The Business of Influence: 5 Principles of Successful Influencer Marketing

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Today, every business is in the business of influence. More and more organizations are working with people who can influence desirable audiences to connect, engage, and make decisions—and purchases—on a powerful scale. However, unlocking the massive potential of influencer marketing in a networked world requires understandings and focuses that are eluding many organizations. As digital analyst Brian Solis reveals in his report ‘Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing’, a reassessment of the value chain is vital for organizations to avoid lagging behind as the future of influence unfolds. Here are 5 key principles to help organizations re-evaluate the causes and characteristics of successful influencer marketing.

1. Effective relationship management is the driving force of influencer marketing

Relationships underpin the influencer marketing process, in which marketers borrow social capital from the relationships between influencers and their followers. However, as Solis emphasizes in the ‘Influence 2.0’ report, “You must do more than use the relationships of others to broadcast on your behalf, regardless of payment exchanged.” Instead, successful influencer marketing revolves around mutually beneficial relationships: connecting with the right people to create value not only for your brand, but also for the relationships influencers maintain with their communities.

In order to strengthen relationships and value creation, organizations are moving away from short-term, influencer-led campaigns towards more meaningful, long-term relationships that build trust and foster greater opportunities for ROI. According to Solis:

“The concept of Influence 2.0 is to help strategists envision a future of influencer marketing that aligns with the objectives of business, influencers, and customers. This is why…Influence 2.0 is centered on relationships…It’s time for brands and agencies to think beyond traditional endorsements and campaign-driving thinking.”

Recasting influencer marketing as “influencer relations” could, Solis suggests, create “a new discipline that transcends all relationship-driven marketing”. This would entail “not just a simple ‘rebrand’ of existing PR resources,” he stresses, but “continuous care through an influencer relationship management (IRM) platform and dedicated resources to connect customers with the people who influence them every day”.

2. A human approach to understanding customers and influencers can strengthen mutual value and social capital

An influencer and his or her community produce rich exchanges of mutual value and social capital, based on personal and professional ties. Executives can better capitalize on these ties if they invest in understanding how and why a particular influencer has actually earned their community, and what a mutually beneficially relationship might involve. As Solis points out, “few people actually read the work of influencers before reaching out to them”, an oversight which can reduce the uptake, quality and results of an influencer-brand relationship.

Likewise, deep customer understanding is essential for organizations to make the most of influencer marketing. According to executives surveyed for the ‘The 2016 State of Digital Transformation’ report, the top driver of CX-led digital transformation was understanding “evolving customer behaviors and preferences” (55%). At the same time, the top challenge was “understanding behavior or impact of a new customer” (71%). In-depth customer insights, therefore, remain crucial to help companies close the gap between what they assume customers value, want or do, and what customers actually value, want and do. As Michael Troiano, Chief Marketing Officer of Actifio, puts it:

“What customers want is intimacy…they expect to be understood as individuals, and to be treated like people. What marketers want is scale, the ability to touch lots of people at the most efficient CPM possible. The reason to get excited about social marketing is that it offers the promise of “Scalable Intimacy,” really the first medium to do so. And authenticity is the currency of this medium. You can’t “fake it,” by definition.”

Empathy and a focus on human to human (#H2H) interaction can foster the authenticity that organizations need to better understand and reach crowds with common values.

3. Influence requires championing and cross-functional leadership

In the ‘Influence 2.0’ report, a clear majority (71%) of surveyed brand marketers viewed influencer marketing as a strategic or highly strategic marketing category. Despite this, influencer marketing typically remains an add-on to a paid endorsement or PR program, rather than a standalone program with executive sponsorship. Indeed, 65% of surveyed companies assigned engagement with influencers to PR, but only 16% cited PR as the owner of their influencer marketing. This disconnect between the departments that own influencer marketing and those that execute it, is, according to Solis, stunting the growth of influence programs:

“To become more prominent within the marketing mix, influencer programs require someone to make the case, uniting stakeholders to lead a cross-functional initiative.”

