Developing an Engaged Influencer Program with Insightpool

We are live back again for an H2H Chat. We've been on a hiatus here for the last month, and so we're really, really excited to be back here. I have a great show here ahead of us. I'm going to just jump right in and actually let me make sure that everybody can hear me. Nod your head, Devin, if you can hear me okay. Yes, I can hear you. He can. I'm going to just go ahead and say hello to Devon. How are you doing, my friend?

Good, man.

Awesome, man. Well, I am really excited to have you here. We're going to have another guest pop on here as well, and until that happens, we're going to talk a little bit up front. We're having a little bit of technical challenges with a firewall, so we're going to keep the show going until we can get A little panel running. So kind of excited about what's going on here because we're going to talk about engaging influencers, the process of engaging influencers and how that happens. Now this is called H2H Chat, which is kind of nice because what Devon does and his company does is really kind of cool. I used the product Insight Pool to actually, for the very first time over the weekend, to create some H2H communication with you all, with everybody that's watching, and it was kind of cool. We got a chance to see how that works. Anyway, without further ado, I want to introduce Devin. Let me see if I can get his name right. I actually wrote it down so that I can get it, and you know I'm going to end up taking his name apart. It's WeeJay Singer. How's that?

Man, that was perfect on the first try. You're my new The qualification to be my PR rep is to pronounce my last name, and you're good.

That's fantastic. So he is the CEO of InsightPool, such an incredible product. I've been working with them for quite a while. They actually are in my book, Shareology, and we're really kind of cool partners because when I talk about H2H, they are the very essence of what HHH, I think, stands for and what their tool does. And so I decided to, you know, really put something together that we could do here on HHH Chat that would help describe not only how to create HHH influence— sorry, engagement— but also influence, and how do you engage with those influencers, because it's a really hot topic right now. So, um, so just to kick this off, why don't you just quickly, uh, give a little bit of background about yourself and where you're coming from? kind of give everybody an idea as to who you are, and then we'll keep going.

Oh, sure.

We got Val.

Hi there.

I made it.

Hi there.

All right, so Val, we're just going to— we just literally started. We're going to have Devon introduce himself, and then we'll go to you.

Great, thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Bryan. So excited to be here, and thanks for all for joining. You know, I think the reality is that We live in this day and age where people love to buy but hate to be sold, like literally viscerally hate to be sold, and they turn off almost anything that is invasive to them. And if people don't, or brands don't have a contextual understanding of who they are, it's such a major turnoff that you can almost have a net negative response from people as opposed to the old days where it was just email, where it was just a net neutral response, meaning people wouldn't respond. And now, you know, we live in this time where Insight Pool is dealing in this confluence between marketing tech, ad tech, the center of gravity around influencers and advocates, and all these buzzwords are being thrown around, but it does simply boil down to the simple fact that how we are digitally is so much more aligned with how we are in real life than ever before. That our discovery path, our content consumption path, our engagement and friend and business path is all blurry, right. You don't only talk to business people in the context of email and LinkedIn, you talk to them maybe on Twitter and you may be Facebook friends and so forth. So the reality is that we live in this time that obviously H2H is more prevalent than ever, and what Insightpool software does for companies even such as Val's Really identify contextually who might be influencers at different times, and then engage them to be able to spread that message with truly relevant and authentic content for the brand. And the truth is that the word influencer is a little bit wonky right now because you only think of it as a static path. The reality is that I may be an influencer at any particular time on a subject that I'm not necessarily known for. and Bryan may be, and Val may be, and all of us are influencers in something at some time. Hence, that's what our software tries to extract so that brands know how to communicate with that right path going forward. If you do it correctly, you can have an army of people doing your marketing for you, which is what you want anyway. That's the only way that consumers even hear the message now. Excited to be here, and again, thanks for having me.

That's great. Val, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself as well and let us know what you're— obviously, this is all about engaging influencers. So let us know what your take is on that.

Absolutely. So I am Val DuVernay. I'm the Senior Program Manager for Social and Content Strategy with Advance Auto Parts. And as far as influencers go, I think that it is an amazing area to be looking at and working in. It certainly takes some digging to find the right people, to understand the different points in the buyer's journey, what is important and what you might want that influence from people on. But as Devon said, I mean, I think that people are influencers at different times and on different subjects, and it doesn't have to be, you know, the YouTuber out there who has, you know, 4 million subscribers. It can be somebody who has a couple of hundred followers on Twitter and is passionate about a subject and can reach out to an audience who is also passionate. So you may be reaching smaller audiences in that way, but they are still influential and can help spread your message.

