In the presence of a super-influencer

I wrote a few weeks back about how to use super-influencers, those rare folk that have true influence over market shape and direction at a macro level. I suggested that you should use them (if you have the opportunity) to attract other, perhaps more focused or local influencers, thus assisting in the overall engagement of the influencer community. If influencers help to attract customers, then super-influencers help to attract influencers.

So it was my pleasure last week to host, for Microsoft, an influencer-only event featuring Steve Ballmer. The audience of influencers was clearly captivated by Steve’s open and candid style of presenting, as well as his ability to field questions on a wide range of subjects.

But most influencers were just keen to be in the same room as the main guy at Microsoft. Just this fact alone gives them something to talk about to their networks, and thereby reinforces their own influence.

I expect some of the influencers (they’re from the small business community) will blog separately about their morning with Steve – I’ll link to the interesting ones as they appear, but here’s a taster from Emma Jones.

How to use ‘super-influencers’

Sometimes we come across super-influencers. We define these people as having a high and broad level of influence across a wide variety of decision types. Most often, upper-influencers hold the most senior positions in business and government. Think Davos or TED, and you’re close to defining a commuity of super-influencers.

The problem with super-influencers is that they are too high-level and too hard to reach that, unless you are trying to influence other super-influencers, the effort required to engage with them is disproportionate to the likely benefits. The entry price for a corporate executive to Davos is something like $250,000 and even then there’s no guarantee of sitting next to the person you really want to meet.

The truth is, most decisions affecting your corporate health are made in a much more mundane, but reachable, community. Which is why most influencers on an Influencer50 list are grounded in practical, though deep, influence on decision makers.

Still, when a super-influencer drops in your lap, you should feel obliged to use them well. So the next time your CEO announces a visit, what should you do?

Super-influencers are so-called because they influencer other influencers. So get your super-influencer in front of as many other influencers as possible. Attract other super-influencers and make an occasion of it. Get influencers talking to each other. Why? Because influencers get a lot of their influence from networking with other influencers. Make this happen, be seen as the facilitator, and your influencers will thank you for it.

Is influence ‘boring’?

I’ve long enjoyed the irony of Richard Holway’s Boring awards. Boring awards are bestowed on those firms that manage 10 or more consecutive years of earnings-per-share growth. The idea that boring is desirable is inspired.

So I was reading a post on super-influencers, such as the speakers at TED. Then I looked at The Telegraph’s list of the most influential people in UK industry which, again, appears as a list of super-influencers, but of little practical value to marketers.

It turns out that real influence, where purchase decisions are informed, scoped, agreed and validated, is wielded not by charismatic CEOs and thought leaders. Instead, decisions are usually influenced at the coal face by ‘normal’ people, senior-to-middle grade professionals and experts, with the real-world experience relevant to the decision at hand.

It’s actually quite boring. Where boring is a desirable attribute.

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.

Why you can’t guess your influencers

We often play a game with our clients. Write down the names of the top ten influencers on your market (or segment). If you guess correctly you don’t pay us.

It’s a safe bet – we’ve never encountered a close guess. But why?

I think there are two possible reasons. Firstly, most people have never thought about the question before. Although intuitively they know that their prospects are being influenced by a range of individuals, they’ve never considered who these people might be.

The second reason is that when considering influence, they use one, or maybe two, dimensions to measure influence. The most common ones used are frequency and market reach/awareness. Sometime they’ll use connectedness, especially if they’re considering the influence of bloggers.

The problem is that influence is multi-dimensional. Currently we use four dimensions of influence, and are piloting a further four (from which we expect two to be practical and consistently measurable).

It also explains why Bill Gates and Steve Jobs rarely turn up on our influencer rankings, along with the other obvious CEO of top companies. These individuals may influence industry trends and directions, but they rarely affect real decisions at the coal face.

Does Oprah have influence?

A lot of the discussion on influence gets sidetracked by the allure of the super-influencer, or what I call the ‘Oprah Winfrey distortion’. The argument goes that super-influencers can make or break a product, or a market, by dropping the right or wrong names. Oprah is usually the cited case, where being named to her book club can rocket an author from zero to the top of the bestseller list. In the UK we have the Richard & Judy book club, which is similar in structure, if not in status.  

