Tag Archives: Influencers

Brand Protection

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I woke up at 5am this morning to order a new iPhone. I did this because I wanted the new camera upgrades along with some other nice-to-haves. Why did I get an iPhone and not a new Samsung? Why didn’t I look at any of the other phones on the market? It’s because I am a loyal Apple customer at this point. Does that mean I think the iPhone is perfect? Far from it! But I will choose it in spite of the flaws because I know it has room to be better.

That whole story is repeated time and again in technology. People find themselves drawn to particular companies or brands. They pick a new phone or computer or car based on their familiarity with the way they work or the design choices that are made. But does that mean they have to be loyal to that company no matter what?

Agree to Disagree

One of the things that I feel is absolutely paramount to being a trusted advisor in the technology space is the ability to be critical of a product or brand. If you look at a lot of the ambassador or influencer program agreements you’ll see language nestled toward the bottom of the legalese. That language usually states you are not allowed to criticize the brand for their decisions or talk about them in a disparaging way. In theory the idea is important because it prevents people from signing up for the program and then using the platform to harshly and unfairly criticize the company.

However, the dark side of those agreements usually outweigh the benefits. The first issue is that companies will wield the power to silence you to great effect. The worst offenders will have you removed from the program and potentially even sue you. Samsung almost stranded bloggers 10 years ago because of some brand issues. At the time it seemed crazy that a brand would do that. Today it doesn’t seem quite so far-fetched.

The second issue is that those agreements are written in such a way as to be able to cause issues for you even if you didn’t realize you were doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing. Think about celebrities that have tweeted about a new Android phone and the tweet has metadata that says sent with Twitter for iPhone. How about companies that get very upset when you discuss companies that they see as competitors. Even if you don’t see them as competitors or don’t see the issue with it you may find yourself running afoul of the brand when they get mad about you posting a pic of their product next to the supposed competition.

In my career I’ve worked at a value-added reseller (VAR) where I found myself bound by certain agreements to talk positively about brands. I’ve also found myself on the wrong side of the table when that brand went into a bidding process with another VAR and then tried to tell me I could say bad things about them in the process because I was also their partner. The situation was difficult because I was selling against a partner that went with another company but I also needed to do the work to do the bid. Hamstringing me by claiming I had to play by some kind of weird rules ultimately made me very frustrated.

Blind Faith

Do companies really want ambassadors that only say positive things about the brand? Do they want people to regurgitate the marketing points with everyone and never discuss the downsides of the product? Would you trust someone that only ever had glowing things to say about something you were trying to buy?

The reality of our world today is that the way that people discuss products like this influences what we think about them. If the person doing the discussion never has a negative thing to say about a company then it creates issues with how they are perceived. It can create issues for a supposedly neutral or unbiased source if they only ever say positive things, especially if it later comes out they weren’t allowed to say something negative for fear they’d get silenced or sued.

Think about those that never say anything negative toward a brand or product. You probably know them by a familiar epithet: fanboys. Whether it’s Apple or Tesla or Android or Ford there are many people out there that aren’t just bound by agreement to always speak positively about something. They will go out of their way to attack those that speak ill of their favorite product. If you’ve every had an interaction with a fan online that left you shaking your head because you can’t understand why they don’t see the issues you know how difficult that conversation can be.

As a company, you want people discussing the challenges your product could potentially face. You want an honest opinion that it doesn’t fit in a particular vertical, for example. Imagine how upset a customer would be if they bought your product based on a review from a biased influencer only to find that it didn’t fit your need because the influencer couldn’t say anything negative. Would that customer be happy with your product? Would the community trust that influencer in the future?

Tom’s Take

Honesty isn’t negativity. You can be critical of something you enjoy and not insinuate you’re trying to destroy it. I’ll be the first person to point out the shortcomings of a product or company. I’ll be fair but honest. I’ll point out where the improvements need to be made. One of the joys of my day job at Tech Field Day is that I have the freedom to say what I want in my private life and not worry about my work agreements getting me in trouble as has happened with some in the past. I’ll always tell you straight up how I feel. That’s how you protect your brand. Not with glowing reviews but with honest discussion.

Can Community Be Institutionalized?

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CommunityPlanning

As technology grows at a faster pace, companies are relying more and more on their users to help spread the word about what they are doing. Why pay exorbitant amounts for marketing when there is a group of folks that will do it for little to nothing? These communities of users develop around any product or company with significant traction in the market. But can they be organized, built, and managed in a traditional manner?

