One of my activities for 2010 is helping get the word out on the CIO Summit of America in New York and the full 2010 CIO Leadership series. I’m supporting this event series because I believe it offers compelling value as part of a tech company’s influencer relations agenda.
Peer-to-peer events are growing more important. Research keeps telling us that peers and colleagues have the greatest influence on enterprise IT decision makers. HMG Strategy’s CIO Leadership series recognizes this. Each event brings together IT leaders within a region for a day of exchanging, sharing and learning from each other.
The events at a glance:
- Market focus: regional to local attendees, enabling alignment with sales territories
- Short: 1-day event, appealing to busy IT decision makers
- Agenda: timely themes tailored directly by the speakers and attendees in the room
- Experts/influencers: CIOs, COOs, CxOs, IT directors and VPs share their strategies, experiences and lessons learned; pundits are scarce onstage and off
- Caliber of participants: Generally these CIO Leadership events draw an impressive group of speakers and participating attendees; in some cities, the summits are conducted in partnership with IT associations
- History: while still a young endeavor, there’s now an established track record of events for attendee/sponsor assessment
The 2010 schedule is posted at the HMG Strategy website. It begins with New York and San Francisco in February.
As IT peer level events go, the CIO Leadership series puts many of the right pieces together. Consider adding it to a line-up of industry conferences, analyst events, professional association events, meetups and unconferences. Please let them know you read about it here.
Popularity: 15%
I’m pleased to find that a new study validates what I’ve been seeing in client projects and industry conversations: social media is taking on a larger role in business decision-making processes. Social media is enabling decision-makers to reach out to larger numbers of people (the size of their unique influencer ecosystems) and to tap into their influencers through online as well as offline channels. These are among the preliminary findings of a study conducted this summer under the umbrella of the Society of New Communications Research (SNCR). SNCR Research Fellows Don Bulmer, SAP, and Vanessa DiMauro, Leader Networks lead the research and analysis and have begun releasing preliminary findings. Their full report will be released in January.
On the business front, about 4 in 10 respondents incorporate social networks into 4 steps of their decision process:
- seeking peer referral
- reading blogs
- gathering opinions through an online network
- looking the company up on a social network
Other findings relative to social media and influence:
- Information obtained from offline networks still have highest levels of trust with slight advantage over online (offline: 92% - combined strongly/somewhat trust; online: 83% combined strongly/somewhat trust)
- Approximately three quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions: 40% gather opinions via their online networks and 39% look up companies on their social networks.
- Reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has increased significantly over the past 3 years for essentially all respondents
Don has shared one of the interview excerpts, and for me, this comment puts the study results into context:
“I find that I will network offline at events and meetings where I establish connection with many people and I use online tools to follow up and maintain connect. I may meet 20 or so people at an event and then immediately then put them into Plaxo or LinkedIn to keep and maintain connection. I try to maintain my status and activity regularly to keep engaged and keep people informed.”
The methodology for the “New Symbiosis of Professional Networks” study involved a mixed methods approach supported by quantitative data gathered via online survey of 356 professionals to understand their perceptions and experiences with social media in support of their decision-making. Select interviews of 12 professionals were also conducted using a semi-structured interview guide as part of the second phase of the study. All respondents were either the decision makers or influenced the decision process within their company or business unit, and company size ranged from less than 100 to over 50,000 full-time employees.
Find more at Don’s blog and Vanessa’s blog.
Popularity: 14%
It’s a sure bet that when CIO and IT decision makers gather in groups, tech sales people circle nearby, angling to slip into the crowd. The common wisdom is that every member of these groups is a sales target. Each member is ripe with purchasing potential. That’s certainly a practical way for tech providers to look at IT peer groups. Yet when you view these groups primarily as a source of sales leads you’re leaving their greatest potential untouched.
High-end IT purchase decisions involve many types of influencers, and some of the most credible and trusted are professional peers within the senior IT and CIO community. Â We see the signs of this all around us, and we know the truth from our own lives. Â Research studies help quantify what our guts are telling us. Case in point, a late 2008 Forrester Research study*:
The members of these groups are gathering to share experiences, learn from each other and talk shop. In other words, they are influencing each other.
So, think twice next time you are compelled to drop an IT peer group into your lead funnel. You may be dropping highly valuable influencer networks into your cold calling program. That’s no way to treat an influencer.
