Why and How PR needs to evolve in the Digital Age:
Influencer Marketing
We all recognize that we live in a
world where people consume and share information in a very different way than
they did just 10 years ago. There is no need to convince anyone of the impact
the internet, social media, and mobile devices have had in business and in
life. And still, in most companies, the PR function has not evolved in almost a
century.
Only a few years ago, information
sources were centralized. People got their news from a handful of newspapers,
magazines, and TV stations. Reporters writing for these news outlets were the
main source of information. They were, in a sense, a bottleneck or a monopoly
in buyer opinion and education. Inside a company, the public relations function
was the practice of informing and influencing these reporters with the
intention of getting favorable news coverage.
Today, this is an obsolete paradigm
as newspapers are moving from print to digital or going out of business. An
article printed in this morning's newspaper is not news anymore, it is history.
We learn about the news in real-time via Twitter, Facebook or online news
feeds. Millions of amateur and professional writers have become publishers
thanks to blogging platforms and other social media channels. Anyone can write
news. The problem in the world today is that we have too many news sources, too
much to read and too many point of views.
Everyone is empowered to influence.
Any really good story can go 'viral', spreading faster and broader than what
traditional public relations was able do years ago. Good examples include
“United Breaks Guitars" and “Comcast Tech Sleeping on my Couch' which had
millions of views, which then resulted in news coverage. In some cases, social
news transformed the organizations that were at fault for these incidents.
The Public Relation function needs
to evolve
It would be logical then to conclude
that the original charter of the public relations function is insufficient in
today’s world. A broader lens is required. If PR is the function responsible
for influencing opinion through broad reach, a new definition is required, one
that takes into account how people form opinion and how information spreads
(and is shared).
Recognizing the need to modernize
the definition of PR, in 2012 The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)
crafted a new definition for the practice. Their new definition states “Public
relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial
relationships between organizations and their publics.” This statement
pretty much exemplifies what is wrong with PR today.
The Wikipedia definition of PR can
be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations, and can be summarized as
spreading information with the goal of persuading around a point of view. I
like this one much better, maybe because it is essentially the same I wrote
above, simplified as influencing opinion through broad reach.
PR is Influencer Relations
If the true goal of PR is to
influence then it needs to evolve into an influencer relations function. The
concept of influencers is based on the idea that in almost every market or area
of knowledge, there are a small group of people who have a disproportionate
ability to influence how people think. This is the concept explored in Malcom
Gladwel’s The Tipping
Point where he classifies
influencers as connectors, mavens and salesmen based on their reach, knowledge,
and ability to persuade or influence.
An influencer has a combination of
three elements: a unique point of view or perceived knowledge on the particular
topic or credibility, ability to influence how people think about an issue, and
connections or reach that allows their salesmanship to reach many people. Reach,
credibility, and salesmanship: the higher these three factors, the higher
the influence potential of an individual.
It is important to consider why PR
needs to focus on a small number of people rather than try to go after the
entire public directly. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, this function
is about personal relationships or at least personal connections and
interactions, which are not scalable. Secondly, reaching masses of people to
persuade is what advertising does, in a very impersonal way.
Using this definition, the press is
still influential. However, there are other groups of influencers that PR needs
to pay attention to (and build ‘mutually beneficial relationships’ with). In
today’s world, influencers include the press, bloggers, authors, key customers,
industry analysts, and more.
To build a complete list of the
influencers that matter for your organization, one could take a more practical
approach. Taking on the perspective of a business that is trying to sell a
product or service and building a list of influencers requires first
understanding how customers make purchasing decisions, and second,
understanding what experts they rely on for making these decisions. An
influencer is someone who helps other people buy from you. This is the simplest
definition, and the most practical for marketers.
Advocacy is the goal of Influencer
relations.
Once these groups of influencers
have been identified, and often assigned to people or teams (analyst relations,
blogger relations, etc.) and plan to influence, each influencer group must be
defined. Influencer marketing usually involves a personal approach that must be
focused on helping influencers do their job, satisfy their curiosity, or play
to their ego.
Influencers are “turned-on” by
empowering them to be advocates. But you can’t buy advocacy (don’t even try).
You must be authentic and helpful to earn the opportunity to be listened to by
an influencer. You must understand what drives them. How can you help them
achieve their goals in the context of your products or services?
Influencers are often driven by
status: recognition is more important than monetary rewards. Helping them grow
their knowledge is a great way to be helpful. One way to do this is by
providing early access to products and the highest levels of expertise in your
organization.
Three last points on influence:
- Popularity is not influence. Justin Bieber, Charlie Sheen and Miley Cyrus are popular. They have millions of followers on social networks. And yet, the public is not necessarily going to take advice from them on anything of importance (I sure hope not). Remember, reach, credibility, and salesmanship are required to be an influencer.
- Influence is contextual. Most of my friends will buy a camera I recommend because I have credibility as a good amateur photographer. The same friends would not take my advice on fashion or politics. Influence is determined by the credibility one has in a particular field of knowledge or context
- Anyone can be an influencer. Passion is the essence of influence. Any person has some level of influence in the areas he or she is passionate about. Someone who is passionate about cooking, for example, will probably build the contextual credibility to be in influencer – limited only by their reach and salesmanship.
Influencer relations is most effective
when it works together with other areas of marketing. A good example of
influencer relations, media relations, and content marketing working together
is the Lumia campaign Nokia
is running with National Geographic, where they work with recognized
photographers (influencers) and a media property with broad reach and a
reputation for great photography (contextual influence) to promote a product in
a very credible way (salesmanship).
Basil Mbuna
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