What’s less controversial is that from a marketer’s point of view the idea of an ‘influential’ is a terribly useful one, seductive even. If reaching a limited number of identifiable people is all you need to spread your message widely, doesn’t that make your job a great deal easier? And it’s in this context that I read the article linked in this post’s title, about the rise of “influencer panels”. These are initiatives like the “Frito-Lay Fab 15” and Wal-Mart’s “11 Moms” - small groups of online voices whose role is to spread positive word-of-mouth.
The question then becomes: once anointed an influencer like this, do you become more or less of one? Does your access give you greater credibility, does your participation dent your authenticity? Do your readers even give a monkeys? It’s tempting to see these kind of programs as attempts to force the issue on influentials - we’d like them to exist and to work in this particular way, so let’s take a few popular bloggers and create some.
What’s fascinating though is that the influence panels DO seem to be potentially influential, but not necessarily in the direction that was most anticipated. From the article:
Once a panel is assembled and activated, everyone inside the marcom org listens to what they are saying. I would guess most of the C-suite of the brands mentioned here listen to what these influencers have to say.
