What is Digital Influence?
by Brian Koh on July 9th, 2008
Many people I meet ask me what exactly is Digital Influence? And why does it stem from Public Relations (PR)?
Well, to better understand what Digital Influence is, is to appreciate that Digital Influence is a communications discipline. Much like what Public Relations is. We can communicate on behalf of our client, or we give them counsel and how they should communicate, and where they should communicate.
Why do companies have to communicate? To inform the decisions that you make on a daily basis (whether you’re a concerned member of the public, consumer, stakeholder, employee, employer, policy maker… etc) What we consume, is what shapes our perceptions.
Originally, businesses would use the mass media to communicate with the wider audience, but as the media continued to evolve into multiple channels, audiences started fragmenting due to choice.
Then came Web 2.0, faster broadband speeds and the rise of Social Media (Or the media that users share with each other, a bit like a social transaction - i hate that word.) [Pat Law has an excellent post about social currency to help you understand what makes media, social. Link]
With the advent of Social Media, businesses, brands, corporations and finally, the public could communicate with each other using a wide variety of social tools:
Blogs
Forums
Twitter
Plurk
Facebook
Myspace
Wikis
Vodcats
Podcasts
And you could finally have a real two way dialogue, which was what communications was always about. Messages are conversations. What we tell someone isn’t always what that audience will perceive, they will interpret it, and Web 2.0 has enabled the interpretation to be published by that same audience. Thus forming a dialogue.
What’s changing is the way people communicate. We’re no longer content waiting for the 930pm news, or the music the radio wants us to hear, what the TV guides want to show us, when they want to show us. We’re not at the mercy of reading the news the publications deem worthy for us to read. No, we want information on demand.
As communicators, isn’t this the space you want to be? Where the messages you have aren’t forced at people, but accessed on demand by the public? While you’re still thinking about that, the power of information is now with the people, and we are all informing each other. That’s what social media has enabled us to do, inform each other on an amplified level.
Digital Influence, we’re communicators, we’re where the conversations are at and helping brands form bridges into their communities, people who use their products, who become passionate about them, and in turn, brands should also be passionate about their people. -)
Tania Chew 
July 9th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Go go Digital Influence !
July 10th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Very well written….. Now what?
July 10th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
The problem here is that Social Media is ALOT of work. So much that it makes a client wary of the responsibilities created vs the returns.
It even makes an agency think 3-50 times before offering a social media solution.
So now what?
July 10th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
@Nick: you make us sound like power rangers! which isn’t so far from the truth! -)
@Harro: very true, it is a lot of work, which takes the ‘mass email’ effect out when engaging media channels (blogs and traditional media)
i believe the next step is the continued engagement of the blogosphere, and other new media channels, that they integrate with traditional forms, to reform the concept of ‘the media’.
when you think about it, the majority of people don’t just read blogs, but go online to search Google, Yahoo or other search engines, connect with friends over a variety of social networks, talk to each other via mobile phones and SMS or even Twitter and Plurk.
the next step should be to ensure that when people go looking for news, they’ll find what they’re looking for, and you wanna be there when that happens.
it’s a lot to think about, but perhaps the next step is to at least appreciate how Social Media works, and decide how you want to play your communications strategy.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Very cool Brian.
So what is the most important aspect of knowing where people go looking for news?
July 10th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
@brian: You’ll be the pink ranger i suppose?
@harro!: I’m not from the digital influence team… but I’ll add on to Brian’s comments.
I think its about addressing where the eyeballs are… where the attention spans are, where the conversations are and what people view as credible and more insightful. It not just applies for news… it can also apply for information, opinions, suggestions etc.
Of course, social media marketing is extremely hard work but it is vital in today’s world as social media plays such a prominent role amongst internet users. For companies who do not have a social media strategy probably have more risk than having one to test the still relatively unknown waters. I say this because if companies don’t do it now and only enter the frame when everybody else is in it, then it’ll probably be too late to make an impact.
Problems will occur and should occur. In that way the social media strategy can be optimised as it goes and in no time… the brand will probably be pretty good a social media.
In actual fact, social media plans need a dedicated group/person (varies) in the company to monitor and participate actively as the environment is constantly changing. However, it’s still a long way before companies do that as even getting many of them to test minimally is already very difficult.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:32 am
@Nick Totally with you there Nick, and I am going to suggest that its actually a network of companies, each with its own speciality.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Great post about the fundamentals of THE CHANGE. When I think of “digital influence” - I think of it all very personally. How am I influenced in new ways and by new people and sources today? It’s amazing really. Last night I met up with Neal Stewart who runs marketing at Flying Dog Brewery largely cause I knew him to be a smart guy via Twitter and our participation in WOMMA.
If anything, it’s a people-powered change. Peer-to-peer recomendations that trump what advertising can tell us. Content created by you and me and a whole bunch of others not by white tower “experts”. What a great time to be a marketer!
November 13th, 2008 at 6:51 am
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