Little Pink Houses

Communities develop when users start talking to each other. They exist in numerous different forms. Whether it be forum posters or sanctioned user groups or even unofficial meetups, people want to get together to talk about things. These communities are built from the idea that knowledge should be shared. Anecdotes, guides, and cautionary tales abound when you put enough people into a room and get them talking about a product.

That’s not to say that all communities can be positive ones. Some communities are even built around the idea of a negative reaction. Look at these groups that formed around simple ideas like getting their old Facebook page back or getting their old MySpace layout returned to them. Imagine the reaction that you get when you have a enterprise product that makes changes that users don’t like. That’s how communities get started too.

Whether they are positive or negative, communites exist to give people a way to interact with other like-minded individuals. Community is a refuge that allows members to talk freely and develop the community to suit their needs.

Community Planning

What happens when the community needs more direction? Some communities are completely sanctioned and sponsored by their subjects, like the VMware User Group (VMUG). Others are independent but tend to track along with the parent, such as the Cisco User Groups that have developed over the years. These tend to be very well organized versus other more informal communities.

With the advent of social media, many ad hoc communities have formed quickly around the idea of sharing online. Social media makes meeting new members of the community quick and easy. But it’s also difficult to control social communities. They grow and change so rapidly that even monitoring is a challenge.

The wild and unpredictable nature of social communities has led to a new form of sponsored community – the influencer outreach program. These programs have different names depending on the company, but the idea is still roughly the same: reach out to influencers and social media users in the immediate community and invite them into a new community that offers incentives like insider information or activities outside of those regularly available to everyone.

Influencer outreach programs are like a recipe. You must have the right mix in the correct proportions to make everything work. If you have too much of something or not enough of another, the whole construct can fall apart. Too many members leads to a feeling of non-exclusiveness. Too few members-only briefings leads to a sense that the program doesn’t offer anything over and above “normal” community membership.

The Meringue Problem

One of the most important things that influencer outreach communities need to understand is something I call the “Meringue Problem”. If you’ve ever made meringue for a dessert, you know that you have to whip the egg whites and sugar until it forms soft peaks. That’s what makes meringue light and fluffy. It’s a lot of work but it pays off if done right. However, if you whip the mixture too hard or too long, those soft peaks fall apart into a mess that must be thrown out.

The Meringue Problem in influencer outreach communities comes when the program organizers and directors (chefs) get too involved in directing the community. They try to direct things too much or try to refocus the community away towards an end that the community may or may not support wholeheartedly. That ends up creating animosity among the members and a feeling that things would be better if everyone “would just back off for a bit”. There are a hundred different reasons why this overinvolvement happens, but the results are always the same: a fractured community and a sense of disappointment.

The First Rule

If you want a textbook method for building a community, take a page from one of my favorite movies – Fight Club. Tyler and the Narrator start a community dedicated to working out agression through physical expression. They don’t tell everyone in the bar to come outside and start fighting. They just do their thing on their own. When others want to be invovled, they are welcomed with open arms (and closed fists).

Later, the whole idea of Fight Club takes on a life of it’s own. It becomes a living, breathing thing that no one person can really direct anymore. In the movie, it is mentioned that the leader moves among the crowd, with the only important thing being the people fighting in the ring. But it’s never exclusionary. They’ll let anyone join. Just ask Lou.

Tyler finally decides that he needs something more from Fight Club. So what does he do? Does he try to refocus the community to a new end? How can you control something like that? Instead, he creates a new community from a subset of the Fight Club members. Project Mayhem is still very much a part of Fight Club, as the space monkeys are still Fight Club members. But Project Mayhem is a different community with different goals. It’s not better or worse. Just…different.

Tom’s Take

I’m a proud member of several communities. Some of them are large and distinguished. Others are small and intimate. In some, I’m a quiet member in the back. In others I help organize and direct things. But no matter who I am there or what I’m doing, I remember the importace of letting the community develop. Communities will find their way if you let them. A guiding hand sometimes does help the community accomplish great things and transcend barriers. But that hand must guide. It should never force or meddle. When that line is cross, the community ceases being a collection of great people and starts taking on attributes that make it more important thant the members. And that kind of institutionalization isn’t a community at all.

Special thanks to Jeff Fry (@FryGuy_PA) and Stephen Foskett (@SFoskett) for helping me collect my thoughts for this post.