CrapHammer

F*ck Influencers (or Influencing Conversations)

I've recently been asked to work on an Influencer strategy.

I have to admit that I had a bit of a negative initial reaction to the task.  So much of what I read online about "influencers" seems to assume that people live to spread messages.  While there is some "status" truth to being the source or the first to report something, this rings naive and hollow as a prime motivator to me.  My personal sense of my own motivations is not that I desire to spread messages, but rather that I want to be part of a larger conversation or participate in something meaningful.

My first thought on how to approach this task was to expand influencers beyond a select group of "key" people.

In today's world everyone is a publisher, everyone has some level of influence, and everyone has a network of influence that is difficult to define let alone measure.  So to focus on just "A listers" or big names is to severely limit the potential for what can be achieved.    That's not to say I don't want "A listers" (if they even exist) to join in the conversation, rather it says that I always prefer to not put all my eggs in one basket.

My next step was to redefine influencers from people to nodes of influence. 

A node can be a major platform or property such as Twitter, Facebook or MTV.  A node can also be a community of interest that has gathered around a topic.  I spent some time defining all the different areas of influence (around the topic at hand) and then narrowing down into the nodes that make up each ecosystem or circle of influence.  These grew into some rather intricate maps that opened up all kinds of new opportunities I had not considered when I first approached this task, and it shifted quickly from finding a handful of influencers to looking at how to reach hundreds of thousands of individuals.

Next I pulled back to revisit the purpose of any influencer strategy, which I am currently defining as "to encourage conversations around the brand that are shared by individuals across their networks of influence."

Key stress is placed on individuals and the fact that each has unique networks but with lots of duplication between these networks. 

All of this thinking led me to some key questions.

Why do people share links or retweet on platforms like Twitter?
What types of things do people share and for what benefit?
How does how people see their networks affect their decisions on what to share?

I don't have any solid answers yet but I was brought to some wonderful resources by some great people within my network.  I look forward to other thoughts on this matter.

Dana Boyd's Analysis of ReTweeting activity on Twitter (h/t to Karen Quinn Fung via Twitter)

Segmenting and Targeting Users by Their Level of Interaction

Behavior First, Design Second (attention, to collect, status and vanity)

Image Source: FAS.research

Every Website Should be Social

Found this presentation over on the Frith'sters rantbase.  ;)

View more documents from shivsingh.

To date, most Facebook Connect sites make very limited us of the Social Graph information available.  So in the presentation above, the authors ask if the real value of something like FB Connect is in its being the window into things like collaborative commerce.

What if we logged into a retailer and reviews from our friends or our friends' friends were listed at the top?  It's one of the reasons I love services like GigPark because I'm able to get reviews from people I trust.  I'm quite fed up with reading highly emotional reviews that turn out to be bogus or misleading. Something tells me I'm not alone.

We are all building trusted networks online.  The question is how to tap into these.  Perhaps its less about how many clicks a person takes to get to a product and rather how many clicks it takes them to find out from THEIR network just how good or bad a product is.

I've long been interested in social shopping and while there have been a few attempts by some retailers to move into this area, they were hindered by the fact that your friends were likely not participating in the site.  So adoption became a significant barrier to entry.

As we move down the road of Facebook Connect microsites and promotions, it would do us all good to start thinking of this as a new opportunity for connecting everyday tasks with the uniqueness of our social connections.  In other words, to make the sites we visit far more relevant, helpful and of use.

Shouldn't you be watching porn right now?

Mike Arauz came up with a great test.  In a world where everyone is creating content, we would do well to ask ourselves if what we are about to publish passes the "I'd rather be watching Porn test?"

Here are 3 things I found this week but I'm not 100% sure how many actually pass the test.  Which ones do you feel pass the test?

1) Henry Jenkins on Transmedia (h/t to Mike Arauz)

2) Cialdini's Social Proof applied to Persuassion and Hotel Towels

Article in Psychology Today on how leveraging social proof thinking drove compliance by over 30% from normal marketing methods.  (h/t Mark Earls)

3) Paul's day with the Yim Gnome

I'm really not sure how to introduce this one.  Um.  Go here.

What I'm Learning from Iran

The Iranian election and the subsequent civil action has shown us a picture of the future of civil unrest.  We have seen digital tools being embraced to organize, generate support and to bypass restrictions on state controlled communications.  It has been nothing short of amazing.  And unlike Obama, the financial resources of the Iranian people were close to nil (by comparison).

So what has changed?

