The event featured Don Bulmer (VP, Influencer Relations, SAP), Mike Fauscette (GVP, Software Business Solutions, IDC), and Guy Kawasaki (Co-Founder of Alltop and author of Enchantment). It was hosted by BrightTALK, and you can watch the video here.
The upshot of the talk, from my perspective, is that most of these influencers are regular folk who happen to have attained an unexpected status. They are mostly just going about their business, but because of their stature, they get a lot more people approaching them. What does it take to get them to take action and share your content or advocate for your product or brand?
- Good quality-It needs to be a good product or a good piece of content. Nobody wants to endorse crap. Guy Kawasaki, "For me, it's 110% 'show me good stuff...There's this baseline it's not crap.'"
- Relevance-Nobody wants to pitch something that isn't relevant to them and their followers. Mike Fauscette, "Be relevant to what I care about."
- Connections-These influencers share and endorse products and content from people they know and trust. Or, who have been vouched for and recommended by people they know and trust. Guy Kawasaki says what work is when people tell him that "somebody I respect likes this too and suggested that I show it to you." Mike Fauscette, "if a peer, colleague, somebody that I trust in my network sends it to me."
Gee. You have to have something worth promoting, you have to have something that is relevant to my field, and you have to have a relationship with me or someone I know.
Step back to the pre-internet era. Marketers/PR people were taught to develop relationships with journalists and others in media-the influencers of their time-who covered relevant topics. Building those relationships made it possible to reach out to these influencers when you had something newsworthy. If it truly was newsworthy, your contact might choose to publish it, or forward it on to others who might.
Of course, some things have changed. There are more influencers now, between traditional media folks, bloggers, speakers, and online personalities. And it's easier to reach them. In the old days of media relations, you probably met in person with your media contacts most of the time. These days, you might never meet someone in person, and yet still have a fruitful relationship with them.
And though I didn't hear it mentioned specifically, I suspect reciprocity is a factor. Influencers probably notice people who share their content a lot, promote their books and products, or connect them with others in helpful ways. That probably helps raise your visibility with an influencer. Granted, this type of quid pro quo is easier to do online.
But...what hasn't changed is the old boy network. It's still the case that to influence an influencer, you need to be connected to them in some way.
So, if you thought that social media would usher in an era when good content and products would rise of their own accord and get the attention they deserve from the appropriate, influential individuals on the merit of the content or product alone-well, it didn't. There may be an occasional item that takes that path. Most will have to take the same old path they always have and apply traditional PR/media relation tactics.