What is Influencer Marketing? According to Wikipedia, Influencer Marketing is a “form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers.”
You might be asking yourself what this has to do with social media and the social Web. But before answering that question, I invite you to explore with me what a few people whom I consider to be experts on this topic have to say about Influencer Marketing.
Seth Godin talks about Tribes and the Leaders within those tribes that represent “…changes in the way ideas are created and spread and implemented.” He often brings up the notion of a movement that doesn’t require a lot of people, perhaps only a 1,000 people who are impassioned enough to bring about change. As a change management practitioner, my colleagues and I would seek out the influencers among various organizational groups to help us help them lead and bring about change. Borrowing from this practice and carrying these concepts into marketing is hardly a stretch, especially with the phenomenon of the social Web.
Chris Brogan talks about Trust Agents in his book of the same title, wherein “Trust agents are not necessarily marketers or sales people. They are the digitally savvy people who use the web to humanize businesses using transparency, honesty and build a genuine relationship. As a result they wield enough influence to build up or bring down a business.” I think Chris and his co-writer Julien Smith are right on with this view into Influencer Marketing. Pay attention to what these two have to say on the topic and watch how they do it. They are digitally savvy people who use the web well to influence their markets!
As an influencer in your business community, humanizing your business on the social web means, in our view, getting people to take action. How you get people to take action comes through when you practice authenticity and transparency in an effort to bring value to your clients. This new approach to marketing is much different than traditional marketing or simply promoting your product or service online.
Whether you are already an influencer on the social Web or are looking to influence the influencers, you need to be aware of how you market yourself, and that includes your brand and the psychology behind it. Next month Gather Your Crowd will be presenting on, “What does your BRAND’s visual experience say about you?” and we invite you to join us. For now, let’s look at how Influencers can be identified according to Wikipedia:
- Activists: influencers get involved, with their communities, political movements, charities and so on.
- Connected: influencers have large social networks
- Impact: influencers are looked up to and are trusted by others
- Active minds: influencers have multiple and diverse interests
- Trendsetters: influencers tend to be early adopters (or leavers) in markets
I just attended Kent Pelz’ Self Marketing event this past Saturday and heard Doug Jones talk about his “Five Ways People Influence Other People”. Doug talked about 3 things that relate to Influencer Marketing: Connecting and relating to others through (1) sharing, (2)being authentic and (3) practicing reciprocity. Gather Your Crowd asked Doug about how he promotes his personal brand online and this is what he shared with us: