One of my activities for 2010 is helping get the word out on the CIO Summit of America in New York and the full 2010 CIO Leadership series. I’m supporting this event series because I believe it offers compelling value as part of a tech company’s influencer relations agenda. Peer-to-peer events are growing more important. Research keeps telling us that … Read More
Chris O’Brien’s Influencers of Silicon Valley
Chris O’Brien over at the Merc published The Influencers of Silicon Valley, a list of 10 important influencers in Silicon Valley. I’m on record as one who likes lists, and I’m recommending you read this one. These are people you may want to get to know. Plus, Chris revealed a bit about how he compiled the list, and you’ll find … Read More
SAP Influencer Summit: an example of real time influencer relations
The SAP Influencer Summit dominated tech media and Twitter backchannel conversations about SAP all week. The event offers a good example of real time influencer relations management. If you’re planning an influencer summit for 2010, consider these 3 points: 1. Open discourse. Several tech providers nixed live blogging and live micro-blogging (Twitter) during their influencer events this year. SAP set … Read More
Strategic relations tools shift from monitoring to engaging influencers
Influencer marketing tools are getting a new gear and it’s a good one. Up until recently, influencer relationship management (IRM) tools offered 3 speeds: identifying, monitoring and measuring influencers. That’s good, but not good enough. Corporate marketing teams focused on social media need to find ways to scale their influencer programs without sacrificing micro-segmentation and personalization. That kind of scalability … Read More
Industry associations add interesting dimension to influencer marketing
Vendor-side influencer relations programs tend to focus on public relations, analyst relations and blogger relations. I’ve talked before (e.g. here and here) about the value of broadening these programs to include other types of influencers, such as the research leads at professional associations. Announcements today from CEA and ESA underscore why this makes so much sense. The Consumer Electronics Association … Read More
Marketing job: Influencer50 is hiring
Interested in working at an influencer marketing company? Good news – Influencer50 Inc. is hiring. The company is recruiting for a marketing manager to be based in the San Francisco office. They’re looking for an experienced marketing professional to manage one-to-one marketing outreach, influencer engagement programs for clients, and Influencer50’s online content. It’s a mid-senior level position suited for candidates … Read More
Prep influencer marketing programs for US FTC endorsement guidelines
Influencer marketing is on a collision course with the US Federal Trade Commission and its new guidelines for endorsements and testimonials in advertising. The revised guides span consumer endorsements, expert endorsements, endorsement by organizations, and disclosure of material connections between advertisers and endorsers. The FTC has already said it expects the revised guidelines to affect most businesses that advertise in … Read More
Building scalability into influencer relations programs
Influencer relations programs focus on 1-to-1 relationships and therefore can be resource-intensive. So it’s a good idea to figure out where you can achieve economies of scale and how to go about doing it. Here are 3 areas with big potential. Flexible, modular playbooks. A grand plan may work well with a handful of influencers, but it won’t scale across … Read More
What’s another word for influencer?
There are several good reasons to replace the terms “influencer” and “influencer marketing” in the marketing vocabulary. What are the best  alternatives? I don’t know the answer, however I see signs of a backlash against misuse and abuse of these terms. What are the issues with the word influencer? To start, not everyone likes being branded as an influencer. As Evan … Read More
Analyst relations skills: building a checklist for wider influencer opportunities
Analyst relations is entering a time when the tech industry not only acknowledges – but celebrates – the rich diversity of decision-maker influencers. This shift to influencer marketing presents new opportunities for transforming AR programs and careers. Many of the skills that contribute to successful analyst relations translate smoothly to relations with other types of influencers.  And some skills do not. … Read More