Tag Archives: Online and offline

Our new InfluencerCommunities subscription service

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InfluencerCommunities.com, Influencer Communities, Influencer50, Nick Hayes, The Buyerside Journey.comWe’ve recently launched our new InfluencerCommunities subscription service. Here’s why. There’s a massive disconnect between the importance of an industry sector’s most important influencer communities, both online & offline, and the attention paid to them by vendors’ marketing depts.

According to InformationWeek, special interest communities featured in the top five most likely sources of vendor information for prospective purchasers (both at initial problem scoping and at vendor choice stages).

And while over three-quarters of B2B industry marketing heads rate their industry sector’s main forums & communities (both online and offline) as very important in influencing their prospects, less than one-third are confident their company has ongoing, proactive relationships with those top communities.

So companies really need to know which online & offline communities are the most influential in their sector. Which they should monitor, which to ignore and which maybe to join. Where are their industry’s most important conversations going on and who’s instigating them?

And it’s not just about which communities have the most members. Are their members those people moving & shaking the sector or are they just … followers? Which of their sector’s top influencers are members? And what should they do to engage with those people once they’ve identified the most important ones?

Our new Influencer Communities subscription service answers all of the above and more. We expect it to become one of our most popular services.

 

 

Every purchasing decision features a series of little understood ‘micro-moments’.

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Buyerside Journey, Influencer50, Influencer MarketingWhen I look at how Google is investing in analyzing the online buyer’s journey – breaking it down into a series of what it called ‘micro-moments’ – little understood inflection points when the buyer reaches each mini-decision stage – I wonder why most enterprise vendors aren’t doing the same.

I remember talking with the marketing VP of a well-known accounting software co. a few years back and his belief that the only stand-out decision points for buyers of his software were simply “does it have the functionality I need?” and “can I easily integrate it into my existing processes?”. He felt that if they could tick both of those boxes – and the buyer was aware of his firm’s software – then the sale was all but certain. His view was that his audience would be idiots not to choose his software. He was leaving a lot to chance.

Every purchase has micro-moments. If I think back to recent purchases I’ve made, they certainly occurred, even if I hadn’t planned them. With online and mobile purchasing there are now many more than we were used to a decade ago. But they’ve always existed. How many vendors today have really spent time breaking down the steps in their buyer’s journey? I think remarkably few. Respect to Google.

The marketing VP I mentioned clearly didn’t believe in any ‘micro-moments’. I should check if he’s still employed there.

New Influencer50 White Paper: ‘Where’s the evidence for investing in B2B ‘social influencers’?’

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HomepageBanner.WP#19Influencer50 has issued the latest in its series of White Papers this week, WP#19, ‘Where’s the evidence for investing in B2B ‘social influencers’?’. It asks why Heads of Marketing in B2B organisations are still believing that social media outreach will reach those people most influencing their sales prospects, when there’s little to no supporting evidence.

It quotes recent research from the American Marketing Association, Neilsen Online, ad agency RSW/US and Influencer50 itself to question the logic of assuming ‘social influencers’ are a legitimate target audience. It may not be what many of those in marketing roles want to hear right now – but it’s a compelling argument.

Available for download at: http://influencer50.com/library/white-papers/

 

Why people assume all influence is now online

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There are markets where almost all influence is now online. Face-to-face conversations, peer advice and group meetings rarely happen. But these markets are few and far between. Even the influence of particular YouTube channels and personalities is not all online. Plenty of direct teen to teen conversations take place offline to encourage each other to follow certain personalities. And the culmination of following these ‘celebrities’ – is a very offline public ‘meet-up’.

So why do the media continue to promote this image of all communication now being conducted online and through social? One answer has to be because the media themselves are so entrenched in it. They get their news leads through Twitter, their research through the web and increasingly, their output is exclusively online too. The media says they’re reflecting society but they’re actually only reflecting their view of society.

Their job is to focus on what’s new, what’s changed, so they lap up the latest fashions, trends, gadgets, platforms and more. They might write of how millions are tiring of and moving away from Twitter, when the truth is that the vast majority of the population has yet to even move onto it. I walk down my local shopping street and I’m struck by how few stores are embedded in social. A handful of them may have a Twitter feed and the majority could tick the box saying their business ‘is online’ – but that’s not where even a significant minority of their income originates.