* © 2008, Forrester Research. From “Using Buyer Social Behaviour to Boost B2B Social Media Success” by Laura Ramos, Oliver Young, Patrick Tripp.
Popularity: 6%
Can winning industry awards help sell products and services? According to the Influencer Marketing book, the answer is no:
“Industry awards are primarily self-congratulatory ‘feel good’ exercises, which have limited marketing value and all but zero influence on the top decision-makers.”
– Nick Hayes and Duncan Brown
They do credit awards with some value in the early stage of a decision process, such as in response to a Request For Proposal.
Is that the practical extent of the value of an industry award?
I agree with them insofar as few industry awards have the impact of the Oscars. However, that seems more a shortcoming of the typical awards organizer than the nature of awards in general.
Every industry has its awards programs that amount to little more than karaoke. It pays to avoid those. Or, bury them.
Likewise, every industry has its awards programs that do matter.
As with all forms of influence, the trick is knowing which is which.
Popularity: 2%
It’s tempting to think of influencer programs as master plans for turning objective decision influencers into your company’s bona fide fans. The truth is, that’s not a desirable goal for your influencer programs.
Valuable influencers maintain a high level of objectivity. Some call it integrity. Others describe it as independence or ethics.
Whatever label you prefer, compromising it is a surefire way to dilute the effectiveness of the influencer. Once that happens, there’s no turning back. They play a lesser role in every decision making process because their viewpoint is clearly skewed toward your company.
How do you structure an influencer program to achieve good relations without compromising independent thinking?
A few of the best practices we share with Influencer50 clients:
Do assign senior people to managing relationships with your top influencers. These people should be knowledgeable about your company from a business perspective, in addition to having more tactical knowledge about your products, services, partners and competitors.
Do empower your relationship managers to engage key players across the company with your top influencers.
Do not aim standard marketing – including advertising, PR, collateral, direct marketing, events, or demos — at your top influencers.
Popularity: 9%
One of the new features on the Influencer50 website is a library of resources for building effective influencer programs. We’ve recently posted a pair of podcasts on decision-maker ecosystems. In part 1, Nick fleshes out the concept; in part 2, he digs a little deeper into how DMEs work. You can download the complete podcasts from the online library (register right on the home page, bottom right corner). Here’s a brief excerpt you can stream or download:
Popularity: 4%
The high tech industry analysts aren’t making much headway among the SMB decision-makers, according to this week’s Sage Market Pulse from Chadwick Martin Bailey. In this survey, independent consultants and colleagues lead all other types of external advisors on IT needs and solutions.
You can see that SMB decision-makers are a smart bunch. They set up a well-balanced decision ecosystem for themselves. They distribute their attention among 3 primary groups — independent consultants, colleagues (peers), and the combined sales channel — direct, VAR, SI, outsoucing providers.
The CMB Sage Market Pulse is a free weekly email blast. I’ve subscribed to it for years, long before CMB acquired Kathryn Korostoff’s Sage Research. Good read for marketing and sales. Highly recommend it.
Popularity: 4%
There’s quite a debate raging over whether IT decision-makers are influenced by blogs and other forms of social media. No matter which side you take in this debate, you’ll find good news and bad news in the latest installment of the “IT Social Media Index.”
The IT Social Media Index is becoming a twice-yearly survey conducted by ITtoolbox (now part of the Corporate Executive Board). It’s sponsored by PJA Advertising + Marketing.
This time out, the Index finds social media content consumption is up across most IT job positions. IT professionals are spending more time per week with social media and user-generated content.
The survey defines social media types as discussion groups, peer-to-peer networks, social networks and profiles, blogs, wikis, podcasts, and mash-ups.
Which is most popular overall with IT professionals?
You probably guessed it: discussion groups. Discussion groups command the most time per week.
There’s an odd split in results among tech decision-makers. The “executive decision-maker” respondents are consuming less social media and user-generated content. That’s bad news for social/UGC advocates because presumably, these are the very decision-makers that the high-rolling tech advertisers will pay dearly to reach.
Meanwhile, the “IT decision-makers” are consuming more social media and user-generated content.
Visit ITtoolbox to download and browse survey results. It’s absolutely free. Plus, there’s some interesting trivia, from early mentors to tastes in music and politicians.
Popularity: 1%
