What is influence? For a decade, Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point has served as a touchstone for those who believe that influence resides in the hands of a select few. Not so, says a new generation of marketers. They believe that thanks to the democratizing power of the Internet, anyone can be an Influential. Both camps are wrong. True influence flows from drawing together people with shared interests. This session focuses on the process of identifying areas of relevancy among your customers and prospects, building community, and allowing others to amplify your influence as you meet their needs.
6. … stories paint a picture that creates an emotional response to the information you are receiving that influences one to respond. - overthetopaprons@syix.com While careful tracking and analysis can help identify exactly how you're being interpreted by influencers, in all human interaction, there's bound to be a significant level of trial and error and blind luck. The trick is taking advantage of that blind luck-did you learn something from the lucky turn of influence that you can use to improve moving forward? - @tracycgold making a connection meeting opportunity understanding context … influence implies causality (influencer acts, 'influencees' act in return) means that it's not a simple idea that can be summarized by a handful of influencer archetypes or measured by how many followers and retweets you have on Twitter. The main driver for this complexity in our experience is context which should be interpreted as: 1) relevance (topical); 2) situational - Pierre-LoicAssayag, CEO @traackr
10. social trends often seem to have been driven by certain influential people; yet marketers have been unable to identify these “influencers” in advance
14. April 13, 2009 – Good as You GLBT activist blog publishes the Domino’s videos for the first time, videos go viral within hours May 19, 2010 – Josh Simpson, comedian, CA creates @BPGlobalPR 188,604 followers at height of interest CATALYST May 13, 2010 – Lee Perkins, videographer, Shreveport, LA creates Boycott BP 841,047 fans
24. wide spread across knowing issues having things on the radar building wide acceptance and buy-in evangelists concentrated credibility and trust from past experience, track record deep t-shaped influence Source: Jess McMullin
52. ? a STORY that resonates - emotional triggers are very powerful the ABILITY to SPREAD it - the connections in social networks make it super easy doing something MEANINGFUL - to feel part of something greater than self what
59. 1 month proactive 1 year Jan/Feb, 2010Toyota Recall 42 million vehicles are recalled due to faulty breaks. February 14, 2007Customer Service Issues Leaked memo from founder Howard Shultz sets off a series of initiatives that leads to launch of My Starbucks Idea. July 16, 2009Sustainability Index CEO-led, proactive initiative to affect supply chain. July 7, 1977Breast Milk Action Network Company boycott is called in U.S. and expanded in Europe in the ‘80s. 1 month 1977 2007 2010 30 years March 17, 2010Palm Oil/Greenpeace Facebook wall animosity caused by community manager. August 13, 2009Employee-created YouTube expose’ video Video is viewed by 1 million people. June 2005“Dell Hell” Blogger Jeff Jarvis begins a controversy about company’s customer service issues. 2005 April 20, 2010Gulf Oil spill BP engages PIER emergency system to communicate internally. 2009 February 2009Customer Service issue Blue Shirt nation led to TwelpeForce and prompt response. 48 hours 1 month 1 month 1 minute social media interACTIONS
60. ? if it’s not you whowillinfluence your customers
61. Businesses should treat technology like a special effect. If you’re James Cameron and you’re doing a movie like Avatar, the issue is, “What kind of world am I trying to create?” Then the question is, “So how do I get the technology to do that?” The leading question is not, “Gee, how do I make a cheaper movie faster?” — Michael Schrage Image source: Nic McPhee
65. ! about me Fresh voice in strategy with 20 years of real-world business experience, 10 of which online. Valeria Maltoni is Principal, Conversation Agent, LLC. Specialized in taking companies to what’s next in their business cycle by planning and building value-creating systems that add momentum and performance to deliver strength, resilience, and endurance to the business. She’s worked at companies from Fortune 500 to small start ups in 5 industries.
Notas do Editor
My goals with this conversation is to explain why marketers and business people should care about what customers do, and to explore the fundamentals of influence to give you ideas on how to identify, enroll, create
Why is influence? What makes someone pay attention to something vs. something else? Where can you observe it? CAUSATION
How do you create/identify/harness/enroll true influence? Learn how to develop/attract it
From the post “open to interpretation”
In the Tipping point, you had the connector – Connectors, sociable personalities who bring people together; Mavens, who like to pass along knowledge; and Salesmen, adept at persuading the unenlightened. (Paul Revere, for example, was a Maven and a Connector).
Who has influence. Who is influential in your market?
Thinking that influence is something you need to go extract for yourself vs. something you can grow/build/enroll
True influence flows from drawing together people with shared interests.