That's great. Well, we have an interesting dynamic here because we are talking about tools, process, and people, and how to intermingle all 3 of those. And you kind of need that in order to make all this happen. But let me start with the very Very simple question of how to maintain this so that it is a human-driven initiative, because at the end of the day, these are people and they really want to feel like they're belonging to something, that they're going to be asked to do something that they believe in, that they have their heart invested in. How do you start this so that they feel that? How do they feel that emotion that they want to belong to this thing that's going to kick this thing, this influence marketing initiative off? Val, do you want to start with that?

Sure. Well, I think first of all you've got to, you know, you've got to find the right audience and then make sure that you're not just talking at them but talking with them and have a subject that you think they're passionate about and then ask them. I mean, you actually have to be having conversations. This, you know, the influencer area is not something where you're just broadcasting out information and hoping that somebody will pick it up and rebroadcast it for you. It really is about making those connections. So as an example, in our case, I mean, we're very involved in various racing efforts. And again, this is influencer marketing at one level just in itself, right? I mean, We sell auto parts. It's not like the guys who are on that racetrack are going to buy parts from us, or necessarily even everybody in the stands is going to buy parts from us. But we're trying to get at people who have an interest that we have, an affinity for what we do, and then actually have conversations with them. So we reach out, we use Insight Pool, and we identify people who are interested in racing, a particular kind of racing, perhaps a particular race or a particular driver even, and we reach out to them, kind of just say, hi, what do you think is going to happen this weekend? And try to start that conversation with them. And that's where it has to start, with actual human-to-human conversation.

That's fantastic. And Devon, what do you think about that?

Yeah, so I think the reality is that you can't go for the jugular in real life. Like, if I walked up to you And said, hey, Bryan, hey, I got this thing, click here, buy now, you would not respond. And not only would you not respond, you'd have a negative connotation and a negative response. And I think that too often what's happening is that there are smart marketers like Val that say, hey, look, there's no such thing as a silver bullet across almost any of our programs, right? You could do advertising, you can do all kinds of things. There's no silver bullet that automatically just generates money from the sky in sales. The trick is— What? Yeah, I know, I know. Darn. It's my goal to close this, but you know, I'll send you your lottery ticket. But the reality is that everything has a different point, so just as much as you're developing a human relationship, you might be— if I walked up to Bryan, I might say something like, hey Bryan, I really loved the book that you wrote on X, Y, and Z. I was just wanting to get your opinion though on this part of it. You'd be engaged and likely interested to respond because I knew something contextually relevant about you, and I used that as the topical pattern, and then I engaged on a subject that sounded like you would have an interest because it wasn't— it was more of a give before get. And so the trick I think there is you have to have technology, and again, things like ours exist, but where you can put people into a taxonomy is what we call it, so that you know contextual relevance to what they're doing, and then you also need to know, okay, these are the subjects that they have been talking about previously. And it's a simple tiny bit of homework that may take you a couple minutes if you use software like ours, but you could do it manually too. You could put it together manually if you don't have a budget, that's okay, and start doing those because it compounds very, very, very quickly. You have one or two great conversations and they share that, and those parties share that and share that, it's an effort that we've seen snowball for greatness. I think again, you are who you are digitally as you are human, and so people need to step back and say, before I send this tweet or before I send this Instagram post or whatever, would I do that if this person was sitting in front of me at the relationship stage that we're at now? Great. If not, then don't do it. Do it how you would if they were sitting across

from you. I didn't tell you guys this up front, and I want to remind you that every time you say the word human, and I want to scare you, but this is going to happen. This is called H2H Chat, human to human. If you see the word human, you will get this. All right, so moving forward, that was said a couple times, so I had to hit it twice. We are talking about how to take a process that is involving people and using potentially technology to Help scale it and to help also stay human, remain as possibly connected as you can. And we just talked about that, so if you just jumped on, then you can go back. There's going to be a replay tomorrow. You can catch the first part. But we're just getting started, so here we are talking with, you know, 2 great people about how to use technology, you know, process, and people. Now let's jump into the process part. How do you organize all of this stuff? I mean, we're talking about potentially, you know, a lot of people around the world that could be talking about auto parts. I would imagine it's not just 50 or 100 people. Automotive is a big industry, so how do you organize the process around that?

Well, I think that One of the ways that we do that is really by making smaller chunks out of it, right? I mean, you've got to handle what you handle. So we do see campaign folks, and we talk to people— Uh-oh.

Let's see, Devon, are you still with me?

I'm still with you. I can pick up the freeze frame if you'd like.

Okay, go ahead and take that, and as soon as she comes back, we'll include it.

Well, yes, I think that number one, I think what she was speaking of is that you're right, there's a mountain of parties that might be engaging with auto parts, but the reality is that there are certain segmentations that are applicable at different moments. Maybe there is a segmentation of female automotive enthusiasts that you're wanting to get engaged for Mother's Day, right, and then there's maybe a segment—

Yeah, get out there and— Sorry, go ahead.