The same goes for most businesses. They’ll do social outreach, they’ll do Adwords, they might even maintain a company blog – but none of these are likely to drive the majority of their sales.That majority is driven the way it’s always been driven – by dedicated sales teams effectively cold-calling prospects and reacting to RFPs.

In my Influencer50 role I talk extensively with many individuals from marketing depts. and sales depts. In conversations with marketing folks the subject of social is always there. The success (or not) of their social outreach campaigns, the prominence of particular individuals on Twitter, sentiment monitoring trends and more. Every marketer lives and breathes social.

For every conversation I have with Marketing heads, I have an equal number with heads of Sales. And it’s a very different conversation. Social is only rarely mentioned. Buyer behavior, prospect entry points, initial messaging, check-signing hierarchies, customer pain-points, customer politics – these are standard topics. But social? Almost never, and only fleeting if then. Why is social so much lower on their radar?

Important stages of the B2B buying process have moved online – no-one can doubt that – but the vast majority of those stages, and the most crucial elements of almost every stage, are resolutely offline. At least for now.

That may not be a media-friendly message but there’s no doubting with B2B it’s still the truth.

I’m far from the social marketing skeptic you might think

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I was reminded in my podcast conversation with Paul Gillin the extent to which he views our company’s work as going against the perceived wisdom in our industry. Paul’s a social marketing consultant – and very good at it. He’s a strong advocate of the power of social marketing and he mentioned a couple of times that I have the opposite view. I’ve been thinking about this perception.

I’ve never actually thought I do hold the opposite view – in some situations I’m a complete convert to social marketing. I look at my own teenagers and there’s no doubt they’re constantly swayed by what they’re reading and watching on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and more. But the media is obsessed by teenager marketing, and portrays every audience as behaving in the same way. And that’s what I disagree with.

The fact is, the B2B marketplace still works in a very different way. It will evolve, and it may evolve into something similar to today’s teenager marketing. But we’re such a way from that today – and our clients want to know how to engage with their influencers now, not five or ten years time.

The perceived wisdom in marketing circles seems to be that every stage of the buying decision process is now carried out online – problem identification, decision to act, solution scoping, etc. And that’s just not the case. The reason marketers act as if that’s the case? Because marketers have a far louder public megaphone than buyers do and they want to be at forefront of trends. Buyers might not agree with how marketers are framing their world, but buyers just get on with their buying and try not to be swayed by what marketers are telling them. And buyers see no reason to bother putting them right.

You want proof? Find a friend you know who buys products or services for their employer. It might be office furniture, software tools, real estate, human resources or whatever. Ask them who or what most influenced their eventual selection. Online search is almost always part of the process, but aside from Google, the other influencers are likely to be individuals – individuals that influenced them offline! Co-workers, bosses, previous experience, people they’ve emailed, policy-makers specific to their industry, third-party consultants. Individuals who likely don’t have a very large online presence. Try it and tell me if I’m wrong.

The majority of B2B influencers still operate very much offline. And while there certainly are some important online influencers, the overall picture, whatever your industry, remains a mix. I’m just in the minority talking about it.

Just recorded an interview for Paul Gillin’s excellent podcast series

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Nick Hayes, Influencer50, Influencer Marketing, The Buyerside JourneyRecorded a very enjoyable 20mins interview with social marketing guru Paul Gillin earlier in the week. It’s now available on the Hobson & Holtz Report site here:

We covered plenty of ground – why vendors have so little understanding of those influencing their prospects, why certain types of influencers are routinely being ignored, the trio of online to offline influencers, and of course, the perils of so-called ‘influence marketing platforms’.

Hopefully you’ll find it’s worth a listen. Hat-tip again to Paul – he does a great podcast series. And there’s no-one in our industry I respect more.

Is being an ‘online influencer’ as black & white as you think?

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We’ve recently been considering whether there’s still a line between being an ‘online influencer’ and an ‘offline influencer’. And if there is, whether that line is still important.

Take the example of say, a leading academic who has no social media footprint, doesn’t tweet, doesn’t blog, isn’t on Facebook, only engages in face-to-face conversations, meetings, presentations and authoring papers. It would be obvious to categorize them as a 100% offline influencer wouldn’t it?

