I found a refreshing take on analyst influence and analyst relations in the book Influencer Marketing - Who Really Influences Your Customers, by Nick Hayes and Duncan Brown of Influencer50. The book proposes a focused, cohesive and research-driven approach to identifying external influencers and getting them to participate in appropriate ways in marketing.

The book is not about buying influence or licensing analyst content/speakers for demand gen tools. It’s about designing an influencer relations initiative that accurately targets the rich spectrum of influencers involved in purchase decisions within specific market sectors.

In the Influencer Marketing approach, organizations create a cross-discipline marketing initiative. They leverage the cream of the crop from traditional influencer silos like PR, AR, etc. They also add some new influencers to the mix — new names or new types of influencers, such as competitors, academia, government.

The first result is a “dream team” of top influencers from the many discrete spheres of influence — analysts, press, consultants, channels, customers, competitors, academia, government, and so on. All identified influencers — and the assigned relationship managers — are placed on equal footing. Refreshing.

The second result is a goal-oriented plan for participative marketing. Participative marketing puts the impetus on managing influencer relationships based on their specific role during the purchase decision. AR activities are driven by customer decision processes, rather than by vendor product/service lifecycles. Refreshing.

Organizations with analyst relations functions already in place could use this book as a springboard for creating a cross-company influencer marketing initiative. Stage it as a pilot program. Or, run it as a special executive buddy program. Make it complement the influencer strategies and programs already in place.

Such an initiative will take some AR professionals out of their comfort zone. Equal footing among all identified influencer means ranking analyst priority relative to the other kinds of voices whispering in the customer’s ear. Instead of comparing a Gartner analyst with a Burton Group analyst, for example, you would compare both to a different kind of influencer — perhaps an association thought leader like AIIM’s Dan Keldsen or an author/consultant/blogger like James Taylor.

Old boundaries are breaking down all over the place — who’s an analyst (and who’s not), who controls the brand reputation, who drives the innovation, who’s the trusted advisor. It’s going to take some trial and error to figure out how best to deal with all these changes. Influencer Marketing suggests one way to move on.

Next week’s book review: Groundswell.

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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.