Last week I received a package from Klout and TBS. It was a Sony PSP 3000 loaded with a 1-min clip promoting TBS’ show Are We There Yet?
First, it should be noted that I am not a fan of this show, in fact I’ve never seen it. The only reason why I can think that I might have been targeted for this promotion was that I sometimes tweet about TV shows (Mostly BURN NOTICE!).
Second, this was part of the Klout Perks program, where Klout apparently works with certain companies to offer certain products/services to people that are deemed to be influencers. I got this offer right after my Klout score hit 70, so I assume that’s the activation point for the Perks program.
In 2011, many companies are now looking for a way to connect with online influencers. If you are wanting to reach influencers, here’s some points to keep in mind:
1 – Target people that already have an interest in promoting you. Too many programs attempt to give an influencer a product hoping that will convince them to promote the company/product to their networks. It’s far better to connect with an evangelist for your company/product. This is someone that is likely already promoting you/your product to their networks.
But perhaps the bigger point is, an evangelist is passionate about you. You can’t buy my passion for a show I have never seen by giving me a $150 toy.
2 – Giving someone access to something they want often works as well or better than giving them products. In this case, the approach of giving me a 1-min clip of a show on a PSP really doesn’t make me any more likely to blog about how amazing the show is. But since I cover how companies can and are using social media effectively, that would be a great way to reach me. What TBS could have done is reach out to me and see if I wanted an exclusive interview with the company’s CMO about how they are using Klout. Or maybe when I am in Austin next month for SXSW, offer to take me out to dinner and tell me what your company is doing in the social media space. THAT is access that has value for me.
3 – People that are influencers (especially online) often become influential by creating value for others. Klout sending me a PSP isn’t going to convince me to blog about Are We There Yet because doing so won’t create value for my network. If you want to gain access to the network that I am influential over, then you first need to give ME an incentive to connect you with them. That incentive is value. If you can give me a way to create value for my network, then you’ll win my attention. This goes back to the previous point about giving me access to how TBS is using social media, vs a toy. Because if you give me that access, then I can create content that will have value for my network.
4 – Target influential evangelists. Let’s again look at what TBS did: They sent me a PSP with a 1-min clip about a show that I have never seen, and never tweeted about. I’ve already said that access would have worked better in this case. Such as TBS giving me access to how they are using social media to connect with viewers online.
But notice I mentioned that while I never tweet about Are We There Yet, I do frequently tweet about the USA Networks show Burn Notice. So what if USA contacted me and offered me access to their Social Media Director to tell me exactly how Burn Notice is leveraging social media to connect with viewers?
THAT would be the best of both worlds. USA would be targeting an influencer correctly, but also an influencer that is a huge FAN of Burn Notice. It wouldn’t be a question of if I would promote Burn Notice and how they are using social media to my network, but how soon and how often 😉 Again, target people that are already passionate about you and your product.
Here’s how I think TBS could have improved this effort:
1 – Give influencers real exposure to the show. As I said, I have never seen Are We There Yet? The promotion should have included a couple of episodes so I could actually watch it and decide if I liked the show. A few ‘behind the scenes’ clips would have been nice as well.
2 – Give influencers customized content. What TBS could have easily have done was have one of the stars of the show, or Ice Cube, create a ‘customized’ greeting. A very short video, about 10 seconds in length, where the star says ‘Hey Mack, thanks for participating in the TBS/Klout Are We There Yet? Promotion. We wanted to show you what we are up to so check out the clips and media we’ve included, and thanks for watching!’ And of course, the name of each influencer could be changed, so all of the ‘customized’ clips could have been recorded in an hour, tops. That would have definitely prompted me and anyone else that got the video to want to include it in a blog post.
3 – Give influencers a Social Media Pack. Include a ton of high-resolution pics and videos with instructions for how they can be embedded/shared on my blog and with my networks. Again, if you are wanting to target influencers so they will promote your show to their networks, make the content creation process as seamless as possible for me.
4 – Focus on more than just Klout score. I’m not certain how I was chosen for this promotion, but it seems that my Klout score hitting 70 was the activation point. For example, I would have also looked at how often influencers are tweeting about TBS/Are We There Yet?, and what the sentiment of those tweets are.
Then TBS could have decided: Is it better to target someone that has a Klout score of 70 that never tweets about our show, or someone with a Klout score of 45, that tweets about Are We There Yet? every week while the show is on?
Those are my suggestions, what am I missing? How can we build a better way for companies to connect with influencers?
Disclaimer: Klout sent me the PSP3000, along with TBS. Here’s the details, Klout didn’t pay me for this post, and my receiving the product wasn’t dependent on my posting about it or receiving it.
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Mack, this is similar to the very first post that introduced me to you back in 2008…Your point # 1 is HUGE. With all the amazing search tools that can source everything about us from our content to our affiliations, it should be easy to be wise about who they select in conjunction to a KLOUT Score.
And..I was helping a sick friend when that offer came out so I was late to RSVP and missed my PSP (‘limited quantity offer’) so…if you don’t want your PSP, I WANT IT. for my kiddo. 😀
Love your suggestions,
xo, @zaneology
Thank you Zane 😉 That’s the funny thing, I was actually thinking about getting a PSP as a time-killer for flights, but the promotion was supposed to sell me on the show Are We There Yet, but only included a 1-min clip. It’s like giving me a sample of your new candy bar, by delivering it in a new Ferrari 😉
Interesting! Klout just contacted me about sending me a basketball poster (this is what us folks with 50ish Klout get :-p ).