• There have been some pretty amazing stats.
• The state department contacted Twitter to request they delay a maintenance outage because of the potential impact on Iranians to self organize.
• YouTube waiving their policies regarding violent and disturbing images to allow Iranians to share what was happening with the rest of the world.
• And the NY Time has written a great article on what we've learned about social media tools from this experience.
• http://iran.twazzup.com/

But none of these are what has changed. 

I am what has changed.  I now follow (via twitter and facebook) a variety of Iranians who are fighting for what they believe in.  I am awakened in the night by the buzz of eerily terse messages about announcements, violence or calls for assistance.

It took a while for it to sink in that I am not connected to a wire service or news bureau.  Rather, there is a single individual out there typing into the digital darkness hoping that his voice will be heard and make a difference. I lie awake waiting for more tweets to come, not knowing for how long each individual will be able to stay online.

There are problems.  It's impossible to tell truth from here-say or outright disinformation.  But this experience I speak of isn't about source validation or credibility.  This is about being connected to someone I don't know, thousands of miles away who is fighting for something I believe in.

I can no longer shake Iran from of my mind.  I find myself researching the history of the region.  I click on links Moussavi is sending out to the world and I am trapped by the flood of photos and videos.  And I'm not alone.

My twitter stream is exploding with retweets from a growing list of sources.  There are disturbing facts, links, calls for assistance and even strange campaigns to show our support.

I am a social being and I am compelled to think of myself as a good person.  And now that I am connected to these people, I lay awake praying for their safety and that one day I will meet one of them or even know their true names. All of which makes me wonder just how powerful that simple choice to follow someone via twitter may be.

I am not a digital utopian who believes the Net will remove all fighting and all wars. But I am a believer in the power of these tools to change how we see the world.  And I'm given hope by what a few have been able to achieve against increasing odds by leveraging these tools.

Now back to my day job - selling products to westerners.

The Invisible Herd?

My copy of Mark Earl's Herd arrived today. 

It was awesome getting a chance to chat with him last month.  I think Mark is dead on when he tells us to stop looking for "influencers" and to focus on the human traits that drive us to spread memes.

The key is to identify WHY people should be or already are talking about and spreading your product, brand, etc. And yet it is so easy to get caught up in WHO is talking or WHO we want to be talking.

Mark implies that we are just herd mammals deep down and I think he's right.  The coolest part of the herd mentality is that it does not follow any one individual, contrary to myth.  Rather, each member follows the visible assumptions of those immediately around them.  And from this simple copying emerges complex systems or ecologies of behavior.

Which is why I find it so amazing that campaigns go out of their way to not be visible.  I can't tell you how many campaigns I've participated in on Facebook that don't ensure that my participation is made visible to my friends - update my feed, allow me to tweet it, etc.  The first step to being copy-able is that one be visible.

But what if there is no herd?  Or what if everyone just does what the celebrities tell them?

Recently there was a great Facebook experiment that was clearly false, but the researchers ensured that [large numbers] of people had already joined the group.  People continued to join in crazy numbers.  And when asked why they joined, they said that they figured it had to be true because so many people were already in there. [link: CBC Spark Episode ]

The herd exists.

If you are going to ask "Who," then the who question to answer is "who do people copy and why?"  And while we would all love to believe we copy the celebrities and the A list bloggers, the reality is we follow the majority and we follow our friends.

Today I saw seven boys walk by in a group.  All of them had jeans and a blank white t-shirt on.  Not only that, all but one had the same brand of sneakers.  Why?  Well, they could be an all-boy band on their way to practice or they simply wanted to belong to the collective group.  And while one or two may vie as leaders, reality is that it is impossible to predict what trend the group will pay attention to.  Only that the group will continue to copy the behaviors of the members around them.  (Note to my US readers, don't try this at home.  Following a gang in the US and taking notes may lead to getting shot.)

So what can we do?

1) Make our campaigns visible, visible, visible
2) Soft launch everything and continue to test and tweak until it catches
3) Pay attention to who is copying what and why

Image Credit:  Marxpix

The Scariest Thing I've Ever Done

It's both enlightening and a little sad that the scariest thing I have ever done was to give a presentation without Keynote or Powerpoint.  I stood before a group of agency planners and simply read from a prepared speech.

As someone who lives to present in front of others, I found it almost comical that my voice was shaking as I stood there.  It amazes me even now just how much of a change it was to not have my ever faithful crutch beside me on the large screen.

I also started my speech a bit differently.  I arrived on the stage and did not say anything.  I kept this up for a good two minutes as discomfort, confusion and even frustration began to emerge in the audience.  I allowed my gaze to travel the crowd but kept silent.