Working With WOM Influencers

Last month, WOMMA quietly released their Influencer Handbook which offers guidelines on best practices and ethics for engaging influencers - online and offline - in WOM programs. A council of members put the handbook together. This is one of several useful initiatives that WOMMA members are spearheading right now.

Bloggers vs. Influencers

The Handbook starts at one level higher and more abstract than most approaches who focus in on the subset of influencers who are bloggers. Our own Blogger Outreach Guidelines and even WOMMA's Ethical Blogger Contact Guidlines start a little further down the chain. The Influencer Handbook frames out an approach appropriate for all types of influencers. They even inventory influencers in the following grid:

Category	Who they are	Channels of Influence	What they are called (Partial list)
Formal position of authority	Political/government leaders/staff Business leaders	Laws & regulations Decision & spending authority Top-down directives	Opinion Leaders Decision makers C-suite
Institutional/recognized subject matter experts & advocates	Academics/scientists Industry analysts NGO leaders Consumer activists	Academic journals Traditional media New media Social media	Experts Mavens Analysts Critics
Media elite	Journalists Commentators Talk show hosts	Traditional media New media Social media	Talking heads Columnists Politicos
Cultural elite	Celebrities Designers Artists Musicians	Traditional media New media New styles/products Social media	Trendsetters Fashionistas Taste makers Creators Starters
Socially connected	Neighborhood leaders Members of community groups Online networkers Business networkers	Personal relationships Email lists Social gatherings Social networking websites Social media	Mavens Starters Connectors Soccer moms Spreaders Hubs Alphas

The Handbook offers safe guidelines for marketers who want to engage Influencers and need to make sure they do so ethically and without putting their brand at risk. Everyday, I hear about marketers not in WOMMA who are new to word of mouth and stumble around the grey areas of ethics that, quite frankly, just aren't that grey. I serve on the WOMMA board and am passionate about the mission of the organization. I hate seeing good brands being led into risky territory by naive marketers who don't see the problems in pretending to be someone they are not online, or going overboard to push an influencer to write a blog post, or who just don't respect the new influencers online (remember the David Ogilvy dictum: "The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife")

Protect Your Brand

The new Influencer Handbook is useful to all marketers. Many who have been around WOMMA may find it almost common sense - that's a good thing and speaks to our collective efforts over the past few years. It is full of useful guidance like this:

"• Consider engagement as a balance sheet. The relative benefits to you, the brand, and the influencers needs to be in balance with one another. If the balance is too much in your favor, your influencers will feel used and you’ll ultimately alienate passionate users. If the balance is too much in the favor of your influencers, you’ll lose interest over time, and your program will be a campaign instead of a multi-year, long-term commitment.

• Influencer programs are, by definition, long-term, multi-year commitments designed to build a relationship; they are not marketing campaigns. Campaigns can augment influencer efforts to help find, activate, or engage influencers in particular activities (like a product launch), but influencer programs need to level out the roller coaster of connections provided by campaigns."

Protect your brand. Practice great word of mouth. Get this useful guide from those who are actually practicing great word fo mouth marketing everday.

(Oh, and come to the WOMMA Summit on November 12-14 to get more practical tools and apporaches for impactful womm including the latest on measuring and reporting ROI - handy in a "challenged" economy) 

Comments

[Tarah Remington, WOMMA]

John,

Thanks so much for covering WOMMA's latest ethics tools for marketers piece. WOMMA appreciates your support.