Val, we hit a little freeze frame with you, so I had Devon move in. So actually, just hang on one sec. Let's let Devon just complete the sentence, and then we'll move back over to you. Sorry about that.

No problem. So Val, you correct me where I'm wrong, but I think that the biggest thing is, hey, there is a large universe, but each of them has different segmentations, and each of those segmentations are— they can be smaller. and have an effect on their own segment. Maybe the female racing fans, or the dads for Father's Day, whatever it might be. So I think one of the things is distilling it down to something manageable, other than thinking of this morass of entities that you'd have to sit there and sift through. Having it with a little bit more of a sniper focus helps as you do multiple campaigns. But anyways, Val, you feel free to correct me.

No, absolutely. That's definitely the direction I was going in. And I want to make sure— are you able to hear me, Bryan?

We are. Yeah, you're back and you're good.

Okay, great. So yeah, so I do think that it is about getting down to that smaller audience and the smaller number of influencers that can help you with the specific task that you're after. I was just going to say, you know, you can do it yourself. You can go and look at clout scores for people on topics. You can just be doing searches on Twitter and find out who's talking about things. So it certainly is possible to do it on your own on a small scale like that. But again, the key is to kind of identify the kinds of people and the kinds of interests that are going to match up with what you're doing at the time, and then to reach out to those people.

So let me dive into what makes somebody influential, and I know that you both look at this perhaps maybe one from a brand standpoint, one from a technology standpoint in terms of reach or maybe some other metrics. So talk to me, Devon, let's start with you. How do you see somebody who's influential? Do you look at it as a metric or is there a different way?

Yeah, so I think number one is You have to start off by backing up and saying, what's your goal? So if Fifty Shades of Grey comes to us and says, hey, we want to get our message out to more of the male audience that would talk about us versus the female audience that is engaged with us, and we really want to get it out to as many possible people that fit this criteria quickly. And they may want to drive engagement or something of that nature. So for example, there's no purchase that you might make generating awareness in that moment. Maybe there's some where you might be honestly a B2B company and say, hey, I'm trying to drive webinar downloads or things of that nature. Well, you're going to have a smaller audience, but you're trying to get them to take more of an immediate action. So I think the biggest thing is to try and step back and say, what are you trying to do? And that will align the definition of influence for what that activity is. So if your definition of influence is, hey, how can I get people to register, that may be people that you can use technologies to understand, hey, what's the click pattern that comes from links that they share. And again, technologies like Insightful exist, but there are others. And then you could also say things like, hmm, okay, well, what's their graph look like? How much does this resonate with their audience, and does it come up as what we call a taxonomy, like a topical taxonomy for them, or is it just something that they talk about, right? So there's different things that people might talk about a lot because they're influenced by or they're influencers of. And I think that's the key thing right there, is if you're saying, hey, I want to try and drive, you know, DR, like direct response, very quickly, and that's my end goal, Then maybe you talk to people that are influenced by something, but just say those specific words, and boom, off you go and you try and drive your registrations. But the truth is, if you're trying to drive people that are influencers of, you need to understand their social graph and what we call their taxonomy, and then see, oh, if it's Fifty Shades, their reach is X and they can get it far and wide, or their reach is very specific And they can get it narrow but get conversion. And I think that's what you have to do before you say, hey, the definition of influence is X, because it can vary depending upon what you want that person to do.

Interesting. And the fact that you chose Fifty Shades is also interesting. We'll save that for another Eight Shades chat.

We have some experience there, so—

Oh, you do? Oh, that's great. Maybe we should talk about that. So Val, how about yourself? What do you think there? What makes somebody influential?

Well, I think there are a couple of things. So there are the standard kinds of things of that there are a lot of people that follow them. I mean, that's certainly something that we take into account is how many people are they actually talking to. But then it's also about topics and which topics we're interested in. I mean, are we really trying to drive awareness of a certain kind of program that we have? Then that may be a different person than somewhere we're actually trying to make the awareness of a You know, an engine part, I mean, versus a car appearance kind of something. You know, there's different levels of knowledge, of interest, and of how much somebody's going to listen to them. I mean, people may very easily listen to mommy bloggers about how to take care of a car and make it look good, and so they may be influential in that area, and I don't know that a lot of people would say that they were influential when you're talking about changing spark plugs or something like that unless they've already shown that interest and indicated that knowledge. So certainly knowledge and—

