Want to Build Influence? Be a Meaningful Specific

It's not enough to be specific. Especially if you're being specifically rigid about the way to look at things. Did you think your way or ideas was the only way? If you want people to care, you need to be the first one to do so - and meaningfully. What about respect? Something else you give to get.

Attractiveness is about pull, not push.

Influence -- building and leveraging it -- is a topic that has held much discussion in marketing communications and now social media. Instead of learning to employ change to re-energize, a topic we'll tackle next week, businesses are looking to change channels for continuous maximum impact.

Indeed, you cannot expect a Fortune 500 company to give up mass anything to fill its pipeline -- it just wouldn't be sustainable. Yeah, you can fall in love with Dell's Twitter outlet case study until you compare that amount to the revenue (and profit) the company needs to make to stay in business.

So we look for new answers to old problems: getting the word out. A new Forrester report from Augie Ray and Josh Bernoff outlines Peer Influence Analysis. From the executive summary:

[...] we now know that people in the US generate more than 500 billion online impressions on
each other regarding products and services — more than one-fourth the number of impressions advertisers make. Furthermore, 16% of the online consumers generate 80% of these impressions. These numbers come from Peer Influence Analysis, our new model to help marketers quantify reach and connect efficiently with the Mass Influencers for their products and services. Based on this analysis, marketers can develop programs that draw in, engage, and unleash the power of influence in social applications.

Bernoff and Ray distinguish between influence impressions and are about 256 billion generated in social networks, and influence posts, around 1.64 billion multiplied by an estimated 150 readers each or 250 billion. That's how they got to the 500 billion number.

The two types of Mass Influencers identified in the report are straight out or Gladwell's The Tipping Point and they are Mass Connectors and Mass Mavens. The first group has a massive number of connections, the second massive insights and knowledge to share. To me there are several people who travel in both circles.

Social Broadcasters do not equal Mass Influencers and need to be treated separately. You go ahead and identify your Mass Influencers using the Social Technographics Profile, and you're on your way.

Except for getting the word out is not really the problem is it? The problem is getting people to care.

So what do you do with this information? How do you get to the care part?

1. Take a look at what organization behaviors are sought and appreciated by your buyers -- and you can do that through their digital body language and the information they share about you. Things like:

• constant innovation and experimentation -- the ultimate example is Apple
• re-imagining the world -- what if everyone took better care of themselves? what can you do to deliver a necessary message about health through entertainment, for example?
• aligning around good -- the ultimate universal meaning, in your flavor
• presenting products as stories -- how fun, educational, engaging that would be

2. Build meaning into your interactions -- whether they be with a person representing your business, or what your business does. For example:

• communicating deeper meaning people can opt into beyond a product or service
• creating alliances with other products and services as part of a market ecosystem
• sharing information and knowledge, out-teaching your competitors
• being a true representation of your brand, believing in it yourself

***

If you think about the brands you love, you'll probably see some or many of these characteristics and behaviors at work. For brands to become a true part of conversation, they need to be intertwined in the very fabric of it -- means to a meaningful experience and connection for the people who buy them.

That is true influence.

[image http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriapeckham/ / CC BY 2.0]

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of Forrester's Peer Influence Analysis report as part of the company's media outreach efforts.]

© 2010 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Jim Matorin]

Diffusion research how ideas/messaging pass through society is definitely an area worth examing with all the different platforms out there. Good content about the people, but is anyone monitoring the time line associated with the viral implications. We might find out today after Brogan's post.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Jim:

Did not wish to throw too much at people in one post. Observing how things spread and choreographing accelerators is the Holy Grail of new marketing. However, I still see too much concentration on the promotional side and not enough on the product and company culture side. Times have changed. Want to be faster in the marketplace? Make stuff people want and need, create a process to fix issues quickly, or get the word about what you're doing to fix them (e.g., Ning). Time line is one metric that can be affected by how your approach the rest. We can tackle Social Broadcasters in another post. Thank you for the comment.

[Peter]

Hi Valeria

"It's not enough to be specific. Especially if you're being specifically rigid about the way to look at things. Did you think your way or ideas was the only way?"

How do we separate the things we need to believe to be motivated and get out of bed (the rigid) with what else might be going on (the ability to change your thinking to reflect what you are becoming).

I see this in strategy meetings all the time. Yes- we all need to know where we are going ( to be unified and build momentum) but the reality based on everyone experience is that if we end up there is more co-incidence than design. I guess what I'm saying is that rigid thinking has its place but you need flexibility to understand and influence the direction of all that momentum and energy.

"If you want people to care, you need to be the first one to do so - and meaningfully."

An interesting thought - Do you think Valeria 5.0 ( five years from now) is a "customer" of Valeria now and does the same analysis apply?

Personally, I think building meaningful interactions with others to be more about caring for me in the future than the client in the present. Yes - its both but I'll try and explain.

I see behavior as one end to a thread sewn across the fabric of time. The other is held by the person I'm becoming. I imagine the people I meet ( and do work with) find me by following that thread (through coincidence, synchronicity, referrals etc) back to the future.

Maybe not - but in the scheme of practical misunderstandings I don't see a downside.

Nice to chat.

Peter

By the way, wondering around a second hand book shop yesterday and noticed that my mood changed as I wondered from section to section. When I came to the management section I was overcome by a sense of sadness. Thankfully, I was able to quickly move on to joy and poetry.

[Malik]

If we really want to bring some positive and lasting impacts and influence on others, than your factors are important but many more effect as well.