Below is the Cross-Functional Influence Model Solis proposes in ‘Influence 2.0’:


By having a dedicated team that coordinates with various departments—for example, with Public Relations, Marketing, Digital Communications, Client Relations, IT, Sales, and HR—influencer relations can earn executive attention that transcends business functions. This, in turn, may benefit an organization’s larger digital transformation efforts by improving customer experience, since, as Solis puts it, “Customers don’t want to see the ‘cogs,’ they want to believe that businesses operate seamlessly and effortlessly to serve their needs.”

4. Influence never stops, and should be integrated with all touchpoints of the customer journey

Customer journeys are “always on”, and people are constantly turning to trusted others to help them make informed decisions. Therefore, Solis recommends mapping influencer relations against all stages of the customer journey:

“It’s uncommon for executives to live the business the way their customers and employees do, so escalating influence requires marketers to expose how, where, and why digital customers and employees seek information.
Where do they derive value?
Who do they trust?
And, how does engaging with your company affect each step of their decision-making journey?”

A successful influence program, in Solis’s view, “must consider outcomes across the board and then reverse engineer programs to deliver against them”. Business outcomes must be aligned “with influencer and customer objectives in each moment of truth—from awareness, to consideration, to decision, to overall experience”. This approach helps organizations clarify what factors are really driving their relationships forward and creating mutual value.

5. Influencers can align content creation and distribution with customer care and conversions

Integral to influencer relations is a shift from corporate-centric to customer-centric narratives. “Paradoxically, your “story” is not about you—it’s about what you do for others,” writes Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs. The customer, consequently, becomes the hero of your story.

A shift to influencer relations could help organizations to integrate customer experience with content strategies and influencer engagement. 80% of the organizations surveyed for ‘Influence 2.0’ describe influencer marketing as most impactful for content marketing. However, relatively few companies (22%) are linking their content strategy to the needs of customers throughout their journey. Influencers can bridge this gap by aligning content creation and distribution with each stage of the customer journey.

In the above framework from ‘Influence 2.0’, influencers produce and share useful and engaging content throughout the customer journey, from introducing new products and answering questions to showcasing new product capabilities and directing customers to points of sale, support and further information.

Innovation over iteration

The ‘Influence 2.0’ report by Brian Solis is valuable for its emphasis on helping organizations align the future of influencer marketing with the objectives of their business, influencers, and customers alike.

Without the shift to influencer relations proposed by Solis, influencer marketing risks becoming a process of iteration, where new tools generate similar results, rather than a process of innovation in which new strategies unlock value.

It will be interesting to see if and how PR can benefit from a cross-functional approach to influencer relations. What does seem likely is that success in the future of influence calls for an adaptive mindset and the ability to work together to optimize—and humanize—outcomes across the influence ecosystem.

Images: andy.brandon50; and concept diagrams from ‘Influence 2.0: The Future of Influencer Marketing‘ by Brian Solis from Altimeter

5 Big Ideas about the Future of PR: Employee Amplification, Budget-Neutral News and More

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Diversity is perhaps the hallmark of the future of PR. This realization was evident at the Creating the Future of PR Forum held in Sydney last week, when five speakers, each with very different perspectives, shared insights on how they see the industry developing. The speakers’ big ideas ranged from employee participation in company communications, to the role of branded content, evolving business models, and responses to the shift to consumer power.

Below are five brief snapshots of key ideas the speakers shared at the event.

Localization, personalization, and employee empowerment: Matt Trewin, General Manager – Retail & Media Communications, Telstra

Two thirds of Telstra’s 40,000 employees are interested in advocating for their company on social media, said Matt Trewin from Telstra. He revealed that Telstra and other large corporates are using social media for social engagement and empowerment. Key to this strategy is rethinking, “Who are our spokespeople?”

The move to involve employees and local communities in PR is generating personalized content, Facebook pages with local audiences, and local programs and events. According to Trewin, these trends are emerging because PR is becoming “less centrally controlled and uptight”. Trewin believes that the future will see more organizations pilot and invest in social sharing platforms that can reach clients, prospects and locals directly.

PR professionals need balance: Tiffany Farrington, Founder of Social Diary

Working in PR used to be about “money and titles”. But now it is about “work-life balance”, said Tiffany Farrington, the Founder of the Social Diary online network for PR and media.

