The one key message from New Comms Forum

I'm sitting here listening to Nick Hayes talking about Influencer Marketing.
Nick is the third person so far today who has said that "influencers don't buy stuff, customers do."  Dell's Richard Binhammer (richard@dell) started off the morning talking about how their entire blogging program is directed at customers and is designed to listening to customers. When questioned about the role of influencers he said "influencers don't buy stuff, customers do."
This is a huge flip from last year when a lot of the talk was about the "new" influencers -- i.e. bloggers and other social networkers. Essentially what people are saying today is that the new influencer is "someone like me."
My take on all this is that social media is coming of age, and moving beyond the "notice me, follow me" stage and is seriously moving into thinking of social media as a way to build relationships and sell stuff. Am I wrong?

Comments

[Duncan Brown]

Hi Katie,

Nick's point (and one we make in the book) is that, because influencers don't buy stuff, you can't have a normal sales/marketing conversation with them. You need to talk differently to influencers, find out what their agenda is and fulfil it.

So, relationships are key, as Richard says. Influencers are found in a wide variety of places, including within and beyond the supply chain.

Hope this makes sense!

Duncan
(Nick's co-author)

[Zena Weist]

Agree with you Katie, we are moving from the me-first, me-shout, to me-listen, us-converse, customer-1st.

Great to see you at NewComm!

[Paul Marsden]

hi KD - good post; the flip from influencers to customers brings us into line with the the business consultants mantra that it is customers propensity to recommend (not influencers') that is the key reputation metric (Net Promoter Score). But in this model - trade relations become critical, because trade lie between the firm and the customer - (so should we mapping the sales chain rather than the influence chain?) and within the trade, there are certainly are influencers. It's influencers Jim, but not as we know it!

[Tom O'Brien]

Hi KD:

Thanks for the post. I love the quote "influencers don't buy stuff" because this is a really important point - especially in social media measurement. Also - like richard@dell's clarification above - we want relationships.

Relationships is the big challenge in the social media world - and it is really different than campaigns.

TO'B

[Tom O'Brien]

Hi KD:

Thanks for the post. I love the quote "influencers don't buy stuff" because this is a really important point - especially in social media measurement. Also - like richard@dell's clarification above - we want relationships.

Relationships is the big challenge in the social media world - and it is really different than campaigns.

TO'B

[RichardatDELL]

Hi KD

First how great to take a virtual world "know you" and make it real world know you. Thank you.

And just to add a finer point...its not just "buy stuff" its who I want relationships with, not just the transactional buy stuff..but relations, our customers :-)

Great to chat and look forward to more

[Mike Keliher]

It was wonderful to meet you this morning. I wish you had been a little more actively involved in that session you were moderating, but that's another matter.

You're right about that idea being one of the key takeaways, but I'm not sure it's safe to say, broadly, that social media work is getting past the "notice me, follow me" stage.

True, a good number of people are doing great work that uses social media tools, platforms, concepts -- stuff that goes well beyond "notice me, follow me." But those folks are in the extreme minority and are on the sharpest part of the cutting edge.

So you're right in that this part of the industry is at a point in which it can be truly valuable, but it's still very much in the early phases -- rife with "notice me, follow me, comment on me, Digg me..."