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Influence Is Topicality With Tools

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Influence has been my favorite topic of late; in fact, it’s been everyone else’s, too. Let me bring you back up to speed with a bunch of good reads (not to mention a five-post series right here with many guest bloggers) since my series ran:

  • Gini Dietrich writes at Spin Sucks about Peer Index vs. Klout In this post she talks about tree frogs, her new pet and friend for Jack, and she also shares that Peer Index is trying mightily to be produce authorities on various topics.
  • Neicole Crepeau writes a heckuva intriguing post at Mark W. Schaefer’s blog, Grow, about a new way to measure and categorize influencers (she told me she is a “nerd” and this bit is all her intensity).
  • Shakirah Dawud tagged an Adweek article on Twitter about the Klout score showing up on resumes (I told you so…there, had to say that again.)
  • Judy Shapiro wrote a really good piece about why social media is a bad measure of influence (and she addresses that new influencer game, Empire Avenue (I’m staying far away from).

There’s another application I’d like to share based on a conversation and brief look at a beta site I saw yesterday. mBlast has products focusing on influencers and its flagship is mPact, rolled out earlier this year. mPact’s claim to fame is topicality as the filter of influence, and I liked what I saw although the kinks are still being worked out.

They’ve got a free product, so you can check it out, too, and its fee-based offering is reasonable considering what you’re going to get. In fact, as a small business, it’s quite reasonable at the lowest level.

One thing that resonated in my conversation with Mark Blount, vice president of mBlast, is about influence in general – it’s going to become more complex to sort through those with new social media influencer status, and the way to do that is going to be by using tools. Indeed.

(And, I especially like this Gartner-esque influencer map mPact offers…check it out…)

(images: TVArtists.org, mBlast)

What Is Influence?

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Today marks the launch of a new series, “What Is Influence?” The concept came from the many in-depth comments delivered on the April 20 blog post about Klout. There seems to be two camps re Klout (the first mover, for all intents and purposes) for gauging influence scoring — one dissects the algorithm and the analytics behind the score and discredits that number; the other (camp) looks ahead at the significance and potential impact an influencer score will have on the industry at large. I’m of the latter camp…methinks Klout and other influence assessment via metrics and scores will change the face of business development and marketing.

Mark W. Schaefer, one of the most consummate B-to-B marketers I’ve had the privilege of “growing” with, suggests Klout-type apps are not to be taken lightly. Mark says:

At the end of the day, influence is your ability to change another person’s view, attitude or behavior.  That is why systems like Klout are so important to marketers. For the first time in history we can proximate (not necessarily quantify) word of mouth influence. That is a huge insight. Revolutionary. So no matter what you think of Klout from a personal standpoint, you need to pay attention from a business standpoint because it is an important development – a step toward measurement that will improve steadily.

To refresh what I said in the Klout blog last week, I defined influence as “authoritative, authentic, and accessible leadership.”

An opinion column in Advertising Age Feb. 28, 2011 by Greg Shove, founder and CEO of Halogen Media Group, said some pertinent things in his piece about influence metrics as they relate to traditional web publishing. I don’t want to take his opinions out of context, but he shares that Klout scoring is affecting online publishing; sites too large to be nimble and authentic are suffering. I’m fascinated with his remarks, pulled from his piece:

** “Being held to influence-measurement standards set by services such as Klout is the next blow that’s coming around the corner. Get ready for the next digital media bloodbath.

** Influence metrics will show that most big, blue-chip sites don’t have the same social influence that smaller, more authentic sites do.

** Though in its infancy, this shift to influence measurement will ultimately benefit publishers that cultivate and curate influence. I’d (Greg Shove) go so far as to call this ‘authentic media’ or the ‘authentic web,’ defined by the quality, passion and influence of their editorial and their audiences.”

Opinions about influence will vary as widely as the definitions I got to help me define public relations in the recent 15-post series done on this blog. I have invited my peers, with whom I engage every day, to provide their thoughts on defining influence.