Regardless of whether work-life balance revolves around more family time, freedom, or more time to explore personal projects, the trend towards flexible workplaces is making its mark. The United States has seen a growing phenomenon called “Summer Fridays”, where staff can leave work at about 1 or 2 pm in the afternoon. The panel also mentioned LinkedIn’s recent decision to grant its employees flexible, on-demand holidays for extended durations. Similar strategies that resound with workers’ interests may entice young professionals to stay longer than the industry average: only 18 months with one company, for junior and mid-level staff.

Perfecting tailored and branded content: Tory Maguire, Editor-in-chief, Huffington Post Australia

Since becoming Editor-in-chief of the recently-launched HuffPost Australia, Tory Maguire has observed a growing challenge for PR: tailoring content to specific platforms.

Internal PR initiatives at the Huffington Post, in particular Partner Studio, are helping brands to attract more followers through authentic storytelling. The panel debated the newsworthiness of branded content, which for some speakers meant the ability of content to stand alone—and be engaging and shareable—if stripped of its brand message.

Evolving budgets and business models: Allison Lee, Director of Media and PR for Destination NSW

Allison Lee foregrounded the rise of “budget-neutral news solutions” in PR. Once the exclusive domain of PR related to the travel industry, budget-neutral news is becoming widely expected, Lee said. As a result, PR firms are increasing their budgets by partnering with large corporates.

Another shift Lee observed is that more PR firms are viewing their staff as producers. This is a response to an emerging challenge for PR: developing new business models for broadcasted news based on the most engaged audiences—such as computer and tablet users—and the best return on investment.

Keeping up with consumer behavior: Jamie Verco, Lead Partner, N2N and Fuel Communications

We live in “an era of instant everything”, said PR innovator Jamie Verco. Immediacy is making consumers more discerning. Content, therefore, needs to be more relevant and convenient than ever before. PR agencies will need to adopt a range of strategies to keep apace with consumer behavior, including:
– diversifying agencies’ services to solve complex and non-traditional communications problems
– increasing agencies’ scale and networks of relationships
– developing professionals with world-class, specialist skills
– evolving agency structures to have a client-centric focus, and
– being open to new forms of communication and publication.

Audience insights

Audience members at the Creating the Future of PR forum were asked to describe in a few words their vision of the key issues and opportunities shaping the future of PR. Here is the “word cloud” they generated through Twitter-to-screen live interaction:

Wordcloud

Across the diversity of ideas expressed at the event, PR professionals proved to be sanguine about the future they are helping to create. The opportunity to reflect upon this future and the quality of the ideas shared made the Creating the Future of PR forum a standout event.

How Stories Drive Sharing: 3 Insights on Harnessing the Power of Word-of-Mouth

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In today’s hyper-connected world, a brand has become less what it tells the consumer it is than what consumers tell each other it is. The beauty of word-of-mouth marketing is that it’s not only simple, it’s also free, and can work wonders for your business. According to marketing expert, author, and CEO of Zócalo Group, Paul M. Rand, more than 90% of people buy a product or a service because someone they know recommended it to them. In the age of social media, word-of-mouth marketing has become a great leveller for businesses, regardless of their age and their size.

Nonetheless, word-of-mouth marketing is sometimes underrated or has untapped potential. So how can a business harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing? Here are three useful tips from Paul M. Rand, as summarized in the video below from MSNBC.

1. Develop a purposeful story

Storytelling has intrigued the human psyche for millennia. There is something deeply personal about telling your story, and this includes the story of a brand. Rand believes that a brand should have a clear angle for its story, and one that customers find appealing to share. He recommends devoting 90% of communication to the topic of interest to both a brand and its consumers, and only 10% to a brand’s commercial messages.

2. Live your brand

Rand emphasizes that a brand’s message should not be restricted to marketing channels alone. Instead, it should be reinforced through all the functions of a business. The “live your brand” mantra can help to create a convincing and unified company ethos.

