I’m pleased to find that a new study validates what I’ve been seeing in client projects and industry conversations: social media is taking on a larger role in business decision-making processes. Social media is enabling decision-makers to reach out to larger numbers of people (the size of their unique influencer ecosystems) and to tap into their influencers through online as … Read More
Edelman’s TweetLevel – measuring influence within Twitter
You can’t do influencer relations without a good set of tools for identifying influencers and measuring and tracking their influence. Here’s a new tool for your consideration: Edelman’s TweetLevel, by Jonny Bentwood. TweetLevel calculates an “importance” rating of 0-100 for anyone with a Twitter handle. And, it’s free to use. Most of the big agencies provide their clients with pricey … Read More
Harnessing the Groundswell – new book by Bernoff and Schadler
While the wildly successful “Groundswell” book by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff continues winning acclaim — most recently from the American Marketing Association — Josh has announced work in progress on a new book. This time, he’s teamed with Ted Schadler as co-author. The title is “Harnessing the Groundswell: Drive Your Business With Empowered Employees and Customers”. The authors say … Read More
Influencer relations friday gossip
What’s up this week in influencer relations? Here’s what I’ve been talking about offline when the conversation rolls around to, “So what’s up? Anything I need to know?” This week the gossip has centered around analyst blogs, HP and Dell. Feel free to add your nuggets. EDS = HP. HP retired the EDS brand this week. Time to update your … Read More
Sponsored analyst blogs and bloggers – matter of time
Many of us are ready to recognize social media as a standard subset of our B2B and B2C communications channels. Even the slow moving Fortune 500 is adopting public-facing blogs, according to SNCR. So it’s time to stop thinking about analyst-written blogs as a novelty and start thinking about them as part of standard analyst business practice. One of the … Read More
Please, no Managers of Twitter Relations
Around mid-decade we went through a phase where corporations and agencies considered creating jobs such as “Manager, Blogger Relations”. Â To this day that makes a lot of sense if you happen to work for a company that provides blog software, blog design, blog hosting, blog monitoring. For other kinds of companies, not so much. Because for other types of companies, … Read More
20 million influential consumers convey opinions online and offline
Ever wonder how many “influentials” exist in the world, and how they exert their influence? Apparently the answer is approximately 20 million adult consumers worldwide. They use several offline and online channels to exert influence across their larger-than-normal personal networks in a multitude of product categories on any given day. This, according to “Global Multipliers”, a study released earlier this year … Read More
Transparency and agency-placed content on UGC sites
Transparency is one of the words that has become a victim of Web 2.0. Â Everyone has their own idea of what transparency means in social media, and what constitutes embracing transparency. Â A good example: the recent MobileCrunch expose on Reverb Communications and the Apple App Store. The plot is simple enough: Â an integrated PR-marketing agency has paid staff (whether employees … Read More
Invite: join the Influencer Marketing and Influencer Relations group at LinkedIn
I’m pleased to invite you to join the Influencer Marketing & Influencer Relations Group at LinkedIn. So, what’s the point of joining this group? Â This is a good LI group to join if you’re interested in offline influence and online influence. Topics include influencer-related business strategies, best practices, latest research and news. Â Members hold vendor-side marketing, analyst relations, consulting, staffing, … Read More
Don Bulmer starts up a social influence think tank
Don Bulmer, the SNCR-award winning head of influencer relations at SAP, is forming an informal think tank project on social influence, and in particular, best practices for social influence. He’s issued an open invitation to participate and contribute content. He’s outlined an ambitious agenda. In his words, “As I think about this I am inspired to look more deeply at how … Read More