I think our Human technology has proven to have a little bit of breakdown here, so she is going to probably pop back in and wonder why we're not listening to her in just a second. As soon as that happens, we'll catch her up, but for now, let's, let's dive into now that third leg. So we've done the people, we've done the process, now let's go into the technology. So the technology piece is actually perfect. for me to ask Devon, um, how to use technology, obviously being the CEO of a technological, uh, company, a technology company that provides this service. How, um, and actually before I ask you that question, I just want to say real quickly how easy it was for me, and I know I'm not getting paid to say this, but how easy it was for me to come in and actually use, uh, Insight Pool over the last few days to actually invite people into this H2H chat. It was the first time I was able to do that, and it was cool. I was able to see that I got, I think it was like 600 and 61 clicks out of 147 tweets, and it was very personalized, so that was kind of cool. So how are you seeing this work? I see Val is back, so Val, you're back with us?

Yes, he looks like he's back.

He looks back, okay. So Devin, why don't you roll with the technology facet of how this can all work? How can you use technology to still remain human and still engage with Yeah, so

I think there's been largely 3 segmentations of technology assets. We cover a certain one of those, but there are— almost think of them as brokerage houses where you can go to companies like Niche that Twitter acquired that captured a lot of people's influence across YouTube and all these other channels. Think of them as Hollywood brokers. They're like, hey, they're the Ari Golds of the influence world, and there's a platform that exists from it, but they try and broker deals and then get a cut from that. The next one is literally marketplaces, almost like your MLS, if you will. You submit yourself as an influencer around certain topics, you get vetted by different entities, companies like Tap Influence and others that exist to do this, where they go, oh yeah, we think these people are influential in X, and then brands can go, okay, well, I like that. I like Bryan, or I like Devin. Here's the going rate that you publish, and then you get a guaranteed level of performance that they will write X for you, they will create original content for you, they will do this, and it will be a set fee, and then you publish that. And then the last one is Hey, how do you try and contextually identify relevant parties that are likely to engage with you on X subject and be syndicate partners of you, but that's all natural and organic. That's the area that we fall. Everybody has its own world where one may fit for you at a different timeline versus another. The trick is that on some of those paid platforms, the FTC has released a ruling that says if you're getting paid to do anything, that is close to advertising, you have to now disclose that. So you'll see things like hashtag promoted, you'll see other things that now start coming up in people's feeds, and that will be interesting to understand how we as a consumer will relate to that. So if I see Bryan talking about a piece of technology or a great conference or something of that nature, that does influence me. If I see Bryan talking about something and then saying, hey, by the way, I'm being paid to talk about this, it might have an impact, right? I mean, just generally speaking. So from a technology perspective, what we like to emphasize on our end is that, you know, how do you try and create natural connections that illuminate people that can carry that message, and then work with them by being truly authentic and thanking them and then giving them maybe little special privileges, maybe they get a sample of yours first. They get all these different things that make them feel special, and boom, you've got your army of influencers to go hit the streets for you. So the tech works in usually, like I said, 3 ways. One is, hey, it's a platform and there's a broker. The second one is it's self-selection for brands, and then there's a payment schedule to the influencer and the platform. And the third would be companies like ourselves that try to illuminate that and allow you to You know, create that opportunity on your own, and they're never paid. You don't pay them, and they don't have to say that they're being paid. Such, we typically find that when an activity happens, it moves with greater velocity. So let's say, for example, the people that clicked on your link, those 630, the likelihood— I'm sorry.

Great. And Val, what do you think about this category of technology, how to use the technology appropriately? Obviously you're using InsightPool, I believe. Maybe you're probably using other technology, I would imagine, too, to help make sure that everything is scalable. How do you see technology being used right now with influencer relationships? How are you tracking it and communicating and so on and so forth?

Yeah, I think that the platform we are using, Insight Pool, and being able to be in that tool identifying different groups of users. And one thing that I think is important with the technology is that you can go back, right? So I mean, I may have actually identified an audience for one campaign and gone through a kind of campaign with them, reached out, had some communication. And then, you know, I do other campaigns that are not necessarily relevant to them. But then I do a 4th campaign and I go back and I can pick up with some of those people again. And actually the platform helps me do that, right? Because I can see different people in different areas and then when they start to cross over, go back and reach out to them again. So I think that's one really great thing. Believe me, it's much better than spreadsheets, I can tell you that much. So, you know, we don't want to have to do all of that manually, so to speak. So I think that's a key element of any platform is really tracking what's happened, being able to get some metrics out of it, identifying—

And there she goes again, Bryan.

We're in and out. It's all about being human.

Technology.

