A Guide to Influence(rs): Chapter 2

I’m presuming that you’ve read Chapter 1 a.k.a. the first post on this. If not, here’s the link. Go do that now. If you’re reading this in the book form, I know you’ve read it because this says Chapter 2 and who reads Chapter 2 before Chapter 1?

Influencer Relations Programs

I think that you probably now have a good idea of the rudiments of what “types” of analysts are out there and a few names that fit the type – though we’ll go into a much bigger list in Chapter 4 along with some of the things that you have to think about when it comes to dealing with individual analysts. This means you, analyst relations person, you investor relations person, you especially public relations person, you influencer relations person. When we get to Chapter 3, I’m going to elaborate on how to do this right, and show you how it gets done wrong, which, unfortunately, tends to be the bulk of approaches that are out there for, lets say, explainable, but not acceptable reasons.

Do you even need a program? Why? Why not? How do you structure that program? Or, at least, who does it well?

Do You Need a Program?

There is something sad about the whole influencer relations (IR) thing, even though, at a certain level, I make my living because of it.

As I mentioned in Chapter 1, what makes the whole thing sad and a little maddening perhaps is that it’s a game.

Maybe you wonder why I would say that?

Simple.

The best of all possible worlds says that companies should be able to stand on the merits of the quality of their offering to the potential customers that they are attempting to lure. If that were true, it would eliminate the need to chat with any influencer or the twenty that you do have to chat up. (Aside: By the way, it would also eliminate the apparent need that several of the technologies companies have to snarkily denigrate their competition in childish and distinctly unoriginal ways.) The value of the product to the persons seeking a specific business outcome from that product would decide the winners of the competition.

But, we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds – or do we? I won’t get into the existential conversation that is suggested by this; that’s Spinoza’s bailiwick, but I will say that we live in a world, instead, where companies do have to deal with influencers.

You have to because:

1. Influencers talk to customers and prospects
2. Influencers talk to potential investors
3. Influencers talk to “markets”
4. Influencers talk to other influencers
5. Influencers actually can provide good advice if they do consulting, which many do. And bad advice too. Let’s face it, we ain’t perfect.

That’s a lot of relatively powerful reasons. Let’s see what each of them means.

Influencers talk to customers and prospects

This is done both formally and informally. Formally, it means that customers and prospects specifically either seek out influencers or read what they write about the companies that they are interested in possibly engaging. The institutional influencers get a large percentage of the customer/prospect formal phone calls though the boutique firms and the independents do also. I’d say in the vicinity of a two-thirds to one-third ratio if you had to guess at a number. That would be a customer calling up the influencer at Gartner let’s say, and asking “what do you think of Oracle for um, loyalty management?”

But they also call me, and Constellation Research and Denis Pombriant and…you get the picture. It’s a bit random at times who they choose and a bit perplexing why, but they make the calls.

Don’t forget the more informal channels too. For example, I speak at a conference. I will inevitably get somebody from a company with a proposal out for some CRM related or social technology, asking me about the finalists or about a company they are considering as their choice. With caveats about the generality of my answer, I’ll give them an idea of what I think, if I can. Sometimes, that leads to a more formal (and occasionally deep enough to be paid) discussion with the team that’s making the decision.

The other area where customers look to influencers is in their writing. If I or someone else write an opinion piece about a technology company and their product it is read. For example, literally, every day (I would guess) Naomi Bloom, a world class leading HR analyst/influencer/consultant who is also a member of the Enterprise Irregulars, will get queries in an email from some customer who read something that she wrote about a company of interest to them – and as often as makes sense – she responds.

Influencers talk to potential investors

Again, this is both informal and formal. On the more formal side, there are companies like Gerson Lehmann Group (GLG) and De Matteo Moness (DMM) who pay influencers by the hour to render opinions on both market trends and specific companies within those markets to their clients who tend to be institutional investors from large banks or venture capital firms. I know in my experience with these companies, which is pretty extensive, the general discussion is on CRM market trends, and what do I think of company X, and where it is going relatively to other companies. Interestingly, there is one company that has been the subject of at least 80% of the inquiries over the past 5 years that I’ve been doing these kinds of calls. I’ll leave it to your imagination to guess which.