How gossip spreads – based on facts (facts detached from context), private (now public thanks to Internet), moral judgment from point of superiority (sentiment analysis), Some researchers believe that gossip started as a way for early humans to learn about their neighbors and determine who they could trust, making it a necessary tool for survival. Robin Dunbar, author of "Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language," theorizes that gossip works in human societies the same way grooming does in primate societies, but more efficiently. Dunbar goes so far as to theorize that language evolved so that people could gossip and more effectively establish and defend social groups.Entertain each other Influence one another's opinions Exchange important information Point out and enforce social rules Learn from others' mistakes areas of relevancy among your customers and prospects, building community, and allowing others to amplify your influence as you meet their needsSomething to talk about – new, makes the person telling the story interestingRumors and gossip have similarly distasteful connotations, but researchers disagree about whether they are the same thing. Here's a rundown of different views on gossip and rumor: They're the same. Rumor is a specific type of gossip. Gossip is based in fact, but rumors are based in hypotheses. Gossip is a tool for maintaining social order, but rumor is a tool for explaining things that people do not understand. Gossip relates something people believe has happened, but rumors express what people hope or fear will happen.
How crisis spreadPatterns in conversation: how crisis manifested. People who are total unknowns to the brand and the online communities can become the catalysts when they take action - create a presence, share a pointed challenge for the brand. Start the conversation on something that is top of mind = relevant
The company organizes events -- Ducati Weekends and the World Ducati Week -- with a real tribe of 200,000 Ducati owners and a virtual tribe of 12 MM visitors yearly to the site Ducati.com. Tribe members, fans, spread the word about the brand. Ducati received front page media coverage on the weekend edition of the Daily Telegraph for a gathering of vintage Ducati, for example. The noteworthy part of the coverage is that it was not obtained through a public relations effort. The journalist is a member of the Ducati Tribe.With 600 Ducati owners clubs, 40 of which have been around for more than 5 years, owners and people passionate about the brand weigh in on the brand experience. They are part of Desmo Owners Club, DOC. Fans can create Ducati t-shirts, and the Internet gives them an opportunity to gather in person. For example, many from the club in Rome participate to the meet up in Dayton, Florida.Ducati's community is useful for communications and for crowdsourcing. Many of the community boards and forums are managed and created entirely by fans without intervention from the company.
2008 daily chronic pain, in partnership with universities and research organizations; MIT researchers, privately funded 2004, life-changing diseases (ALS in 1998)Down to earth information in a moment of need
why do people do it? Desire to control, affect physical and virtual worlds
Relevancy:Entertain each other Influence one another's opinions Exchange important information Point out and enforce social rules Learn from others' mistakes
Global members, year, cities, countries, at event in Denver (time spent with like-minded people), milestone in 2001, years I did it, members’ count in PHL – virtual + physical
The chance to be part of something bigger – change the control + alt // delete launched on humanity
http://www.bplusd.org/2009/02/25/t-shaped-influence/ -- T-shaped influence Wide influence covers a larger group at a less personal level. While you have relationships and reputation in that group, you may not have a known track record or tight connections. For influencing organizations, that means that you’ve got contacts, conversations, and awareness across the org chart. Wide influence also gives you the awareness to make multi-disciplinary connections, a key source for innovation.Focused influence is narrower, concentrated relationships with key individuals. That might be in the executive suite, or in marketing, in R&D or in all three. Focused influence is something that happens more in small groups and especially one-on-one. It takes time to cultivate. It grows from shared experiences, shared successes (ands sometimes shared failures), and shared values and vision. That doesn’t mean that people in your focused influence core always agree with you. But they do know and respect you. Make sure you respect them too, because this kind of confidence is easy to lose if you take them for granted.
This session focuses on the process of identifying areas of relevancy among your customers and prospects, building community, and allowing others to amplify your influence as you meet their needs.
the dots, people and ideas, design and strategy, internal and external, physical and virtual, known with unknown – reinforcing pathways that extend beyond your networks
online / offlineniche interestspoints of passion
Asking the right questions
MotivationInvestigate behaviorReason for beingPurposeMap assumptions
AccessTacit knowledgeSimplicity
MotivationInvestigate behaviorReason for beingPurposeMap assumptions
Seeing the invisible
relationshipsthe dotsideas and peopledesign and strategyinternal and externalphysical and virtualKnown and unknown
Transforms transactions (potential) into relationships
AccessTacit knowledgeSimplicity
UnderstandPatternsInteractionsControlsAssumptions
Predictmutate
the invisible - one of the biggest problems businesses have growing up is that their interests are not aligned with those of their customers anymore
Developing a sense of timing, also making sense of things
Developing a sense of timing, also making sense of things
Developing a sense of timing, also making sense of things = experimenting with purpose
In the sense of acting again – reactions to what happens in real time – Kevin Kelly on things that cannot be copied) immediacy, personalization, authenticity, attention, interpretation, accessibility, embodiment, findabilityTo the cards that the market deals you
AccessTacit knowledgeSimplicity
AccessTacit knowledgeSimplicity
FrequencyIntensityDuration
How do you create/identify/harness/enroll true influence? Learn how to develop/attract it
too much attention on INVESTMENT, not enough on RETURN = the business model problem