In and out, in and out. So while she's— I think she's still freeze-framed, maybe. Let's keep going here. I've got a lot of questions coming in. Let's see, I just got one from Carrie Maslin. I got one from Our good friend JS Gilbert, and I've just got one from Stacy Di Polo. Lots of good questions coming in. Keep the questions coming because in 2 minutes I'm going to be taking these questions and posing the panel, our 2 guests, with these questions. So keep it coming. Hopefully— Angus just said technical difficulties. Hopefully we're coming back here soon. If anything, we're going to have a replay so you guys will get to see it. that way. But we are in a place where there's a difference between metrics and the metrics that we're collecting versus the human side of, or the belief that we're being paid for our influence, that maybe a person is a brand and they should just be able to go out and share, and then that is what you're buying, or that's what you're, in a sense, paying for, is just to have their brand like a Paris Hilton, if you will, but on the social media side or on the influencer side. Where do you guys believe this is going to tilt to in the future? Do you think that personal brands will grow into the Paris Hiltons of the world where you're getting paid per tweet? or to show up at the bar, you know, she gets paid all this money to do this, versus somebody who is maybe perhaps even not getting paid, they're just so passionate about auto parts that they're happy to share. This is what their passion is, and wow, I get to be a part of this great program, thank you so much. Where do you think that falls, or do you think it just lives in 2 camps and you have to decide? Val, why don't we start with you?

Yeah, well, I think that both areas exist, and I think that they both will continue to exist. You know, there is celebrity— certainly can drive some things. And yes, I've seen some of those price tags for putting out a tweet here and there. And you have to decide, is that really worth it to you or not? And is celebrity influence, or is celebrity just celebrity? So I think that It does depend on the product. It depends on the brand. It depends on the person. But in my business, I do use a little bit of that, but I much prefer to engage with some of the real people out there who have perhaps smaller audiences, but I think they're more of a trusted source for information. I may like a movie star, but just because they say something, I'm not really going to necessarily believe it. But this person down the street that I know, or across the internet that I know, I'll believe them much more.

Devon?

Yeah, totally. So I think it's funny because I actually know pretty well the digital marketing manager at a company called PullApart, which is in the automobile world. And one of the things that she does is absolutely you need to get your organic element and getting people engaged. And then when you find parties inside of that, there are a couple— I don't know if they're famous or not, but they're Eric the Car Guy and these different ones where if you want them now to do real work, like they come down and do video shoots, and they come down and do promos. Then of course there's payment that can be extended because of that. So when you're asking somebody, I think, to do actual work, if you're Nike and you're getting LeBron to do X and Y and Z, of course. Now the reality is that if you're trying to— if you all of a sudden say, hey, I'm going to give a dollar to everybody that does this, I'm going to do— well, then all of a sudden it just loses its flair. When you go beyond them just sharing but them creating or co-creating or doing things that involve their effort, then you've got something where I think payment can be done and it works out well. But if you're just paying people to be like, hey, sell your soul to me for 30 minutes and 5 tweets, the world sees through that so quickly, and it's, in my opinion, not worth it. In some cases, people's jobs are aligned just to get the impressions, and And that's okay, but that world will start colliding pretty quickly. And if you get them to do work for you, then pay them. But if you get them to share for you, unless they're doing that organically, it's probably not worth it.

Great stuff, great stuff. Well, we can keep going on this, and I'm sure everybody would love to hear my questions, but I also want to make sure that we have time for their questions. And so keep the questions coming on Twitter, #H2HDay. We've got a whole slew of them. I'm going to read them off here in order of how they came in so we can address those. It looks like all the questions are something that you can each both answer as well. Let me start at the top with JS Gilbert, a good friend of H2H Chat, shows up every week, also part of the Facebook H2H group and is one of the leaders there. Really appreciate him as a friend. Hi, JS. colleague, and he said, we're all getting sick of hearing the word transparency. What does transparency really mean? Is it important in influencer marketing? And I threw the words influencer marketing in there since that's what we're talking about here. Val, you want to take that one or start with it anyway?

Sure. I mean, if you are actually having somebody say something and you're not Being very clear that you're paying them to do that, that's not right. I mean, that's where we need to be transparent in that somebody is being compensated to do and/or say something. That's the only way it's actually going to make traction with the audience in that situation. But I have to go back to what Devon was saying, that when it is more of a— get ready with your button, Bryan— a human-to-human connection— I'm ready.

Oh no!

Did you lose me again?

Now you're back, okay.

The applause just knocked me out. When it is that human-to-human connection and it's real and you're having a conversation and that is naturally leading to them being more interested in what you as a brand do, or you as a person with something that you're promoting do, then that in itself is transparent. You don't need to be doing more than that. It's as real as it gets, right? So that's where I come down on that.

Great.

I would echo the same exact sentiment, so no need for me to illustrate it any more than that.

Awesome. Okay. Let's go to the next one. Carrie Maslin said— her question is, if influencers are paid, is that as effective as organic influencers?

