The Telegraph’s Most Powrful People list

Ooh! Another list of influencers! How novel. For anyone who’s thinking of using this as the basis for an influencer program, think on these questions:

1. What’s the basis on which these influencers were chosen? As far as I can tell, the methodology appears to be: pick the top firms in the UK in each sector, find out the name of the CEO, include on list, randomise names on list to mask lack of objective rationale.
2. Can this list be useful in your marketing campaigns? What are the chances of you creating an influencer program with the list’s constituents? Could you ever arrange a meeting with even ten people on the list?
3. Do the list’s constituents actually influence your customers’ and prospects’ purchase decisions? Are they often in front of real customers, informing and persuading, or are they busy running multi-million pound businesses?

The one good thing about the Telegraph list is that is may get you thinking about who really influences your customers.