It's ALL to do with alignment
Funny how two unconnected things come together at the same time to contrive an “Aha” moment. Serendipity, synchronicity or spooky co-incidence. Whatever.
Anyway, Christine (Influencer50’s biz development lead in San Francisco) and I are discussing methods of engaging influencers. With over 20 different types of influencer to consider, we need an integrated method for the process, while catering for the wide differences in agendas, personalities and expectations.
Then just yesterday I was re-reading a Hugh post on Digital Nomads, when he uses the word “Alignment” to describe Dell’s blog attempt to sidle up to mobile workers.
Aha!
Influencer engagement is ALL to do with alignment. It’s about finding out what influencers do, when and how they influence, and what their agenda and motivations are. Once you know this you can (and should) align your outreach activities with your influencers on an individual (or at most clustered) basis.
So what? There are two traps to fall into when considering alignment with influencers. The first is that it’s actually quite hard to align yourself with a host of differing types of people. In fact, it’s hard enough aligning with different types of journalist or analyst. What about academics, community leaders, customers, regulators and the other numerous influencer types? Some discipline and structure is require, which is what Christine and I are working on.
The second trap is perhaps less obvious, but it is more commonly encountered. It is that alignment requires you to align with the influencers, not the other way around. Most vendors want to get influencers to agree with them. You should be looking for ways to agree with influencers, even if this means changing fundamental things about your business.
They are the influencers, after all.
Anyway, Christine (Influencer50’s biz development lead in San Francisco) and I are discussing methods of engaging influencers. With over 20 different types of influencer to consider, we need an integrated method for the process, while catering for the wide differences in agendas, personalities and expectations.
Then just yesterday I was re-reading a Hugh post on Digital Nomads, when he uses the word “Alignment” to describe Dell’s blog attempt to sidle up to mobile workers.
Aha!
Influencer engagement is ALL to do with alignment. It’s about finding out what influencers do, when and how they influence, and what their agenda and motivations are. Once you know this you can (and should) align your outreach activities with your influencers on an individual (or at most clustered) basis.
So what? There are two traps to fall into when considering alignment with influencers. The first is that it’s actually quite hard to align yourself with a host of differing types of people. In fact, it’s hard enough aligning with different types of journalist or analyst. What about academics, community leaders, customers, regulators and the other numerous influencer types? Some discipline and structure is require, which is what Christine and I are working on.
The second trap is perhaps less obvious, but it is more commonly encountered. It is that alignment requires you to align with the influencers, not the other way around. Most vendors want to get influencers to agree with them. You should be looking for ways to agree with influencers, even if this means changing fundamental things about your business.
They are the influencers, after all.
Labels: influencers
posted by Duncan Brown at 8:15 pm
4 Comments:
Great thoughts. I think a lot of businesses end up spinning their wheels because they are so focused on their own businesses, rather than on the influencers who could help them.
yes, sucking up to the influencers is really a great strategy. we all love brown-nosers and want to buy what they have to sell ...
huh? ...
by the time anybody gets the influencer tag, they are already dated, and following them is a recipe for failure ...
ignore the influentials, start your own kingdom ...
Hi Laura - thanks for the comment. An external perspective is always useful to firms' marketing...
Hi Gregory - I think you misunderstand the role and nature of influencers, at least as far as this blog is concerned. Perhaps you should peruse some of the other posts in this blog. For the record, "Sucking up" is not a strategy I advocate. Influencers don't "sell" anything. Following anyone blindly is a recipe for disaster, but so is following no-one (IMO). But thanks for introducing some colourful language to this blog.
i will be more precise ...
it is my opinion that the term influencer is a term that indicates someone's sell-by date has been reached.
because life is moving much faster than we think.
if you follow the words of a shirkey or a godin or a brogan or whomever, you are doing the equivalent of fighting the last war, as they say about the department of defense.
Post a Comment
<< Home