I’ve started my summer reading early this year, with a round of books on social media and influencer marketing. Please speak up, if you can recommend other books in these areas.

Groundswell - Winning in a world transformed by social technologies, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. “It’s a book by two Forrester analysts with practical, data-based strategies for companies that want to harness the power of social technologies like blogs, social networks, and YouTube. Featuring 25 full case studies, a complete road map for social strategy, and data from around the world.” - excerpt from the book microsite

The New Influencers - A Marketer’s Guide to Social Media, by Paul Gillen. “The New Influencers is a book for corporate marketers and executives who want to understand and engage with the vast new channels of influence that are emerging online.” - excerpt from the book microsite

Influencer Marketing - Who Really Influences Your Customers, by Nick Hayes and Duncan Brown. “The book demonstrates clearly, authoritatively and with numerous real examples Seth Godin’s widely accepted view that it’s ‘useless to advertise to anyone except connectors with influence’… For all those involved in marketing and sales this book will be an essential analysis of how to identify who has influence, how they apply it, and how you can turn it to your advantage.” - excerpt from the book microsite

I was on hand Tuesday evening when the Churchill Club served up drinks, dinner, and a panel on “trends in trust and influence” among business leaders. The panel, much like the apricot chicken on skewer, was interesting because of its notable contrasts, sitting side by side:

Richard Edelman (Edelman) spoke about the dramatic shifts in public trust revealed by the 9th annual study, “Edelman Trust Barometer 2008.” He touched on several findings. To paraphrase a few: We trust social peers (”people like me”) the most, followed by NGOs and businesses. People have far less trust in their governments than a year ago, except in Asia. The most trusted media channels are the ones used the most: newspapers, television news, and business magazines. A digital divide exists in trust, tied to differences in emerging and mature industrial economies. He also shared his personal views about how these trends in trust affect advertising, the news business, corporate spokespeople and corporate reputation.

Dr. Robert Cialdini (ASU, Influence At Work) emphasized that trust is a participative sport. Do something about it. Learn how trust works, when it works, how to build it through listening and language. His research indicates that trust is based on a personal history of repeated contact. (This reinforces Edelman’s findings on the most trusted media sources being the most frequently used). Yet, in many situations, we have only moments to establish initial credibility. Learn to master the opportunities.

Chris Kelly (Facebook) and Katie Hafner, (New York Times) each mined their employer’s high profile experiences in breaking faith with loyal audiences for kernels of truth about trust. Both were candid enough to acknowledge that the way forward at their company entails as much trial-and-error as grand design. Mistakes will be made. Both agreed that a rapid, genuine response from the top helps speed the repair work. Hafner was put off by some of Edelman’s advertising and Cialdini’s influence tactics, on the grounds of manipulating trust. She was politely rebuffed, either unable or unwilling to deliver a knock-out punch.

Anastasia Goodstein (Ypulse) spoke to the nature of trust among online youth. Her research finds them less cynical, less fearful, more open, more creative, and more experimental than any other generation online today. They trust popular online environments. For example, they don’t question whether social networking sites, gaming sites, branded content sites, etc. are protecting their personal privacy and the content they post — unless they’ve been burned. She pointed out the need for companies to acknowledge this unique window of trust and act responsibly.

I came away with several conclusions.
1. Each generation judges online reputation differently. What is horrific to one generation may be anecdotal to another.
2. While the specifics about who we trust are constantly evolving, the underlying mechanics of why we trust are fairly constant.
3. Stock and industry analyst reports still have very strong credibility overall as information sources. By contrast, blogs — and most new communications channels — still have very weak credibility overall, except in certain countries.
4. “But” can be a powerful word.

You can order a CD or video of the event from the Churchill Club. Also, check out the Edelman web site, for a free podcast of Richard Edelman and Laurence Evans discussing the report, Edelman Trust Barometer 2008.

I couldn’t help but notice that word of eroding Gartner influence has not reached the editorial offices at Computerworld. Gregg Keizer’s piece on Leopard security cites Rich Mogull as “a security consultant and former Gartner Inc. analyst.” Gartner, not Securosis, got the outbound link.

It’s tempting to brush this aside, joking that Rich has formally joined the venerable ranks of used to be’s, like Prince (used to be Prince) and Al Gore (used to be the next president of the United States).

However, that one simple phrase — citing Gartner, omitting Securosis — reflects the difficulty of establishing credibility as an independent analyst or, in Rich’s case, consultant.

The influence of the independent analysts has been a point of conversation across a handful of analyst and AR blogs this week. My vote for the most insightful post goes to RedMonk Stephen O’Grady, Burning the influence straw man.

Update Nov 5: Ferran Rodenas wrote another excellent commentary on modern analyst influence at SDLC Blog.