impact how consumers are influenced to take action and the challenges faced with current software solutions and strategies.

With that analysis, it builds a new methodology for how businesses can evolve this practice from a promotional and branding exercise to a measurable lead generation and sales conversion effort.

Key lessons in this book include:

How to identify at what stage in the purchase life cycle target customers are at;
How to identify the micro-influencers who directly impact purchase decisions at each stage;
The situational factors that contribute to derailing brand recommendations in social media.

With this methodology in place, we provide a blueprint for predicting and managing influence paths that generate measurable action and impact on the business? bottom line for both B2B and B2C organizations.

This book heralds in the next phase of this evolving industry and provides actionable strategies that will define how influence marketing is executed for the next 10 years.

The Next Wave of Influence

As you can see by the overview, this is a business book in the truest sense. Much of the criticism around influence marketing at the moment is that there are no real measurable metrics being shared.

It’s all well and good raising buzz and awareness but if there is no real action happening behind that buzz, where’s the return? Likes and retweets will only keep you in business so long.

Influence can be used for so much more than just initial buzz and awareness.

The book provides a defined framework of how to identify the end result; where that brand message tipped from awareness to intent to action; and how to build true long-term advocacy across multiple verticals, including marketing, service, HR, non-profits and much more.

Exclusive online components offer webinars, one-on-ones and lesson plans for executing and measuring your own influencer program(s).

We look forward to sharing our vision soon.

Pre-order your copy of Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing from either Amazon or Barnes & Noble today.

Why Platforms Like @Traackr are Leading the Future of Influence Marketing

In about 11 weeks time, Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing (affiliate link) will be released. 11 weeks – that’s kinda scary!

While Sam and I will have some cool stuff up our sleeves for anyone preordering the book (and if you send your receipt to us, you’ll get something personal today), we’re still in the final stages of writing and talking with brands and platform developers.

One of these platforms is San Francisco-based Traackr, which I’ve featured on this blog previously. What I like about Traackr’s approach is their goal to make influence truly contextual, and not be reliant on a score that can be gamed.

Earlier this week, Sam and I chatted with?Traackr?founder and CEO?Pierre-Loic Assayag?and VP, Marketing?Evy Wilkins?about why Traackr isn?t your ?typical influencer platform?. Some of the topics we discussed include:

Pierre-Loic’s dislike for social scoring platforms and algorithms that claim to measure influence but only measure popularity;
The current limitations of Traackr’s platform and where it’s going next;
Why attempting to game Traackr’s algorithm would simply be a waste of time;
Why Relevance and Resonance are so important to Traackr and their clients as data points;
The role of influence marketing as a lead generation tool as well as a community one.

One thing that you can see when watching the video is both Pierre-Loic and Evy’s passion for their platform and the different approach they’re trying to take with Traackr.

Having spent a lot of time with the platform and seeing some of the stuff they’re working on has – along with some other platforms – restored my faith in the influence marketing space, as well as validated the methodology and new influence model Sam and I lay out in our book.

It’s a long video, coming in at just under an hour, but when you have the time to watch it, it’s definitely worth it and full of great insights.

Here’s to the next wave.

The State of Digital Influence 2013

Leading social media ad network Technorati Media recently released their 2013 Digital Influence Report.

Gathering feedback from more than 6,000 influencers [bloggers and content creators], 1,200 consumers and 150 brand marketers, this new Digital Influence Report replaces Technorati’s annual State of the Blogosphere report.

The fact that Technorati, widely seen by many as “the blogging Bible”, has replaced their blogging report with one about influence and influencers highlights why this topic is such a hot one, and why brands need to better understand this ever-evolving medium.

The 2013 Digital Influence Report shares some interesting facts on the evolution of social media in general, as well as where influence is playing an increasingly key part in the marketing campaigns of brands globally.

Here are some of the key findings.

Social Scoring is Losing Traction

One of the things we’ve continuously talked about, both here on the blog and across social communities, is that social scoring for influence is merely an entry point component, and shouldn’t be used as a key metric in an influencer campaign.

The graphic below, which highlights the key factors brands take into account when finding influencers to work with, back that view up.

Data insight companies like comScore and Nielsen, along with social proof like Facebook and Twitter connections, are used, as are blog statistics.

While these are still basic starting points, when you look to the right of the chart you can see how this approach is diluting the use of social scoring sites. Klout, Kred and PeerIndex are all skewed towards the “Don’t use” response, while LinkedIn is also seen less favourably than social proof and statistics.

A reason for this could be the lack of public success stories social scoring sites are sharing; or it could be that brands are finally realizing scoring is just one small part of the bigger influence marketing picture.

Either way, it’s interesting to see how the scales are shifting.

The Connected Consumer and the Micro-Influencer

One of the key messages throughout our book is that the identity of the influencer, as he or she stands today, needs to change.

Mass marketing influence – where brands pay for several thousand “influencers” based on an algorithm with no true context – is missing the bigger picture: the real influence lies in macro and micro influencer communities.

Again, this thinking is borne out by the image below.

More than half the respondents to Technorati’s survey stated the smaller the community, the greater the influence (which ties back to the question about the effectiveness of mass influence marketing based on social scores).

As we discuss in the book, there are several components and layers to a successful influence campaign – just as there are several layers and components to the situational factors that could disrupt a campaign.