But then what if other individuals, having met and talked with that person, then blog, tweet and post about that person’s views. Does the original influencer then unwittingly become an online influencer?

I’m sure many of you would say yes, in the same way that David Beckham perhaps unwittingly became a major Hispanic influencer a decade ago. He may have not intended to, he may not even been aware of it at the time, but influential he undoubtedly was. With this as an example maybe an online influencer doesn’t actually have to be online themselves.

But the implication is that all online influencers can be reached by online outreach. That that’s their medium of choice. A prominent trend in Influencer Marketing circles this year has been to assume every influencer wants to be engaged online.

What about the possibility that although an influencer may have never reached out socially, they could perhaps be avid consumers of social media, just not contributors. And what if they then took what they’d ready on social channels and conveyed those thoughts back into their day-to-day offline world. They’d be an offline influencer, correct?

So why do we still categorize people as online influencer and offline influencers? Is that still valid? And even if still valid, is it an important division?

We’re convinced it is. Not only does it represent how they influence, but also how best to establish a lasting conversation with them. Something way too few people seem to be focusing on right now.

New White Paper: To what degree are your prospects & customers influenced by online & offline communities?

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WP#18Influencer50’s new White Paper:  WP#18 : To what degree are your prospects & customers influenced by online & offline communities? – is now available for download at: http://influencer50.com/library/white-papers/

Synopsis: A 2013 McKinsey survey of B2B buyers stated that ‘an honest, open dialogue with customers and society’ was the number one most important perceived attribute of their chosen vendors. A 2013 Forrester report polled thousands of B2B marketers and concluded that online communities were one of the most influential tools in a B2B marketer’s toolkit. Despite 76% of B2B industry marketing heads rating their sector’s main forums and communities (both online & offline) as ‘very important’ in terms of influencing their prospects, only one-quarter of those same vendors are confident their organization has ongoing, proactive relationships with them. There’s clearly a vast gap between the perceived importance of industry communities to potential buyers – and vendors’ understanding of them. So why can this be?

Majority of respondents in a Gallup survey said that social media had no influence at all on purchasing decisions!

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Really good article in last week’s WSJ. Exactly what we’ve been talking about for years. Here’s a snippet but for the full thing I encourage you to go to:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/companies-alter-social-media-strategies-1403499658?mod=e2fb

Note the line “A majority of respondents in a Gallup survey said that social media had no influence at all on purchasing decisions”.

Social Media Fail to Live Up to Early Marketing Hype

Companies Refine Strategies to Stress Quality Over Quantity of Fans

WSJ - Just Being SocialIn May 2013, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. bought ads to promote its brand page on Facebook. After a few days, unhappy executives halted the campaign—but not because they weren’t gaining enough fans. Rather, they were gaining too many, too fast

“We were fearful our engagement and connection with our community was dropping” as the fan base grew, says Allison Sitch, Ritz-Carlton’s vice president of global public relations.

Today, the hotel operator has about 498,000 Facebook fans; some rivals have several times as many. Rather than try to keep pace, Ritz-Carlton spends time analyzing its social-media conversations, to see what guests like and don’t like. It also reaches out to people who have never stayed at its hotels and express concern about the cost.

Ritz-Carlton illustrates a shift in corporate social-media strategies. After years of chasing Facebook fans and Twitter followers, many companies now stress quality over quantity. They are tracking mentions of their brand, then using the information to help the business.

“Fans and follower counts are over. Now it’s about what is social doing for you and real business objectives,” says Jan Rezab, chief executive of Socialbakers AS, a social-media metrics company based in Prague.

For the full article go to:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/companies-alter-social-media-strategies-1403499658?mod=e2fb

Speaking at PROOF Conference on Influencer Marketing, Phoenix AZ, 10-11th Nov.

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PROOF ConferenceI’m excited to be a speaker at the just-announced first PROOF Conference on Influencer Marketing. I’ll be alongside one of the people I most respect in our industry – Paul Gillin (@paulgillin)- which makes me look forward to it even more. Paul’s book, ‘Attack of the Customers’, was one of my favorite business books of last year.

If you’re interested in attending the conference, which is equally for brands and agencies, use the special code ‘NHayes’, for a $100 discount voucher.

http://www.proofcon.com

Phoenix AZ, 10-11th Nov.