3. Encourage customers to share

Getting people to spread the word about your brand on a daily basis is vital to gaining a competitive edge. “If you have a good idea of how you want people to recommend your brand and you help them do it, they will very likely participate in that,” says Rand. He suggests developing a relationship with people who are already talking about your product: “If somebody is talking about your company, give them some things to share and make it easier for them to do so.” Rand points out that people thrive when they are given inside information, experiences and ideas that do not come through normal channels.

Search rankings and the case for word-of-mouth marketing

Rand sums up the crucial interconnections between developing a story, living your brand, and encouraging customers to share: “If you know how you want to be talked about, you build that into where you’re sharing information, and you’ll actually pop up higher in the search rankings as well.” This is because “seven of the eight leading things that drive search behaviour today are social conversations: how consumers are talking about brands”.

The C-Suite Finally Embraces Social Media: Here’s What That Looks Like

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It doesn’t seem that long ago that if surveyed, most CEOs would admit to either a lack of use for social media for themselves or a complete abhorrence for it. Times have changed. A recently released study by Weber Shandwick found that 80% of the chief executive officers of the world’s largest 50 companies are now engaged online and on social media. The results published in “Socializing Your CEO: From Marginal to Mainstream,” show that CEO sociability has more than doubled since 2010.

Unsurprisingly, the study found that LinkedIn was the most popular social media network for CEOs, followed by Twitter.


Image Source: Weber Shandwick

According to the Weber Shandwick CEO study, Facebook usage in 2014 was non-existent for a number of reasons, but primarily because of the number of fake CEO accounts on the site. Otherwise, usage on other social networks increased substantially.

As the study learned, CEOs are becoming more comfortable with the idea of some level of social engagement and are more rapidly beginning to understand its value and embrace it. Newer and more established CEOs alike are now realizing that being more socially engaged can help them communicate more quickly and easily when demands on their time prevent them from doing so with more traditional communication channels.

However, as the survey report indicates, there is no one-size fits all approach for CEOs since the types of networks used and what gets posted on them can vary depending on personality and situation.

But C-suite adoption of social media isn’t just confined to CEOs or even CMOs. A different study CIO Social Insights Report (by Robert Half International and Leadtail) indicates the need to broaden that perspective with the inclusion of CIOs. While that study doesn’t delve into specific numbers related how social media use among CIOs has changed, it does provide some insight into how CIOs are using it today.

While the key findings listed below aren’t too surprising, they do indicate that CIOs may be using social media more for conveying and accessing information than for being outright social within their company and with their industry peers:

  • CIOs engage on social media to showcase expertise and leadership, and drive conversations about technology strategy and innovation.
  • Cloud computing and infrastructure, big data, analytics and the Internet of Things are top-of-mind topics for these technology executives.
  • CIOs and IT leaders actively engage with the social media content of other technology leaders, industry analysts and journalists, as well as with marketing and social media influencers.

Like their CEOs, CIOs seem to prefer Twitter to most other social networks. Where this gets interesting, though, is what the study reveals about the publishers CIOs prefer to retweet information from. While the top 20 includes what you might expect — CIO.com (number 1) and CIO Magazine (number 20), in between are sandwiched sites like Mashable, Venture Beat, and The Verge. A bit of an eclectic mix that indicates that this audience isn’t as confined to pure technology plays as one might think.


Image Source: Robert Half

The CIO Insights Report reveals a mix of technology, business and financial outlets as source material for Twitter activity by CIOs.

The list of thought leaders CIOs mentioned for the report or follow is equally varied and includes Vala Afshar (CMO of Extreme Network), Peter Thiel (PayPal founder) and Steve Wozniak. Yes, Steve Wozniak is still relevant with CIOs.

What both of these reports indicate is that the adoption by the C-Suite of social media that employees at every level have been clamoring for is finally starting to happen. Will a couple of high profile slip-ups on social media reverse that trend? More than likely not. As new apps for sharing more visual information over social networks become easier to use and more readily available, there will likely come a day when the C-suite will wonder why they didn’t embrace social media earlier.