This is by no means the only avenue that investors and potential other shareholders reach out through. They do it via emails, and meetings at conferences among other places. This happens frequently to all influencers with a public presence. The independent influencers tend to get the bulk of these informal kinds of queries. They seem more approachable than the institutionals though it’s truly not the case. As always, it is a matter of personality when it comes to approachability, not typecasting.

Influencers talk to markets

This means that influencers influence markets. What influencers write and say about markets and trends in markets impact what people think about markets and potential trends. Because influencers are human beings, despite what you may think, (J) if they are writing a piece on the market that your company is involved in, and, for example, they need to mention a company who represents the market well, they are going to mention the companies that are top of mind – even as representative examples. If you have no relationship to them at all, then you won’t be top of mind, whether you’re known to the influencer or not. Again. They are human beings and thus work like any other human beings. The organizations and individuals who they feel connected to, they will think of first. If you’re not, they may think of you as one of their choices but you won’t be the one who’s mentioned.

Let me put it to you this way. You have a choice of two companies, both of whom fit your criteria well for whatever it is you need to talk about. With Choice #1 they are great and you know them well and like them. Choice #2 equally great but you don’t know them. Either of them would be a great choice to mention. Which one would you mention?

That is correct sir or ma’am. The one you know. Why not? There is no reason not to if they are of equal value otherwise.

That said, if the influencer has a paid relationship to the company that they mention, they do need to say that more often than not. There are even circumstances where paying the influencer to do something will actually prevent them from mentioning you in something. My policy (and this just mine, not necessarily someone else’s) is that when I write a contracted white paper for some company, they understand from the beginning that this is a thought leadership piece and that they will NOT be mentioned in the document at all. But then again, nor will their competitors. However, what I will promise is that it will be aligned appropriately to messaging that we both can agree on. But the key here is both. Not one or the other.

With that example, I leave it to you to weigh the value of paying influencers to do something. That’s not for me to do. But regardless of that, there is enormous value in knowing influencers – establishing some sort of bond. If you don’t see that, stop reading this now and go read “Fifty Shades of Grey.” There is a certain irony in the title, though not in the content.

Influencers talk to other influencers

This goes back to what I said in Chapter 1. Influencers in the technology world and especially in CRM know each other well and hang out together both virtually and when possible which is quite frequently, in person – at restaurants, bars, and conferences most likely. In fact, there is almost a circuit that you will inevitably find the influencers traveling which involves Dreamforce (salesforce.com’s annual shindig); Open World (Oracle’s); Sapphire (SAP’s) and either Convergence (Microsoft’s business applications conference) or Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC). The same people travel to each of the conferences – accommodated by their expenses being paid by the conference owners. You’ll see a significant number of the influencers (though not all) at all four.

On the virtual side, you just have to refer to what I said earlier about the organized groups, like the Enterprise Irregulars (EI) and the Accidental Social CRM Community (AC). But it goes well beyond that. There are constant email exchanges. There are other back channels from some of the firms. Many influencers sit on the boards of other influencer groups (for example, Esteban Kolsky and I both sit on the Board of Advisors of Constellation Research). Some of the younger influencers are mentored by the older influencers (sigh) even though the younger influencers may have substantially more of a digital presence. The implication there is that the younger influencers are influenced by what the older influencers say. (I hope. J). There are daily email exchanges. There are daily direct messages (DMs) on Twitter.

There are temporary partnerships that can be as simple as project collaboration – for example a recent collaboration between Esteban Kolsky (independent influencer) and Mitch Lieberman (vendor influencer) for a Customer Service research project.

It can be a temporary institution such as CRM Idol which in 2012 had 9 primary judges all influencers and 71 extended judges – all influencers from multiple domains – vendors, media, institutional influencers, practitioner, boutique influencers, independent influencers and those elusive influencers who influence other influencers – all of whom came together for a specific purpose – to support small emerging technology companies in an annual contest that puts them on an international stage – which influencers in combination have the power to do.

