You are in an influence community

 

In chapter 8 of her book, Kathie Delahaye Pain, explains how to measure influencers and thought leadership. She says that the power to influence no longer comes from just one individual or analyst but from a large group of people or a community. The spread of inexpensive tools to create a community has triggered the development of highly specialized groups of people that are interested in narrow topics. Kathie Delahaye Pain also advises managers to engage the community in a conversation in the same manner that industry analysts treat bloggers. It is essential that managers build a custom list of the top 100 influencers in the market. To do this, one first needs to understand that target audiences are very much interested in what or who is important. It is only then that one can start looking for blogs that mentions him or his market very often. He or she should then check whether or not the blogs are important. Aside from discussing how to build one’s list of customers, the author also discusses how to measure one’s relationship with his or her influencers. Katie Delahaye Pain explains that the “ultimate measure of a successful relationship with analysts and influencers is whether they recommend your product, service, or company to reporters, editors, investors, and customers” (Pain, 2011). The author stresses the importance understanding what customers think about a company. To do this, one must determine what his or her goals are. Then, he or she should find out who the audience will be. As soon as this is accomplished, he or she should define one’s benchmark. One should then determine afterwards what the key performance indicators would be. Lastly, one selects his or measurement tools. To fully get the most useful data about his or key influencers, the author recommends that “regular biannual relationship surveys, conducted by phone or e-mail” (Pain, 2011). She says that the purpose of this is to find out the extent to which influencers understand the strategies and the objectives.

Photo via stefan.erschwendner