I have noticed some interesting backlash recently with social media personalities getting various perks. Should you trust someone that says he just had a great meal at a restaurant if you find out he just got the meal for free?
On the other hand, sometimes those freebies mean a blogger getting access to something he/she couldn’t have gotten access to another way. So, I’m personally not against it if this is the reason.
In the end, I guess it is the transparency thats important. While I’d rather your tweets about the new PSP were from buying it yourself, I would be more upset if I found out a month later it was a freebie.
So, to answer your original question, I think companies need to consider how their support would affect those they consider influencers. Helping them is one thing, rewarding them is another.
Mark that’s a very interesting question to ask. People in social media are getting VERY concerned about their Klout score. I follow a ‘name’ social media personality that’s constantly tweeting about their score, offers they are getting, etc. Makes me wonder if they are doing so to get targeted by better offers?
At the end of the day, I think influencers need to consider if their promoting such offers will really create value for their network. As with this post, I had to really think about how I could present this post so it could create some value for my readers.
Hope it worked 😉
Hey Mack,
I am one of the founders and the ceo of Klout. This is a great post.
The goal with this campaign was to expose Are We There Yet to relevant social media influencers. Lots of people received the PSP who had scores much lower than you but had stronger topical influence. Your topical influence was still relevant because of the other television shows you discuss but your high overall score definitely helped you into the campaign.
All of that said, if our goal was to expose influencers to the show you are totally right, we should have included full episodes on the PSP. The great thing about working with innovative brands like Turner is that they are willing to take chances like this, learn and iterate quickly. I also think your feedback about the price of the gift (the psp in this case) not always being as exciting as just access to the right people/conversations as extremely insightful. We did a campaign recently with the Sacramento Kings recently where basketball influencers got to meet with team management and some of the players and it was a great success. The challenge here is finding scale while keeping things personalized for the influencer.
Thanks again for this feedback. Happy to chat anytime if you have other thoughts or questions.
Joe
Joe thanks for the feedback as I am planning on doing a post tomorrow focused more on Klout itself, and your thoughts will help me in writing that post. One of the things that fascinates me about the influencer topic is how do we measure the LEVEL of influence that people have over a network? For example, I have about 23K followers on Twitter, and let’s just make up a number and say I am likely to influence a purchase decision of 10% of that network. But there might be some smaller subset of my network that I have huge influence over, make there’s 500 people in my network that if I suggest they try a product, the chance of them buying it jumps to 70%.
Is it better to target an influencer with a network of 100K that has a 10% chance of influencing them, or someone with 70% chance of influencing purchase behavior among a group of 500 people? I don’t know, and I think it’s one of the questions companies like Klout will want to answer.
BTW I may email you if I have any questions, and looking forward to catching up at SXSW in a few weeks!
Mack
Think the #1 thing companies should be doing right now is defining influencer. I don’t care what your Klout score is or that you tweet about Burn Notice — except when said show keeps you from having beers with Ike, Jamie and me in Birmingham 😉
I don’t follow you for TV show advice – I follow you for social media insight.
Brands need to stop looking for shortcuts like Klout to tell them who influencers are… the only way to do that is to spend time casting a big net to scoop up all the possible folks then sift through them one by one until you’ve made that all so important list of influencers.
Good stuff man… enjoy the toy.
@TomMartin
Where’s the like button when you need it?
Hi Mark,
Excellent post. People like “simple things”, but one figure on influence is clearly oversimplification.
There is no such a thing as “an influencer”. Someone is influential over a group of people (a community) about a specific domain.
What TBS should have done is :
– segment its audience into groups with similar needs/characteristics
– analyze these groups, spots the people in these group who had the best chances to spread the message, define measurable goals.
– develop a specific value proposition and build specific programs for each target groups
– measure, adapt.
We used to call that marketing 😉
Your points are right on target and those that sent the product to you are fortunate that you chose to blog about them, even if in a left handed way.
The one thing you don’t mention though, that I think matters is that they should be targeting influencers already within their target market (insert mommy bloggers of the target kids age here), not just their brand advocates. This would have brought them new exposure, which I presume was the purpose of the promo.
Funny how social marketing is really old school marketing, with a new medium to get out the message and less control of what happens once it gets out. Some of the SuperBowl advertisers need to go back to these lessons about targeting before they waste their $ and time with poorly targeted content.
Thank you for sharing this experience Mack. Interestingly enough our influence platform at Soovox follows the logic you described: Users measure their Social IQ ( http:socialiq.co ) then share what the brands they love…. But I think with Topical influence Joe Fernandez got a very good point – The perk is not a bribe for good PR, it’s an experiment for exposure, and some brands are ready to take those chances and hear you out. So they say: “Any P.R is good P.R”.
I have an interesting question for the crowd. Does it make sense to cast the net wide and focus on boiling the ocean (sorry about the sea metaphors) and target many influencers. Does it make sense to focus on a few and really do a good job in turning them into promoters