Influence 2.0

Redmonker James Governor reflects on the blurring lines between analyst, consultant, blogger, journalist, and how vendors need to adapt to the new spheres and patterns of influence.

My take: the critical point about any influencer program is understanding influence as a lifecycle. Treating PR [public relations], AR [analyst relations] or consultant relations as a pure outbound marketing function is certainly the wrong approach. Those that can foster a dialogue, be prepared to get out of the way of the transaction where appropriate, but ensure the feedback loops keeps turning, is in a good position to be a successful influencer manager. You need to learn to work multifaceted webs of influence.

I am not sure whether it makes sense to establish a new function - blogger relations - because roles are converging, merging and melding. This is a renaissance era. This is a remix era. Influencer roles are being mashed up by practitioners.

He also says that the trust notions are morphing:

I suspect that the nature of trust is changing, too, as it becomes based on networks rather than large companies. This is not to say classic brands and companies don't have a role to play, but transparency is leading to some different ways of quickly establishing trust. Prejudices tend to show, like dark hair through blond roots. That is maybe OK, as long as the bias is made clear.

James is kind enough to mention David and myself, as well as Jon Udell as examples of role mashups that are part of the remix that should compel PR and AR practitioners to reexamine their tactics.