Thought Leadership and the Social Customer

The social media tsunami is significantly impacting the world of communications, marketing, sales and how we currently engage with influencers. This change mandates that we reassess current engagement models and the importance of individuals and their influence in social media peer groups (SMPG). Social media is more than a phenomenon and it has created new and viral forms of influence that are changing the way purchasing decisions are made in nearly all industries, including information technology. Social media is the new word of mouth marketing and advertising platform. The good news about this change is that it is allowing us to identify and better understand new and old influencers and their followers. For the influencers and thought leaders it is a panacea that is enabling transformation and innovation of their own business models. New social media influencing mediums, such as blogging and SMPGs /peer networks can provide a simplified method for evaluating and effectively scoring the overall importance of influencers in the purchasing decision making process. However, it is not the true sum of their influence within your ecosystem.  

Evaluating the Importance of Influencers

Who are your thought leaders and how do you evaluate their level of importance in your ecosystem?  This is perhaps one of the most important questions asked during discussions on thought leadership with colleagues and also when I present at social media conferences. At SAP we have developed effective systems and process guidelines for assessing the influence of thought leaders and have created “influencer scorecards” that assess the importance of influencers. Our ability to accurately assess the scoring value of each influencer requires an in-depth knowledge of their activities, reputation, standing in their firm or university and business model. We have assigned weighting values to parameters that we have identified as important, blogging is just one channel of influence.  The scoring parameters will vary depending on influencer type, for example, IT analysts include a parameter for influence within their respective firm and luminaries include a parameter for reputation.

Some Influencer Types

• Academic Influencers, university professors and their consulting arms.
• Business Influencers, by product or market focus.
• ITIR Influencers-traditional analyst firms and boutiques.
• IT Industry Thought Leaders, Geoff Moore, Don Tapscott etc.
• Industry Influencers, by vertical market segment or industry.

 

(A Business Influencer is a combination of consultant-analyst-author with in-depth industry expertise that focuses on the business value of technology and consults with LOB and IT and/or runs a systems integration software organization that often implements technology solutions in Fortune 500 or SME companies and organizations.)

Example Academic Influencer Scorecard

Weighting Parameters       0-5	Thought Leader One	Thought Leader Two	Thought Leader Three	Thought Leader Four	Thought Leader Five	Thought Leader Six
Author	5	5	5	5	5	5
C Suite Consultant	5	5	5	5	5	5
Independent Consulting Organization	1	3	1	5	2	1
Research Depth	5	5	5	5	5	5
University Rank	5	5	5	5	5	5
Speaking	5	3	5	5	5	5
Press Appeal/TV	5	3	5	3	5	5
Venture Capital Involvement	?	?	?	?	?	?
Geographic Reach	5	5	5	5	5	5
Blogger-Twitter	5	5	0	0	5	5
Score	41	39	36	38	42	41

 

The BIG team has intimate knowledge of all the thought leaders in this scorecard after working with them for several years now, and as you can see they are all nearly at the same level of influence at the C suite level of companies.

Guidelines for Key Weighting Parameters

• Author-has published at least two books and HBR articles etc.
• Blogger-is a regular blogger and has Twitter following.
• C Suite Consultant-consults regularly with C suite executives.
• Independent Consulting Organization-separate from University, Innosight, Keystone Strategy Group, etc.
• Research Depth-recognized expert in field conducting regular primary and secondary market research
• University rank-renown University, one of Top 50 in US example.
• Speaking-regular speaker in field of expertise
• Press Appeal /TV-Quoteability-PR friendly and TV appearances.
• Venture Capital Involvement
• Geographic reach

 

The influencer scorecard is not meant to overly simplify and/or provide a mathematical formula for assessing influence, but it is a good general framework from which to begin evaluating thought leaders. The social media tsunami has certainly changed the overall dynamics of influence in our businesses and its impact on brand and sales has yet to be measured. And thought leaders are seminal players in the social media landscape.