This includes the people in the immediate circle of a consumer (the micro influencers), and those that impact thinking but not necessarily decision-making (the macro influencers). Outside of these two circles, then you have the mass marketing approach, and the influencers that have the least impact.

Blogs Are Still the “In” to Influencers

With the rise in social media communities and networks across sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and the other leading players in the field, many analysts have suggested this means the blog as a productive medium is dead.

This thinking is misled, at best, particularly when it comes to the influencer space.

For a medium that’s in its death throes, blogging holds its own when it comes to that most important of metrics for brands running influencer campaigns to generate sales.

While retail sites and brand sites lead the way (another important pointer on why brands need to become involved in social media), blogging shares the third spot with Facebook (which has yet to truly show its value for brands using it as a business medium).

Twitter is almost redundant, highlighting its strength in building the relationship to the sale, while marketers’ current darling of the day Pinterest is also lacking in substance when it comes to importance to the consumer during the purchase cycle.

The relevance of blogs as a key medium for influencer campaigns is further strengthened by the metrics influencers themselves allocate importance to.

Of the top eight responses, blog metrics account for three of them: page views, comments and uniques.

The comments one in particular is one that brands should be looking to when looking to connect with influencers. A connected community with a responsive blogger is one that can identify a product launch’s weakness, as well as offer valuable insights into the honest opinions of your target audience.

Social scoring sits way down at the bottom of the metrics influencers take note of.

The simple takeaway here – if your brand wants to create an effective influence outreach campaign, blogs and their audience are still a hugely important part of the puzzle.

Context and Partnership is Key

One of the biggest standouts from our research for the book, and one that’s being increasingly seen in online conversations, is the lack of context in many influencer campaigns, which – naturally – offers poor results for brands partaking in these campaigns.

It makes perfect sense, then, that context as well as a true partnership is high on the list of key preferences from influencers when it comes to working with brands.

Looking at the top five responses, influencers are recognizing their importance to brands, as well as wanting to ensure that the trust they’ve built with their audience is not eroded by non-relevant content and partnerships.

The key message for brands here is simple – treat influencers with the same respect you would other media spend. Work closely with them on tailoring your message for their audience; compensate them fairly for their time; and be responsive to questions and concerns when trying to access their community.

The Future of Influence

The full Digital Influence 2013 report offers other valuable insights, including the disconnect between influencers and brands and the metrics that matter (brands see Facebook Likes as a success, while influencers are measuring activity and action around their site and promotional message).

it also shows that brand spend across social, mobile and video will increase in 2013, at the expense of search and display ads.

What this means for brand looking to participate in the space successfully, and where influencer campaigns begin to play an increasingly larger role, is clear:

Context remains critical for partnerships and promotions;
Social scoring is becoming marginalized as a key metric;
Blogs are still an important medium;
Micro and macro influencer communities are more effective than large-scale outreach.

It’s clear to see from the report that social media – and, by association, influence marketing – is maturing, with expectations of true business results versus social amplification and scores leading the way.

This is great news for the platforms adding true value to the influencer space, and for the brands willing to look beyond scoring and simple metrics to a bigger conversation.

We look forward to continuing that conversation.

You can download a copy of the full report here.

The Fallacy of the Democratization of Influence

When we currently think of influence, we probably think of social scoring platforms like Klout, Kred and PeerIndex. These are the early adopters to the social influence space and, as such, have built an impressive level of awareness around their platforms and definition of influence.

Proponents of social scoring have praised Klout, as the most popular platform, for democratizing influence – allowing anyone to be an influencer regardless of audience size, social standing and location.

While it’s true that social scoring can start the process of finding influencers, it’s not quite as clear cut when it comes to being democratic around influence itself.

Social Scoring Silos the Elite

The problem with any scoring system is that it only rewards those with a high number. Want to buy a car? Tough luck if your FICO score is under a certain amount. The same goes for social scoring in the influence space.

Want to have a new Cadillac to test drive for a weekend? You better have a score over X amount. Free flight or upgrade to first class hotel accommodation? Make sure your score is high enough.

This engenders an ” us against them” mentality. Jane Average may be a better person to drive conversation and foot traffic to a car dealership because she’s a gearhead yet Joe Average, who has no intent to buy that car brand but has a higher Klout score because he’s more active online, is the one that gets the car keys.

This elite rewards system now engenders another problem – it begins to affect the natural tone of online conversations, as those below the fold realize they can change their language online and be identified as an industry influencer because they’re speaking about a certain brand more.

As the online language changes, the algorithms are rendered ineffective because now everyone truly is an influencer – and yet, they’re clearly not.

The True Definition of Influence

Which brings us to the real crux about influence – who truly impacts how a decision is made and at what point in the purchase cycle of a customer does this decision get made? Is it as a result of a socially active broadcaster, or someone else completely? And, if it’s someone else, do social scoring platforms have the ability to identify that person?

Our belief is that social scoring is not true influence, and that’s why the democratization of influence through social scoring is a flawed, if worthy, ideal. It’s one of the reasons that an early mover like Kred is moving away from scoring as a defining metric.

There are bigger pictures and scenarios at play at every single touchpoint of a customer’s journey through an influence-led path, and the results of who actually influences their decision may surprise you.

Yet it’s these decisions that truly matter to a brand when it comes to influence marketing – because scores and amplification will only get you so far. No company can remain in business on the amount of retweets and Facebook Likes they received alone.

The conversation around the future of influence is just getting started – and it’s not about an elite partygoer trading on online noise and a grade…