It can be more permanent too – as simple as Brent Leary and I who have been doing what we call the CRM Playaz for about 4 years now - a satirical look at events in the world of CRM and technology – that has thousands of listeners/watchers. To give you a picturesque example of how that works, here is a story I personally loved.

I was in Kiev Ukraine, speaking to 300 people who were employees of BPMOnline, the EMEA winner of CRM Idol in 2011. After giving a speech to them, the first question I was asked by one of the employees was, “when are you and Brent Leary going to do the next episode of CRM Playaz?”

That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

See how it all works?

Not quite, huh? Let me give you the glue.

Add that one other element that I mentioned in Chapter 1 and you get an idea (and only a somewhat fuzzy idea at that) at the intricacy of the influencer networks and how they chat and talk and interact all the time.

That other element? Influencers gossip. That one. They are constantly in situations where they interact with each other and compare notes – in both real and virtual environments. Plus they choose each day to interact with some of the clan. So there are passive and proactive situations that they are involved with.

So think about why your relationship to influencers might have an impact (depending on choosing the right ones – do your own social network analysis – we’ll talk about that in a later chapter) far beyond that individual.

Influencers actually can provide good advice

This section is mildly self-aggrandizing since this is how I make my living, but it is also true. Equally true is that influencers who consult can also provide bad advice. Ultimately, if you hire them to provide you with advice, you have to decide how to use it. But there are two very important specific pieces of advice about getting advice that I think you need to know that are VERY important. One regarding unpaid advice. The other regarding paid advice.

Regarding Unpaid Advice

There are few influencers even including the institutional influencers who are under pressure to be utilized who won’t be willing to give free advice every now and then. But there are a few things to remember regarding this:

1. Influencers make some of their living being paid for their advice.
2. There is a limit, even if you’re a friend, on how often you should “tap the tree” for free advice.
3. When you want free advice, please be sure that you’ve got some sort of relationship with the person. It goes down so much better when you ask.

Here’s the thing. Each of the influencers as I mentioned get asked a number of times in a given day if they would be willing to take a demo. Usually, what the demo requester asks is for feedback when you take the demo, on what you think. While most of the influencers are polite enough to provide some feedback, be aware of a few things, if you’re one of these. Starting a relationship by asking them to take a demo and provide free feedback – meaning about $1000 worth of their paid time for free – is not the best way to do things. Though again, it’s okay to ask. Also, the feedback you’ll get is somewhat generic since you couldn’t possibly be providing enough information in one hour of time to get some deeply cogent information from the influencer – though its often surprisingly good.

Even if you have a relationship and are freely getting advice when you ask, don’t overdo it. This is how the folks you’re asking for advice make a living. For example, there is one company that I genuinely adore and love the people I deal with. For about 3-4 years, I’ve given them free advice because I do that and much of the level of the advice, because I know the company so well is what I would normally charge for. However, I don’t charge them and wouldn’t ask. The thing is that they seem so comfortable with this “arrangement” to never even offer a token gesture.

I’m not resentful about this but I do know I’m reaching a point where I’m going to have to start saying “no” even though my personal relationship with some of the key people at this company is through the roof great. I’ve never had an indication that they were even thinking about something despite the many hours that they’ve had of free advice. They aren’t a charity so there is a limit to pro bono from me because neither am I. There has to be.

What I’m saying is no matter what the situation – no relationship, close relationship, be mindful of the fact that the person whose advice you are asking has to earn a living too – respect it. Don’t kowtow to it. Often it’s a matter of a gesture of thanks, not necessarily a paid contract. It depends on the person. If you’re dealing with the institutional or the boutique firms, you’ll be less likely to get away with the free advice for too long. Though the influencers there are perfectly happy to do pro bono work when it suits them.

Regarding Paid Advice

This one is simple.

If you’re paying for advice, listen to it.