Maybe if you want, I can give my opinion, and of course— Go ahead. I think you have to just define what you say is effective. If you want guaranteed performance, meaning you are going to get impressions and you are going to get clicks or whatever that might be, and your boss needs to see that because that's how everybody's bonuses are laid out, then heck yeah, that's more effective, right? Because it's guaranteed. You don't— you're kind of not having to do a ton of work, but you'll get not necessarily performance, but you'll get guaranteed them to do something, right? Uh-huh. The trick is that if you're trying to align yourself to the entire success of your business or your enterprise, then it's just not even close, right? It's meaning there's absolutely no way that paying parties can be just as effective if the definition of effective is, does it drive more throughput or velocity for my brand, maybe from a sales perspective? If I know that somebody is being paid to do something, I would intake it, but it doesn't affect me near as much As if, you know, I literally see them, you know, at the restaurant eating their favorite, you know, tacos and drinking the margaritas, and I've seen them there 3 times, right? Like, that affects me. We are, you know, we're in tune to try and, you know, filter out any BS as humans. So my thing is, if you just have to have your definition— You just have to have your definition of effective Right, and if effective means you need to keep your job and you need to do this, do that. If effective means you are the leader and you need to think of things as an entire customer journey, then it's just not even close. I mean, it's 10 to 1 of that. It's just not even worth comparing.

Yeah, I agree with that, and I don't know if you've— have you got me?

You're there, you're there, we can hear you.

All right, great, thanks much. I would agree with that, and I'll just bring up an example. I mean, what is effective? So, you know, my business very, you know, skews high on the male side, but we recently did a— well, recently this spring did a campaign, and it was actually a video campaign where we were looking at how many potholes any one car could take, and we actually engaged engaged with Michelle Williams, who is a singer from Destiny's Child in Chicago, to ride around in a car with us and hit potholes. I mean, so, you know, and we reached her audience. I mean, what is the likelihood of an auto parts store reaching Michelle Williams' audience? It's not very high without something like that. Now, are those women going to go to the auto parts store? Perhaps. Or perhaps they're going to tell the men in their lives that— they saw this and wasn't this funny, that triggers something with them, so they're influencing the people in their lives because Michelle influenced them. And we did a campaign on Insight Pool with heavy influencers to show all of that. So it depends on what's effective to you.

So I'm gonna ask my own personal follow-up question. It's kind of a softball in the Insight Pool realm, but I'm just getting started with it myself, as Devon knows. How do you How do you measure the influence of an outreach? What are the metrics you're looking for of the campaign and technology that helps you to see that it's worked or it has not worked?

Yeah, so the biggest thing is, does 1+ 1 equal 10? And what I mean by that is, how many users have you engaged how many have what we call activated, meaning started doing activities, whether it be responses or shares, etc. And then what does that equal? So in your case, when you said, hey, I reached about 130 folks within, you know, a 36-hour period and I got 631 clicks, that's actually not bad. We obviously have campaigns that are much, much higher. So the effective rate is just take how many users, you know, engaged, how many users were activated, How much did that generate in terms of viewership to your content? And then the last piece, you have to kind of set up your internal systems to match it, but then what was the velocity of that? So if you compare that to all your other campaigns, did you get registrations faster than you did through email? Did you get registrations— you may not always beat more, right, because people have large email databases and stuff like that, but did you as a Percentage basis engaged less people, so it's like flipping the funnel essentially. Less people got more reach and more viewership, and then therefore got more clicks to the content, and therefore got faster velocity to get people to do what you were asking them to do. That's how we measure it. So those different points across, and again, I just boil it down to, hey, does 1+ 1= 10?

I like that. I can't forget that. Since I know it equals 2, I'm like, my head's having a hard time wrapping my brain around it, but I will never forget 1+ 1= 10. Okay, so I'm going to move on with the questions here because Stacy DiPaolo, good friend of ours, she actually hosts some viewing parties at GoDaddy, and we really love having her on the show and seeing her questions. Her question is for the guests, for both of you guys. Can brands and influencers be part of more than one tribe? I'm guessing she is thinking— actually, she has a link here which I'll click on in a second— within your brand, within your realm, I'm guessing. I'll click here and I'll let you know. Val, why don't you start with that?

Wow. Can brands and influencers— be part of more than one tribe, right? Did I get that right?

Yes.

So what I think you're talking about perhaps is more than one kind of group of influencers or topics, and I would say yes. I mean, I think that, you know, you've got different audiences most likely for your brand. I mean, unless you have a very narrow niche, I think that it is easy to identify the different areas and the different tribes, so to speak, that you may want to go after. And then you've got to find the influencers within each of those. Sometimes there will be crossover and sometimes there won't, but generally I would say yes.