Does Oprah really have influence? If so how does one tap it?

There’s no doubt that appearing on Oprah’s Book Club has a huge effect on a book’s sales. But is this useful information to a marketer or author? It would be useful if the right action to take was to call Oprah and ask her to read an aspiring writer’s novel. Except that isn’t the right thing to do. Why? Because (and here’s the ground-breaking insight) –

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Oprah doesn’t choose the books.

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Ms Winfrey heads a production firm called Harpo Productions, which employs a large team of producers and an even larger team of production assistants. This job spec was recently posted by Harpo productions (emphasis is mine):

Supports team and producer in daily production-including answering phone, getting lunch, opening mail, copying scripts and post-show notes, and other administrative duties. Production skills include research/resourcefulness-proficient in Lexis/Nexis, internet searches, DT searches. Must be resourceful in searching for guests, doing research, and obtaining footage. Reads all books considered to be selected with a critical eye. Maintains up-to-date knowledge of publishing industry. Consistently reads new books, searching for potential book club selections. Can suggest titles that are worthy candidates for upcoming selections. Can create system (charts, procedures, etc.) that are specific to the needs of the club/special projects production process. Charts and tracks show production and book selection process and can anticipate deadlines for the team. Must be able to consistently demonstrate solution driven communication. Communicates effectively with all Harpo departments demonstrating respect and professionalism. Team player works consistently to mesh well with supervisor, teammates, other department members and fellow staffers. Good phone etiquette.

If you want to get on Oprah’s Book Club, Oprah is exactly the wrong person to influence. It’s the new Production Assistant and her colleagues. They read the books, and make the decisions. I understand that Oprah reads the chosen book of the month, but that’s probably the only book she’s got time for (is my guess).  

Believing that alleged super-influencers like Oprah, or Bill Gates, or David Beckham have real influence over the decisions that affect you and your firm can distort your marketing efforts, and completely misdirect your activities. Better to understand who really influences the decisions, and target those instead.

Of course, it’s much harder to find out who the new Production Assistant is, but that’s why knowledge of real influencers is valuable. It can give you a unique market insight which leads to competitive advantage.

Anything else is just wasting time and money.

Is there are hierarchy of influencers?

On a recent AR blog it was stated that analysts are “super-influencers”, whose influence “ripples” across other lesser influencers (media, bloggers, consultants, system integrators, financial analysts).

Hmmm. This is a very analyst-centric view, and indicative of the broad AR/PR industry mindset. There’s another example of this perspective here, and it is common.

But is it right? There are three problems with this approach. The first is that, while I don’t doubt that some analysts are key influencers, not all of them are. There are analysts, including those at Gartner, IDC, Forrester and Ovum, that are important and those that are not.

Remember that it’s not Gartner Inc. (or whichever firm) that has influence over end-user decision makers, but the individual analyst. Having worked at analyst firms (Ovum and IDC) for 12 years I’ve seen this situation from the inside. We knew which individuals had influence and which didn’t.

The second problem with an analyst-centric view of influence is that, in three years of analysing influencer communities for our clients, Influencer50 has noticed a broad spread of influencer types. There are analysts and journalists, of course. But there are also regulators, consulting firms, management authors, academics, and others – over 20 different types of influencer. And in a ranked list of 50 influencers, the top10 typically contains a mixture of these influencer types.

The idea that only analysts are super-influencers is without basis. There are indeed super-influencers, but these include a variety of other types. Also, some influencers are more important than others generically. But some come into ascendancy at different times. So it’s important to understand when influencers are exerting influence.

The third and final flaw in the analyst-centric model is that influence does not ripple out in one direction from a small set of individuals. Rather than a hierarchy, influence works across a network of individuals, with some having more connections than others. Influence flows in multiple directions, as industry professionals discuss and debate ideas and opinions. The emergence of influencer communities demonstrates this important dimension.

All of this points to a more balanced approach to influencers and Influencer Marketing. AR and PR are fine, but there are other key influencers to attend to. Ignore them at your peril.
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