That might seem obvious, but it isn’t. Influencers who are consulting with you are partnering with you to figure out the best course of action based on what you’ve engaged them for. I can’t tell you the countless times I’ve had discussions with influencers who are frustrated because the advice they gave

But another piece of advice:

Don’t be uncritical just because you are paying for it.

You have every right (and even a responsibility) to challenge the influencer who is providing you with advice. Your challenges of what they are saying might range from “that makes no sense given our mission/vision” to “it doesn’t feel right” to “we want to move in a different direction than that.” When it boils down to it, you’ve hired them; they haven’t hired you. You need them to give you a perspective and a plan that can work or minimally suggestions that you can consider that come from a fresh perspective (theirs).

But if you agree with them, then work hard to do what they suggest. The advice doesn’t come from a vacuum and if its advice you can get behind – make sure that you have the internal resources to execute on that advice. If you are limited in your resources for one reason or another and you know that when you are having the conversations with the consultant/influencer – for god’s sakes, tell them! That way they can brainstorm with you on how to get it implemented or whether the plan will need adjustment. A plan in theory isn’t what you’re aiming at here. A plan in action is. So treat the influencer as your partners/fellow conspirator. They’re under NDA anyway and likely to know the corporate politics that you’re dealing with – if they’ve done their homework. So be straight so it can get done.

Things to consider prior to hiring influencers

There is a lot to consider before you actually bring an influencer on board:

Make sure that you have an idea of what you want from them – There is this strategy that a lot of companies practice which is to retain influencers to “be around” to answer questions and advise whenever needed within certain limits. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the strategy, what seems to inevitably happen with this one is that you pay the influencers for a full year in some proscribed way and then forget to use them all that much. So that the value you receive is not near the price you pay. Its great for influencers in one regard. We get paid whether you use us or not. The nature of a retainer. But it’s not so good in that we should be used, if you’re paying. Some companies are good at that. Some aren’t.

So rather than worry about use – whatever format you use to pay an influencer/consultant – e.g. deliverables, retainer – make sure that you have a clear and distinct knowledge of what you are going to use the particular person for. Having them around for some vague future use is not all that great a strategy for you.

Make sure they are the experts that you want – Forget whether they represent Gartner, Constellation or some independent. Does this person have the expertise you need to answer your identified questions? Maybe it’s a partner strategy? Or a product development requirement? Or an approach to getting on to the Gartner Magic Quadrant or Forrester Wave? Or a messaging issue? Or a thought leadership/mindshare plan? Whatever. Ask the questions. Find the experts. Hire the experts. Get the answers. Implement the answers. If it comes from Gartner and an independent or two, then it does. Bring the horsepower you need to get results together and go for it.

Should you engage Gartner/Forrester because you have to? - Let’s make something clear. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Gartner and Forrester are the 800 and 400 pound gorillas respectively, but what makes them useful to you is that they do get a lot of customer queries and top of mind companies who are most often their clients do get referred. Second, they have some top-notch experts like Michael Maoz at Gartner and Bill Band at Forrester who can give you great advice. Companies feel compelled to deal with Gartner and Forrester but that’s nonsense. I am not a fan of some of their leadership but I am a huge fan of some of their analysts. Use them if you need to, not because you need to. Be brave. (J)

Who Has Done it Right? Vendor Influencer Programs That Work

To be clear, I’m going to deal with the influencer programs of technology companies because this is what I know best. I’m going to highlight five specific programs at five different technology companies that do it nearly completely right. Even though most of the companies have more than one program, I’m not passing judgment on the other programs. It’s just that these five stand out individually, for valuable and useful reasons. They also represent the universal best practices applicable to any influencer relations program for any industry. They take unique approaches and have unique strengths, though a few of their upsides are universal. In other words, they rock.