Five Steps to Being a Highly Visual PR Agency

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A couple of years ago there was quite a flurry of discussion, panel topics and articles bemoaning the state of public relations relative to its entrenched use of words over pictures. The reason for the hand wringing was that most public relations professionals were still focused on the highly non-visual means of communicating through press releases, email pitches and written statements. Who could blame the profession for their concern considering the growing propensity of the world to be far more enamored with pictures and video over text? Meanwhile, ad agencies, design shops and digital production houses were all beating PR to the visual punch.

Unfortunately, the most substantial visual element that PR could lay claim to in this burgeoning visual age is the popularity and use of infographics. While both praised and decried, infographics at least gave PR a means to an end in terms of conveying data rich information in what could be a visual but meaningful way.

But infographics aren’t the same as the pictures and video that is becoming the shared content of choice in social media. Even the most popular text intensive social media platform – Twitter – has added greater ability to share videos and pictures; and one visual oriented social channel after another has entered the market. Even popular video sharing sites like YouTube, Vine and Vimeo are being chased down by the likes of up and comers Meerkat and Periscope (connected to Twitter).

While it can be argued that any self-respecting PR person has known the value of a good visual for some time, product shots or even short explainer videos accompanying a press release don’t really count. This isn’t visual story telling. It’s just attaching a visual to a written document. That’s not the way people want their information, how they consume it or even the most effective way to communicate it.

To provide some idea as to the impact of video from a marketing standpoint, consider these facts about video usage from an article in Business2Community

  • The use of video content for marketing increased 73% this year; use of infographics grew 51%.
  • Articles with images get 94% more views than those without.
  • Posts with videos attract three times as many inbound links as plain text posts.
  • 62% of marketers use video in their content marketing.
  • Two-thirds of firms plan to increase spending on video marketing in the coming year.

The future of communications is clearly established in the visual arts, so how do PR agencies match or even catch up to ad agencies, digital agencies and design firms to ensure relevancy into the future? Here are five steps you can take:

  1. Take a class – the most common forms of visual storytelling are movies and television. Encourage, maybe even require, your staff to take screenwriting classes. Alternatively, periodically bring a professional screenwriter or script doctor in. Maybe even someone who writes and produces commercials. The ability to tell a story in 10-30 seconds is an art and most of the video content out there is going to continue to fall into this category.
  2. Push visuals as a given not a choice. Challenge your staff, your clients, and your agency to be more visual. Eliminate superfluous words in favor of stronger visuals. Guy Kawasaki, the former Apple marketing exec who worked on the introduction of the first Macintosh in 1984, famously penned the 10/20/30 rule for PowerPoint presentations. Ten slides, 20 minutes, no smaller than 30-point type. The latter being the most important from a visual standpoint because once you use 30-point type, the available real estate on a slide drops drastically.
  3. Hire for the skill. It’s impossible to get an entire agency or in-house department caught up in this movement at once. So finding people already skilled in the art of visual storytelling is a possible shortcut. Just understand that what they make up for in skillset they may lose in understanding the difference between PR and advertising. What’s interesting is how many PR firms are responding by hiring people outside of the typical PR agency world. Last fall, Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm, went on a hiring spree adding several senior level staff all from advertising and marketing firms.
  4. Share insights. The Millennial generation is the first generation that has grown up never knowing a world without the web. Their lives are so intrinsically connected to it that they are hard-pressed to fathom what life must have been like without it. This generation is also driving the visual evolution. So tap the members of that generation for personal and broader insights, and then feel free to share. They get that this is part of the process.
  5. Don’t fight it. For those in PR who are proud of their writing skills and accomplishments and may believe that the emphasis on visuals over text is like equating graphic novels to classic literature, have to realize that hanging on to outmoded methods is a fast track to irrelevancy. The ability to craft a well-written sentence then string several of those together to explain a particular point is still valuable. But the ability to mix pictures with those words to tell a more compelling story now trumps that ability.

There is a caveat. No matter how visually oriented the world becomes, everything can’t be about a story in pictures. Some aspects of the world will continue to become more complicated. Connecting words and pictures to make the biggest impact will be critical toward communicating those complicated elements in the most understandable way possible. The future of PR may depend on it.