The Role of Public Relations in Influence

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Eric Berto — Leave a Comment

When we discuss influence, we immediately think about popular movie stars or athletes. But what if I said that in today’s society, each of us is an influencer?

I listen to a lot of people talk a lot about influence. The amazing thing is that they all have something different to say. Here at Waggener Edstrom, we of course have our own answers about how to define and measure influence. But this got me thinking. What is the future of influence, and what role do we as communications professionals have in that future?

What is influence?

A recent panel I listened in on had the stated mission of establishing just how we can define influence. But even after an hour of people talking, nobody had a clear definition. At the end of the session, I tweeted: you know who should be influential for your brand? Your brand.

And I stand by that.

As integrated digital communications professionals (see also: public relations), being able to influence your key audiences by creating content and telling a story is the key to establishing and maintaining influence. But first we really do need to establish just what influence is.

While at South by Southwest, I had an opportunity to interview Klout CEO Joe Fernandez about Klout, what factors are important to influence, and what the future is for scientific research of influence.

A research team at Yahoo! recently examinedthe various conversations that occur on Twitter and reported “a striking concentration of attention on Twitter roughly 50% of tweets consumed are generated by just 20K elite users|where the media produces the most information, but celebrities are the most followed. We also find significant homophily within categories: celebrities listen to celebrities, while bloggers listen to bloggers etc; however, bloggers in general rebroadcast more information than the other categories.” What’s that mean? It means that influence is as much created as it is earned, which has a definite impact on the future of public relations.

Be the story you want to tell

One of the tenants we profess at Waggener Edstrom is to be the story you want to tell. What we mean by that is when you have a message you want to convey, the best conduit for telling that story is to control how it is told. To influence how you are perceived through your own words and use the channels you build to influence the audience you want to reach the most.

So, how do we do that? To me it comes to three key strategies:

• your own corporate blog
• your own corporate website
• your customers.

Your own corporate blog

By creating a two-way communications channel, you are able to interact with potential customers, existing customers and anybody interested in learning about the business problem your company solves. Being able to create a community around a central content hub, you are able to create influence among your core audiences. Social media is important for engaging and building a community, but your corporate blog is where you get to tell your story.

Your own corporate website

As important as real-time and in the moment communications through a personable blog are, having static content that is informative, engaging and compelling is vital to the success of your products. At the end of the day, ROI is not measured in clicks, likes or followers. ROI is measured in revenue. By having a website that is designed to convert the traffic your digital storytelling drives, you will continue to realize benefits over the long term.

Your customers

Empowering your customers to tell your story is the most influential thing you can do for your brand. Creating content that your customers can share and evangelize is essential. Being able to tell your story in a meaningful manner that is compelling and actionable will help influence not only the purchasing decisions of people interacting with your content, but influencing the purchasing decisions of others through their social interactions.

Digital media is the great influence equalizer. Anybody can create influence, and there’s no reason why your brand shouldn’t be an influencer as well.