SAP Business Influencer Program

This program with the ineffable (and wonderful) Malcolm Kimberlin in charge is clearly a crown jewel in SAP’s AR/IR effort. Primarily tasked to deal with the independent influencers as individuals and as a force, Malcolm not only provides personal attention to each of the influencers he is responsible for and that he discovers, but has operated as a champion for their exposure at SAP, helping the influencers get to individuals they need to have a discussion with or attend events that they need to be at etc. So that the influencers can do their jobs well when it comes to SAP’s interests. He is also a friend to many of them on a personal level. Yet he never loses sight that SAP’s interests have to always be in the forefront and its part of his job to establish the relationships that are needed to help SAP get considered honestly from the influencers that are in his stable, which seems to be the genuine goal of the program. This program is recognized and lauded among the influencers who know it as one of the best, if not the best in the entire industry.

Lessons to Learn:

1. Influencers are individuals and treating them that way goes a long way to gaining their trust. Spend the time with them to get to know them.
2. Treat the influencers as partners rather than antagonists.
3. Treat the influencers as friends without kissing their butts.
4. Be a conduit for access to programs, people, and occasional work.
5. Make sure a good human being not an automaton is running your influencer program.

Oracle Blogger Program

This program is a smaller program at Oracle run by everyone’s favorite – Susie Penner who does a brilliant job. This is distinct and tends to be the where the independent analysts who not only blog but operate as consultants are harbored. Susie is literally personal friends with every single one and actually is genuinely excited to see them – each of them – when she does. The program itself involves access to key analyst events where the bloggers (again, in name only) are given access to things like Oracle’s annual Analyst Day which brings in several tens of analysts and bloggers for a partially-under-NDA program where Oracle exposes their messaging and several of their enterprise apps and hardware senior management to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, meaning questions that can be hard hitting from the analyst and blogger side (more on analyst days when we discuss the rudiments of a program.) Access to people, products and some paid work are all part of Susie’s offering but her program is small and highly selective because she is acutely aware of the balance between personal friendship and the business needs and value needed in return of Oracle.

Lessons to Learn:

1. Personal relationships matter a great deal (this one will be heard over and over)
2. Highly specialized programs are value based – meaning there has to be an assessment of what kind of value the relationship with the individual analyst – given strengths and interests – can bring is something that has to be done.
3. There is a fine line between the personal friendship and the business relationship. It’s not a matter of being crossed to one side or the other; it’s more a matter of making sure that both are balanced. That is the optimal situation.

Microsoft Analyst Relations Program (CRM Group)

This is unique because of the four it’s the only one that has both internal and external people working in sync as a single team. Microsoft employs Waggoner Edstrom to work with them and has for many years in multiple facets of the analyst relations program – many as distinctly different from CRM as you can get e.g. storage and servers. They incorporate all types of analysts into one big program even though they differentiate how they deal with them. So they will deal with Gartner analysts differently than Constellation analysts differently than independent analysts but they are all contacted within the confines of a single program. They consciously spend the time to network through influencers on who to talk to and because they treat the influencers well, they are given that advice freely. I’d say no one does that better than they do.

Their combined Waggoner Edstrom and Microsoft staff team work together exceptionally well and without friction. Both sides of the team are generally well like by the influencers. The Microsoft team changes a lot due to internal promotions or lateral moves, but the Waggoner Edstrom team has been pretty consistent with a few moves now and then. Waggoner Edstrom make sure that the influencers are frequently briefed and have a consistent point of contact, where the Microsoft staff provides the access to the domain (CRM in my case) senior management when necessary to get ahold of. It’s not really as neat as I’m making it. Waggoner Edstrom provides management access too and Microsoft staffers keep the influencers briefed. But it falls that way the slim majority of the time.

They have perhaps the most highly structured and relatively complete program for keeping influencers updated with:

1. Regularized outreach to those on their networks with pre-briefings on new announcements, changes, and other important events. They don’t bother influencers with lesser matters. They have an acute sense of what is a time-wasting non-starter and what’s important and always are concerned to proceed in the right way.
2. Regularized press releases dropped into email as FYI.
3. Specific outreach to individual influencers for particular things, always mindful of the influencer’s time.

They also make sure that the influencers are treated as individuals who matter to them one way or the other. They are arguably the most generous when it comes to making sure that expenses are covered for conferences and that the influencers are individually tended to.

