He’s not usually thought of the way Seth Godin is, but Mark Schaefer is one of the best marketing minds around. And this week, just as Godin has, Mr. Schaefer threw out an idea for discussion that we use here.
You know what I’m talking about: It’s Influency*. In Influence marketing: What’s next?, Mark Schaefer makes the point that Influency Marketing is all about; marketing is undergoing a huge change, and if you don’t manage a lot of things well, your marketing will fail. And that’s Influency.
What I really like about Mark Schaefer and his spin on Influency is the way he tells his story. Schaefer’s caught my attention before; this piece on the validity of SEO both lionized and praised Search Engine Optimization, and that’s what Mark Schaefer is really great at; most stories have at least two sides, and Mark Schaefer is great at identifying and covering them all. And whatever side he takes, Mark feels authentic. It’s a lot like coffee; you know what you’re getting, and you trust it to deliver.
By the way, I left a comment on Mark’s story, but it was deleted; I presume his commenting system ran amok (it has in the past). This is why our position on commenting systems is to not use them. Mark, if you’re listening: badly-behaved commenting systems are a detriment to Influency Marketing; you might like to fix this.
I’ll leave it there, except to add part of the comment I left at Mark’s blog, because the issues that make up Influency are important:
The common thread among commenters seems to be “yep, but … huh?”. Marketing is segueing into something that’s incredibly difficult to discuss well. You name the pieces and describe them perfectly, but … is a Kim Kardashian hook a great thing (yes, yes, it is) or a useless thing (umm … yes, yes it is) (http://answerguy.com/2009/12/24/britney-spears-kim-kardashian-pepsi-super-bowl-business-change/). And “followers counts? Puh-leeze … that’s measure of almost nothing (http://answerguy.com/2010/02/05/how-important-is-twitter-social-networking-really/)
And those stories are both from over three years ago!