Yeah, I think it goes back to the point of everyone is actually an influencer on something At some time. And that means that you shouldn't— thinking of bucketing people, you know, probably doesn't work. And so depending upon what that objective is, you should take an eyes-wide-open approach to it, because anyone is an influencer on something at some time, and that's how you should think about it.

Great. Awesome. There's a great little dialogue going on right now between Courtney, JS, Sarah, and I may miss a few, but they're talking about the right mix of followers. Actually, a term came out of it. They're talking about a social cocktail. That's fun. Kind of fun little conversation going on there. I love that. I wanted to make sure that the question actually was asked, and that was based upon something that Courtney Smith said, who I know well because I married her. She is also my business partner, and she said, have you found a magic number of social followers from someone who needs to make the influencer qualification pool? Let me know if you want me to repeat that, but Vali, do you want to start with that?

Yeah, I mean, so we generally look at a couple of hundred, but I think that that changes. I mean, that's a general rule of thumb for us, but again, you know, going back to my earlier example, if I'm looking for somebody who can, you know, who can fully rebuild an engine, then I may only care whether that person has, you know, 20 followers, because I know that they're all really heavy into it and are all really prime customers. So whereas, you know, back on the other end of the scale, as I was talking about with appearance, you know, we all like to wash our cars, so there are many more people who might be able to be influential about that. So it depends. How about that answer?

That's a great one.

Yeah, I'd say, look, you just need to— there's something to also look at. So A, there's the follower count, which could be— I would agree with Val— a couple hundred baseline. Because the reality is, if they have 10, that means they're probably not engaging that much. They might just be voyeurs, right? They might be consuming as opposed to engaging. And I don't know if you consider that influential or not, right? So I think the trick is also looking at maybe when they last talked about X or Y. So if they last did it 2 years ago, then I can assure you that there's nobody's influence that stays around for that long, except for maybe Michael Jordan, right? That guy still sells sneakers and hasn't played in forever. But let's not pretend that that exists for normal mere mortals. So my thing is that, yeah, there's probably a baseline just to show that they are active and engaging. But the reality is that it moves from there to also when the last time, etc., and you should consider all those in your outreach.

Great. Awesome. Good answers. Let's move to the next one by Carrie Maslin again. She said, is the best influencer a peer or customer? Is it more credible versus a paid celebrity, or is there a place for both in the strategy?

Well, I think there's a place for both, and I mean, the sweet spot is— so in my business, it would be somebody like Jay Leno, right? So he's a celebrity, and he loves cars, and he does his own work. So if he didn't want to charge an arm and a leg for his influence— and he doesn't always, right? I mean, I'm sure that he has things that he likes to talk about, and that is considered organic influence. It depends, but certainly a celebrity who actually does whatever it is that you're involved in is going to be the cream of the crop, I would say.

Yeah, yeah. I didn't know he does his own work. That's good to know. Devin, how about yourself?

Yeah, look, I think that You know, you've got— if you can have that perfect combination, I think as you mentioned, like, hey, they're a customer or they're maybe not yet. The reality is if they're a customer, then I think you move into what I would call advocate, right. So there's things like employee advocacy, customer advocacy, and other things where, hey, you know, if you're a fan of this, please share it, and there's solutions like Influitive and others that have guided that process to make that sharing easier. Again, in some of those cases they gamify it to be like, hey, whoever gets the most this, you get a free X or free Y. Well, that's kind of like paying for that just as much as if you would be on the influence side. So the best obviously is that experiential marketing, right, where somebody engages Engages with it and talks about it and is doing so naturally. I think like you mentioned from GoDaddy today, they put some tweets out from their community manager just talking about Insight Pool and yourselves, and that's just completely natural. Nobody's asking anybody to do that, but then you can capitalize on that and then promote that and then ask them to do X and then do Y and so forth. I think if you have been a customer of it, awesome, but doing so where there's been the moments that have been serendipitous, and then now you just mechanize that serendipity as opposed to always trying to create

it. Yeah, that's great. So it's a little bit of proactivity set in place, but your reactive mode has to be flexible enough to see what people are going to say and how you're going to respond.

Engineering serendipity is still hard.

Yeah, right? I think we've got one more question here. Actually, we've got a bunch more questions, but one more here that really drives kind of a little bit of the same feeling around organic, the organic nature that we're talking about. So the question is from Christy— sorry, Christy Sukhannu. She's in the real estate industry. Spectrum. I know that just because we've been going back and forth on social media. She said, what would you do as a quick hit and then long-term to have a good overall strategy? What's your quick hit and what's your long-tail strategy? Let's see, Val, you want to start with that?

