Top Influence Marketing News: Brand Advocates and the Rise of Influence

By Brett Henley

There’s been a lot of good reads this week in the realm of influence marketing and we’ve been thrilled to be a part of the conversation! Without further adieu, let’s dive into some of our favorite influence marketing news. We hope you enjoy our lineup!

‘Lucky’ Mag’s Technology Solution

This great read from AdWeek showcased how Lucky Magazine is developing a new user-generate section of their website using Appinions to identify the influential voices in fashion. Publications are realizing the power and influence of their readers and giving them an even greater chance to step up and take the microphone. Here’s what our own Larry Levy, CEO of Appinions, had to say:

“There’s no better example in terms of a sector that’s being completely turned on its head,” Levy said of fashion. “How many examples do you have of kids 23, 25 years old, starting blogs and starting to set the tone of influencing fashion? [Lucky] is saying, let’s not create the content ourselves, but let’s go out to the community and find the most engaging producers of content and invite them to syndicate their content with us.”

You can read the full piece here - ‘Lucky’ Mag’s Technology Solution

The Rise and Rise of Influence

Yesterday’s article from Fast Company highlighted two different studies that reveal just how much we are impacted by our social media interactions influence our buying decisions. The first survey says a whopping 99% of top influencers say they get peppered with questions before their friends make a purchase. The other report unveiled that 81% of U.S. respondents said social media posts from friends directly affected their purchasing choices.

No longer do we need mass media and advertising to tell us what to buy. Now, we can rely on our social media “friends” to give us the information we need.  As this article points out, influence marketing is on the rise and will only get hotter. And, it’s why companies like Appinions, are showing up on the map.

Check out the article here – The Rise and Rise of Influence

Social Media Influencers Versus Brand Advocates Infographic

As a follow-up to Jay Baer’s popular and poignant post “Why Online Influencer Outreach is Overrated and How to Fix It”, the folks at Zuberance put together a fantastic infographic to help shine a light on the key differences between audience and influence.

It’s definitely worth checking out.

You can find it here – Social Media Influencers Versus Brand Advocates Infographic

How to Turn Relationships into Brand Advocates

Ted Rubin wrote a nice article at Mashable about how our outreach efforts should be more about quality than quantity. Instead of focusing on building a large number of fans, business should nurture relationships with their audience so they become a business that people want to talk about and share with their friends. To do that, it takes developing an emotional connection with your audience.

You can get more tips here – How to Turn Relationships into Brand Advocates 

Can You Be Influential While Under the Influence?

This post from Sam Fiorella was from last week, but it was too good not to include in this week’s roundup. A hat tip to the folks at Influencer Marketing Review for calling attention to this great piece.

Sam points out the flaws with personal influence measurement tools, namely Klout, and why it isn’t a true measure of influence. Sam argues that one of the biggest issues is that Klout lacks the ability to define influence contextually. Those of you that have been reading for awhile know how important we find contextual-based influence measurement.

You can read Sam’s excellent post at Business 2 Community - Can You Be Influential while Under the Influence?

We’d love to hear what you think about these articles – did you have a favorite? Do you have any other great influence marketing articles we should check out?

Image credit: Jon S