Gini Dietrich, an extraordinary and impressive social media maven who blogs at Spin Sucks and will soon launch Spin Sucks Pro, says:

I define influence as a person or group of people who affect change around a product, service, industry, or cause. Your influencers are typically not the same as mine and vice versa. That’s why the issue of things like Klout doesn’t work because it’s not based on reality.

For instance, my Klout score is higher than Jay Leno’s, which is absolutely ridiculous because he is a household name and clearly has more influence. But, in certain circles (PR, especially), I definitely have more influence than Leno.

Finding your influencers takes a lot of hard work, time, commitment, and patience. There aren’t tools that effectively make it easy for you to find them. You have to research, dig, read, review, monitor, listen, and then do it all again to maintain the relationships. The only way to measure that is to benchmark what you are asking the influencers to do against your business goals. It’s the only way.

I’m eager and excited to see how this goes! With that comes a hearty thank you and sincere gratitude for your contributions here to make this blog come alive more each day. I appreciate everyone for visiting, sharing, and ‘raderie.

(Image: ShoutMeLoud)

 

Marketing Fair-Trade Quinoa

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(Note to readers: Today’s post is a rambling observation with a nit while sharing and pushing a dotted line to marketing and social media; blink and you might miss the latter!)

Fair Trade Quinoa Farmers in Ecuador (Wikimedia Commons)

I eat quinoa (keen-wah) every day mixed with steel cut oats, ground flax, walnuts and fresh fruit with a dash of almond milk. This fuels my body until well after noon; however, I try to eat before I get hungry to maintain metabolism. (You can learn more about clean eating from my favorite cookbook author Tosca Reno.)

Quinoa is a complete protein grown in the Andes since 3000 B.C. It’s not always easy to find at the grocer, although I buy from Trader Joe’s and recently at Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati. As a buyer of quinoa for more than a year now, I’m dismayed its price has skyrocketed nearly 50 percent since January.

What’s happening? The classic demand and supply along with Fair Trade and good, solid marketing.

There are now quinoa products coming to our shelves straight from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru; priced higher to accommodate the world’s farmers in developing nations. The word “organic” is included on the packaging, too.

Remember the berry (true or not true?) and the recent pomegranate craze? These high anti-oxidant berries (blueberries, too) raised consumers’ consciousness about free radicals and anti-oxidants in our diets. How did this happen? With good, solid marketing!

I support fair trade, and I also support our need to eat healthier foods without worry from salmonella, pesticide, and other illness resulting from chemical additives. While I’m not a worrier warrior about this, it nags at the back of my head when thinking of food prep for my family.

Glance back above and note the date I shared with you…3000 B.C. That’s when quinoa began its production as “gold of the Incas” and a sacred food. Why has it taken so long to grace our tables in the North? We can thank fair-trade programs that bring more coffee, cocoa, quinoa and other products to consumers across the globe. We can thank social media and the Internet for making the world smaller to inform us about these products.

While that’s all well and good, it also means we pay more for health-oriented items while junk food costs less. Perhaps, there’s more work to be done by good, solid marketing to switch the balance of the previous statement.

What began here as the germ of a quinoa seed, sprouted into more on fair trade, marketing and price. Interesting to me, and perhaps to you, as well. Thanks for stopping by.

Today: A Tradeshow From the Desk

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When I first saw the demo by American Lawyer Media (ALM) for Virtual Legal Tech , the free-to-anyone-attend-from-your-desk tradeshow, I was duly impressed.

Two exhibit halls staffed with live people in actual booths today, May 20, 2010 (the second live day this year), a networking lounge, resource center, and auditorium complete with live Webcasts and CLE credit await conference goers for a sum of $0.00 to attend. Be sure and listen to the 2 p.m. ET Webcast by Darryl Cross of LexisNexis and Kris Satkunas of Redwood Think Tank about Nurturing Clients (you can log in free by registering for the event today).

Marketers can lead gen galore with a list of those who downloaded articles, case studies, brochures, scheduled demos, and vied for prizes. Some 10,000 people are registered to attend today’s live show. The age of virtual is truly upon us. And, when you visit both auditoriums, the company of companies is impressive – LexisNexis, Los Angeles County Bar Association, IBM, Integreon, and many more.

