Digital Influence

Powerful people used to control the media. A simple truth recognised by democratic politicians, despots and corporations: those who controlled the means to deliver the message could exert control over the people.

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire boasts of being a king-maker. There is a common belief that the tabloid newspaper, The Sun, won the UK elections for John Major in 1992 and Tony Blair in 1997 by adding their support to the politicians’ campaigns. Companies advertising budgets represent huge investments in influence.

The digital revolution has challenged this hegemony. User generated content (UGC), Tweeting, Blogging and Social Sites enables ordinary citizens to influence world opinion. Prince or pauper: anyone can have a say.

This democratisation of media creates huge issues for companies and brands. How do they create credible influence in a plural world? Corporations need to exert some influence over their trading environment. At a very simple level markets need to be developed and demand generated. Strategically, influencing global, regional and national policymakers can create benign or favourable trading environments.

New social technologies may provide an answer. As with everything digital: objectives and principles remain the same, technology changes the techniques.

Beyond Marketing

User generated content can create powerful trends. But UGC is federated; it does not exist in one neat place rather it is distributed across networking sites, individuals’ computers and mobile ‘phones. Companies that seek to influence business and consumer markets need to produce engaging assets and have the infrastructure to support discussion. Influencers need to take a strategic view of all their marketing communications. Digital Media enables organisations to simultaneously engage, influence and obtain actionable intelligence.

Engage

To engage an audience you need to provoke. The explosion of media has created a lot of noise so getting the organisation’s voice heard over the mêlée requires intelligent challenging of the status quo. Statements and arguments need to be framed that get people thinking: whether it is an extreme fashion statement or a well argued thesis: engagement has to attract attention.

It also has to elicit action, attracting comment, posting a link or distributing to friends. Many companies try to achieve this through existing websites. This is difficult to achieve. As discussed in earlier posts, company websites are not the best places to encourage discussion.

Open source tools are now available that allow organisations to build their own ‘Social Site’ (Social being a misnomer: there is nothing particularly social about business development). Careful planning and support is required to configure assets to meet particular business objectives but once in place these assets are a rich source of information.

Influence

Once assets are in place the organisation effectively becomes the ‘chair’ of the discussion: posing questions, making observations and encouraging comment. Organisations need to earn respect through knowledge and useful advice. Influence may be exerted passively through directing conversations.

These interactions build content; opinions can be captured and the information turned into intelligence. It is the collective knowledge or group belief and attitudes that are valuable. Assets need to capture this information so that the organisation (and the contributors) can benefit.

Actionable Intelligence

The results of community or market deliberations and interactions represent the collective wisdom of the group. This information provides actionable intelligence that the organisation can use to develop marketing campaigns and approaches. The information may be used to improve products, service or help in the development of new products.

Collective wisdom can be used to help influence policy makers, put pressure on regulatory agencies and help to develop a benign or even positive operating environment for organisations to conduct their business.

In Short

Unlike media of the past, digital media provides  the means by which organisations (and individuals) can simultaneously gauge the mood and influence the market.

Tags: Digital Marketing, Market Leadership, Social Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership

Posted: November 12th, 2009 / 6 Comments /

6 Comments to Digital Influence

• This is interesting but aspirational? Yes, we obviously need infrastructure and web presence but getting individuals to actively engage is surely an ongoing process?
Biggles on November 16th, 2009

• [...] This post was Twitted by APMdigital [...]
Twitted by APMdigital on November 16th, 2009

• With so many social forums springing up everyday, how can you ensure your comments forum will be found?
Alan73 on November 17th, 2009

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home business ideas on January 20th, 2010

• Hi Alan, there is only one answer: hard work! You have to put effort into content and broadcast/distribution/syndication of your message. Each organisation needs to do a digital media plan: where do your customers congregate on the web and how do we get the message to them. Once set up the distribution process can be automated, just be sure to regualrly monitor because audiences move quickly on the web. Then its a case of good solid research and writing. Great content + good distribution = success!
MG1 on February 5th, 2010

• You post informative articles. Bookmarked !
bukmacher on June 9th, 2010

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