Lessons to Learn:

1. Teams work if the chemistry is right. Don’t be afraid to engage an outside firm if it makes sense to support your influencer relations program. But remember there is a significant increase in cost to do it that way.
2. Regularize your outreach. This is very important. But there are ways to do it and ways to not do it (later chapter).
3. Personalize the outreach. Make sure that you’ve done enough homework on the influencers that you want to impact that you understand what interests them and what doesn’t.
4. Be mindful of the influencer’s time (they should be mindful of yours too but that isn’t the subject of this guide per se. Its all a two way street. Later on that one too).

Salesforce.com Analyst/Influencer Relations

John Taschek runs this program globally for salesforce.com and is supported strongly by Steve Gillmor and a team of enthusiastic and, for the most part, highly experienced IR/AR people. The interesting thing about this program is that John and Steve are among the more powerful vendor influencers themselves, so this tends to almost be a peer program rather than a company-to-influencer program. Each of them had a significant career outside of salesforce.com and carry that career, with the blessing of the company, into the program itself. For example, John was the #1 columnist in the entire computer world before he joined salesforce.com 7 years ago. He has retained his influence by his always-updated knowledge of the industry, his retained connections and his just outright decency. To underscore this, he is one of the few vendor members of the Enterprise Irregulars. Steve was (and still is) the host of the very influential Gillmor Gang on TechCrunch TV. He has a wide net of both followers and friends who not only think the world of the guy but also listen to his always cogent and irreverent thinking.

Now, note something. The way I just described the two was as influencers, not people instrumental in an influencer/analyst relations program. The idea of a peer running a program or at least participating in an influencer program is not a bad one (see Chris Bucholtz at SugarCRM for a similar, but not identical, idea)– and in fact – goes a long way to satisfy the comfort zones that are necessary when it comes to engaging and maintaining relationships with influencers. The more comfortable the influencers feel, the more likely they are to speak well of the company when it’s merited and to not speak badly of the company – sometimes even when its merited. These are no small things when considering the who of a program, not just the what.

But what salesforce.com has also done is bring in influencers as hires to other positions – outside the program. For example, they have former AMR/Gartner analyst Bruce Richardson as a VP of Strategy; Charlie Isaacs, a vendor influencer who is now a VP of Strategy at ServiceCloud; Dave Kellogg as SVP/GM of ServiceCloud. Again, this provides a strange but interesting level of comfort. It reflects/implies a trust in the talents and skills of influencers beyond their ability to talk to customers, investors etc. In other words, it says “we think you have value to provide, you aren’t just people we are forced to talk to.” Or, at least I think it indicates that – though I have no idea if salesforce is conscious of that or not.

Finally, what salesforce has done beyond the people running the program is have a really accomplished on-the-ground team – people like Carolina Grimm. They are not only articulate and personable, but they damn well know what they are doing and know how to balance the needs of salesforce.com with the often let’s-just-call-it “highly demanding” requirements of influencers (more on that later).

Lessons to Learn:

1. Peer programs are valuable because the comfort level with the external influencers is automatically great. The trust is there already due to a “known quantity” – if you’ve chosen the right person(s).
2. Having highly experienced on the ground folks as part of the program – makes a HUGE difference in how well the program works.

NetSuite Influencer Relations Program

Mei Li, NetSuite’s SVP of Corporate Communications runs this program and does it so well that it can be considered a paradigm for companies that aren’t spending the budget that the Big 4 spend on their programs.

What makes what Mei Li doing so valuable and almost unique is that they don’t have the somewhat narrowly defined view that you get from a lot of the influencer programs. They understand that:

1. Influencers come in all shapes and sizes and some of them are not necessarily digital or social, but quite traditional.
2. That they don’t all reside in the United States and that’s meaningful even to primarily U.S. companies (though NetSuite is global).

Consequently, when you go to a NetSuite event, you’ll see a remarkable mix of traditional media (e.g. reporters from say, the San Francisco Chronicle); international media (influencer freelancer journalists influential in the U.K.) and the digerati (Brian Solis, Ray Wang, and all of the above – social and traditional CRM).