This event is social networking at its finest. Staffers of booths can conduct a live meeting with video, email visitors to the booth using the technology’s email system, speak on a group chat, send a V-card to attendees along with an attachment for their virtual briefcase, and eveat Virtual Legal Tech Shown interact in the networking room.

Was told “security” is tight; if booth stalkers decide not to leave or are downloading all the goods like a spy, then all an exhibitor has to do is phone or email for help. The offender will be promptly banned electronically from the shindig.

Why am I so enamored of this affair today? I spent about 20 hours making one of these booths come alive. What tripped me up were the flash files required to launch the final step of the way. Everything else was done by yours truly. (Hey, whose mug is that over there?)

I’ll be inside the booth today, welcoming folks to partake and get acquainted with the portfolio of products by LexisNexis Business of Law Software Solutions – InterAction, Redwood Analytics, atVantage, Juris, Time Matters, and PCLaw.

If you promise not to stalk me, I’ll promise not to stalk you! Stop by and say hello. This is a perfect example of the blurring of public relations and the blending of marketing, public relations and social media, don’t you think?

Vehicle Buying Habits

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I’m impressed with my impression of how much a story (good old traditional media relations) in Fast Company has me eager to explore a Ford as my next vehicle. Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected to say that; my grampa drove Ford (enough said!).

Back step a minute…

The quest is on for a 7-passenger SUV (not a soccer mom mini-van, please, although I do coach my daughter’s team) that may or not remain a Toyota. The more news I consume, the more confused I am about which direction to head. Factors strongly in the nay column are companies that accepted government bailout monies we taxpayers funded, as well as the overall  health of the corporation (GM? Nope).

I certainly won’t end up “like” Simon…

Simon Dumenco is (sdumenco@adage.com) The Media Guy for Advertising Age. In his opinion column April 12 he writes “What a pathetic, passive, compliant consumer I’ve become! Like, over there, in the kitchen: my incredibly easy-to-use Senseo coffeemaker, which I thought I loved. But it only accepts certain kinds of coffee pods. How devious! And my sleek Braun toaster: Sure, it can accommodate sliced bread and bagels, but could I cook a pot roast with it? No! Does it have a camera? No!”

I’m fiercely loyal to Toyota and have always loved my three-row Highlander from the get go. According to Advertising Age, Toyota sold more cars in March than it did in January and February combined. The “impressive bump” is a credit to the brand’s “almost fanatical consumer base and bargain hunters.”

Case Study with Self

I decided to use my own situation as a case study in consumer-buying habits. As I move through the steps toward this large purchase decision, I’ll share the various communications channels I’m using to get there.  To date:

  • Word-of-mouth marketing — Twitter helped direct me to Ford and Volvo 90. After taking a look, I was impressed by both and swayed by the Volvo brand.
  • A comment on this blog directed me away from Volvo because it’s being sold (don’t want to be stuck like Saturn owners).
  • Upon reading the April Fast Company story, “Ford’s Big Reveal, The next generation of Ford’s Sync technology will turn its cars into rolling, talking, socially networked, cloud-connected supermachines. Introducing America’s most surprising consumer-electronics company.” (And that’s merely the headline!)
  • In a nutshell, Ford’s alliance with Microsoft is bringing leading-edge connectivity to its now pared down and more manageable line of vehicles.  Voice- enabled and hands-free phone dialing and answering, music selection, navigation, climate control, and so much more are putting Ford vehicles ahead of the curve.  
  • Worth looking at, don’t you think? Then again, perhaps the thought of owning a talking car like David Hasselhoff in Knight Rider is what’s compelling.
  • Two soccer moms sat in their Toyota Sequoia monstrosities (I think they were matching). Upon walking up to them (windows were down) I queried them about Toyota. Immediately, they both said, “I’d buy another Toyota in a heartbeat, the problem has been fixed already!”

Indeed.