It’s 11 o’clock, do you know where your influencers are?

For communications and marketing to be effective, messages must not only reach the right people, but also resonate across various channels to impact opinions through engagement and advocacy.

“Influencer Communications,” or “Influencer Engagement” is more than just a catchy term; it’s the new and improved formula that combines next-generation marketing mediums with traditional methods, and applies them to and through purchasing influencers of various types. From analysts and media to customers and partners, the types of influencers — and ways they’re in which they’re engaged — vary, and are what make this method unique.

Types of Influence

Perhaps the easiest influencer type to relate to, is simply an expansion of what most people think of when they consider traditional marketing. A target is defined and marketing is done to impact that target. However, we realize today that targets aren’t just the people holding the purse strings. Rather, this aspect of Influencer Communications is a 360-degree approach in which any influencer of a purchasing decision is targeted with messaging that will resonate with their specific needs.

Another aspect of Influencer Communications is marketing done through influencers. The old school version of marketing typically sought only the participation of sales and marketing personnel. However, there are many other people and departments within your organization that have the ability to positively influence customers and help lower the fruit.

It’s nothing short of mind-boggling how many organizations don’t recognize the importance of their in-house influencer community – employees – and as such fail to execute effective campaigns.

Due to their relationships and social media connections to potential customers, your executives, business development team, IT, and even the HR department should be part of a marketing and PR campaign (along with sales and marketing, of course). If you as an executive have hired the right staff, then the people whose day-to-day efforts drive your company’s operations should be connected to your target audience.

Also, it goes without saying that customers can – and should become influencers by championing your products or services.

Putting Influencer Marketing to Practice

Personal referrals possess an inherent credibility that make them the most impactful influence on our decision-making. Influencer engagement is accomplished many ways, but one of the most effective is through virtual word of mouth — or “shares” — via social media. A customer success story in the Wall Street Journal is great, but with so many new media platforms from which people now consume news and information, there’s no guarantee that the person to whom you most want to present that information will actually see it. We see this today as content assets (case studies, news coverage, white papers, photos, videos, etc.) are shared across many different online platforms.  

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from http://baltimoretech.org/news/its-11-oclock-do-you-know-where-your-influencers-are/