As obvious as this may sound, this approach is not the norm. Most programs place spectacularly heavy emphasis on the digerati rather than the traditional and with the exception of European rock stars like Dennis Howlett who have a substantial presence in the United States, on American influencers. Not NetSuite.

Perhaps even more important (and this theme tends to run throughout the best programs) is the relationship that Mei Li has with the influencers. She has made them friends who would run through walls for her (among them, me). She has established relationships that are amazing and incredibly personal.

A story:

I was at one of the early dinners that she held for influencers – always mixing the crowds by the way – no separation between journalists and analysts at all - and there was this hard bitten San Francisco Chronicle reporter who was cynically wailing on technology and companies in the industry. It was a rather nasty diatribe and was being carried out to all who would listen prior to Mei’s arrival. About 10 minutes into his rant, Mei walked in. He turned to mush and wrapped himself around her finger. She had that effect on this otherwise harsh dude.

The other thing that Mei and NetSuite do well is treat all this with a somewhat wicked sense of humor in a rather posh (as my British compadres say) way. They provide goodie bags, bling things, swag bags, to the influencers that have essentially great chocolates and something particularly unusual – latest was a Lytro camera. While this doesn’t sway the influencers opinions it doesn’t hurt to be treated well either. It doesn’t extend to just the influencers either. They have a high-end outlook with a lot of class also – and that wicked humor. For example, many years ago, they held a large VIP dinner with about 150 in attendance. This was when Steve Cakebread was the CFO of saleforce.com. The prevailing story at the time (not sure it was true but it was the story) was that salesforce.com wouldn’t serve the excellent Cakebread Cellars wine due to a perceived conflict of interest since that was Steve Cakebread’s family. It’s also a pricey California wine. That dinner? Choice of Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc (I think – could have been a Chardonnay) or Cakebread Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon. The joke is obvious, but it is also a superb wine. This is a company that applies its high-end instincts (most of the time using their customers’ upscale goods) to its influencer program due to Mei Li’s considerable clout and the personal regard with which she’s held. She is arguably the most beloved person in the technology company corporate communications world with a program that keeps influencers close and fully integrated with the company.

Lessons to Learn:

1. Remember there is real value to be garnered from traditional influencers.
2. Think globally when you think of your influencer networks.
3. In a high powered, high energy industry, high energy it doesn’t hurt to think upscale – and to use your customers’ products to represent that – if you can afford to.
4. Make sure that the person who runs your program has the personality and the smarts to do so. Not just one or the other. There is NO compromise on this particular matter.

SOOOOOO….

What’s been the idea for this chapter?

Not hard. There are reasons to engage influencers and there are best practices out there when it comes to doing so. This chapter covered the reasons and the best practices that do exist – at least in part.

Remember something though. What I outline here are programs that are specific to companies with specific purposes for the programs, specific results they are looking for and specific people who are running the programs – and thus, each is tailored to optimize the talents and objectives that are at hand for them. So they might not have the perfect program for you. But pay attention to the general lessons learned from each because they may apply and you can use any combination of them you want to in establishing your own program. But hopefully, you’re doing that because you’re already convinced that you’re going to have to involve influencers in your corporate life.

Okay. On to Chapter 3. There’s still a lot to cover and miles to go before I sleep, as a famous poet laureate of the U.S. once said.

Comments

[countertop website]

Very vulnerable to stains, scratches and chips.

[Volleyball Clinics]

We set and demonstrate the highest standards both for the coaching profession and our organization.

[seasalt]

great!

[PegKates]

I've been in high tech PR and AR for over 25 years -- even had a stint at one of the analyst firms for a while -- and this is best, most honest look at how influencer relations can (and should) work I've ever seen. Great job. Bring on Chapter 3!

[Dave Kellogg]

Great post, Paul. I think this is a very useful series and I look forward to seeing the final package as a e-book when it's done. For such an important area, relatively little is "documented" when it comes to AR and AR programs. (And my title, by the way, is SVP/GM of Service Cloud; Charlie's on my team and is our VP of Strategy.) And we think Carolina rocks as well!