Influencer Shminfluencer: The Truth Under the Covers
Paul Dunay is an award-winning B2B marketing expert with more than 20 years’ success in generating demand and creating awareness for leading technology, consumer products, financial services and professional services organizations.
Paul is the global vice president of marketing for Maxymiser a leading web optimization firm, and author of four “Dummies” books: Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley 2009), Social Media and the Contact Center for Dummies (Wiley Custom Publishing 2010), Facebook Advertising for Dummies (Wiley 2010) and Facebook Marketing for Dummies 2nd Edition (Wiley 2011).
His unique approach to marketing has led to recognition of Paul as a BtoB Magazine Top 25 B2B Marketer of the Year for 2010 and 2009 and winner of the DemandGen Award for Utilizing Marketing Automation to Fuel Corporate Growth in 2008. He is also a finalist for the last six years in a row in the Marketing Excellence Awards competition of the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), and is a 2010 and 2005 gold award winner in Driving Demand.
Buzz Marketing for Technology, Paul’s blog, has been recognized as a Top 20 Marketing Blog for 2009 and 2008, a Top Blog to Watch for 2009 and 2008, and an Advertising Age Power 150 blog in the “Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs.”
Paul has shared his marketing thought leadership as a featured speaker for the American Marketing Association, BtoB Magazine, CMO Club, MarketingProfs, Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), and ITSMA. He has appeared on Fox News, and his articles have been featured in BusinessWeek, The New York Times, BtoB Magazine, MarketingProfs and MarketingSherpa.
Paul holds an Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Computer Science from Ithaca College.
Great post- one additional point I would like to offer is that even with celebrity endorsements, people like to get feedback from those they can relate to more. This means influencing has to be more varied and at more of a grassroots level. Lastly the sphere of influence and the magnitude of influence can vary greatly for people as well as channel. Someone can be rather inactive on social media but be very influential among peers and friends. Harder to identify and even harder to do any sort of attribution and ROI, but we know its there.
@kamaltahir
Thanks Kamal
I truly believe you are on to something here – which means its “work” to find, court, and utilize influencers in your marketing. But like anything thats hard to do – the benefits are often worth it!
Hi Paul,
Great post and right on the money.
Question for you: practically, how does a brand or company actually find their true social influencers?
Thanks
Andrew
(Shameless plug: our company has developed software which identifies brand ‘mavens’ through a contest, game, or promotional campaign and tracks their influences out five degrees.)
Good post, Paul. I think the right way to win celebrities is to engage with them LONG before you need them. Write a comment on Bill Gates’ blog or write a blog post about what he and Melinda are doing. It can take months or even years to build up mutual trust. But it can be done.
Jeff
@Andre/Andrew
I would love to see your software – I use a combination of Klout and regular search
lets talk
@Jeff
Oh yeah – totally agree – you have to build the network before you can activate it – great point!
Paul, good post. I think most marketers struggle with this challenge. I agree that the explosion of social networks and blogs have made it much easier to identify credible, visible and logical influencer candidates for your brand, product or service. What I found lacking in the post – and maybe you don’t want to give this counsel away for free – was a few tips on how you or others you know have identified, cultivated and maintained engagement with various influencers, particularly those for whom cutting a check is not required.
@Tim
And you’re right that is the secret sauce – but – its also the old technology adage — it depends!
My formula for what I have done at one clients doesn’t translate 100% to another client but the concept described above does
hope that helps and thanks for commenting