Na de intensieve dagen op de hei (in dit geval het Noordzee strand) vraag ik me af welke richting het PR-vak gaat met de opkomst van web2.0. Een kreet die ik vanavond wilde uitdiepen was Influencer Marketing. Op de website van Influencer50, een bureau met vestigingen in London en San Fransisco, zag ik een aardige quote van een van de eigenaren Nick Hayes: “”Influencer marketing today is where PR was twenty years ago. In those days, those few organisations who had a formal PR programme were quantifiably more effective in their sales than their competitors. As everyone has since caught up on PR, so companies are now looking for the next dramatic leap forward: the breakthrough that will reunite their marketing efforts with their salesforce again. Understanding and identifying which individuals and organisations really influence buying decision-makers makes such common sense it’s a no-brainer. But only now are we finding ways to do this.”
Op het weblog van dat bedrijf, Infuse, vond ik een interessant artikel van eerder deze week over ‘the long tail of authority’. Hij verwijst naar een oorspronkelijk(er) artikel op de website van James Governer dat ‘Cult of the Professional’ heet. Dat weer de titel is van een boek dat geschreven is door Andrew Keen en gelezen en becommentarieerd door de Belg Werner Ramaekers. Ik ga nu niet al die blogs samenvatten maar copy-paste de blogbites/fragmenten die ik interessant vond. Die kan je gebruiken als vertrekpunt om verder te lezen, naast bovengenoemde links.
– A “long tail of authority” sounds like an oxymoron to me. We use third parties to replace experience we ourselves don’t have. For trivial needs (which toothpaste to buy) we defer to just about anyone (spouse, sales assistant, person also browsing for toothpaste, etc). But for more important decisions we tend to use more verifiable sources. It’s not just authority that’s important – accountability is also vital is such decisions. Which is why we pay professionals, and why professional need indemnity cover (weblog Infuse)
– And as you say, social media helps to distribute authority. In the old days, a PhD student working on an arcane area of neuroscience, for example, might only be known to other academics in the same area. Via social media, he or she can distribute his or her knowledge far more widely. If the same happens for all PhD students engaged in similarly arcane areas of research, I can see that a ‘long tail’ of micro-authorities might emerge. (bron: comment Fionba Blamey)