Well, I mean, I guess that for a quick hit, You know, if you can— in the real estate business, I'm going to say, you know, if you can find— maybe it's a neighborhood. You know, maybe you are focused on a community, an area, and so you could find people who are working in that neighborhood, whether it be through— LinkedIn. other businesses there that are involved in social. Maybe it's through an actual community organization, and start trying to engage them with interesting content again that they may retweet out and have your handle there. So as a quick hit, that might be something that I'd try in that line of work. And long tail, I mean, you've got to figure out really what is your long-term goal. Are you after numbers? Are you after clicks? Are you after mentions? And based on that, then develop a strategy of who you're going to try to engage with.

Yeah, I think the definition of quick hit is either, are you looking for a quick flash in the pan of activity? Then the best thing would be is to You know, pay somebody and overpay them, right? If you're just looking for a flash in the pan of activity, and then the ongoing is saying, hey, what types of parties do I see engaging with me organically, and then how do I highlight that fact more consistently, and you pay more attention to it. Meaning then you spend an hour or 2 a week actually thinking through that, and then using software like ours or doing it yourself to do that. But I think if you're saying, hey, what do I want to try and get done just fast, not necessarily flash in the pan, then, you know, doing something fast is just beginning conversations with people that even might have influence around a certain sector and building a relationship kind of quickly. Just saying, hey, how can I promote you? So, hey, hey Bryan, how can I get you to come on my show because I'm actually promoting you? That's something you can do that can be pretty effective immediately.

Right. I love that, and that's much more realistic in terms of the giving nature versus the asking to get. So I'm going to throw a question in here about how— because this whole thing is about how to keep your influencers engaged once you have them. How do you see that in a physical realm? Do you believe that the only way that you can keep them engaged, truly engaged long-term, is possible through an event where you actually all get together? Or do you think that it's possible to keep a digital relationship going and continue an influencer relationship? Which of you would like to take that first? I'll take

that. I can take it first and then Val can end it. Okay. The reality is that just as much as you probably in your head group your friends, like, oh well, and family and so forth, it gives different levels of prioritization. You can do so, and there's software that exists, again like ours and others that exist to be able to do that. So the reality is saying, hey, when you think of, oh wait, I need to do X, let me go talk to You know, Bryan about it. Let me go talk to Val about it, because I recall those digital connectivity patterns. Let me go talk to X about it. And you almost start doing something with them prior to even doing it. Like, hey, what would you think about X or Y or Z? And then getting their feedback and opinion on it, and boom, you've almost got like the built-in syndicator for it because it was almost like co-creation. So I think as you continue to do more, you go, let me go back to this group and let me ask their opinion. Yeah. And then if they do, if they're in favor, which they almost usually always are, it becomes just second nature and second thought to you to be able to do so. Let me go back to my guys that did X for me on this. Let me go back. So those are things that I think breed consistency, but you don't need to think, what do I do with all of my influencers all the time? It's how do things come up where I don't just launch and didn't ask? And that would be my opinion to really help from a longevity standpoint.

Great.

Yeah, I think that you certainly can create and maintain digital relationships, and, you know, keeping in mind what Devon said about, you know, it's people, and you have certain people that you think of for certain things and others you think of for others that you would reach out that way digitally. All of that being said, If you are able to have some kind of in-person events, you know, I mean, even at various conventions, conferences, and so forth, if you can do a tweet-up, you know, something like that, and actually get together, it's always nice to kind of have that one-to-one, human-to-human connection where you're actually putting— Putting a face to a handle and to a name. So if that opportunity arises, take it, but I don't think that you have to drive to that necessarily.

Yeah, what is it that's— yeah, some people say digital may not replace human, digital may not replace it, however what they say is they say it turns a lot of Handshakes into selfies. Yes. So I think that's a pretty interesting one. I think the last time I saw Bryan was in Dublin, Ireland, right? So it creates connectivity, and that certainly makes a difference, but it does generate something that has more of a bonding effect when you meet the person than if you didn't. So I think it's definitively there, but we're never going to change that. And let me tell

you, there is no greater way to meet up than over a beer in Ireland with a friend. So I really appreciated that. That was a lot of fun. Okay, so final question here is on your final thoughts over how to take your influencer marketing engagement to the next level. Over just the next year, we've really just begun on influence in terms of anybody being an influencer and where it can head. Where can this go? How can we make this better? Just over the next year, maybe 2 years if you need just a little bit longer, where could it go? Devon, you want to start?

I think the number one thing is do not think of influencer marketing as a campaign or an event. Think of it as something you aim to consciously do daily or at least weekly, that you aim to connect and engage with parties that could be influencers and vice versa. I think the wrong approach is that this is this new buzzword, right? It's this new hot thing and my boss is asking me, hey, look into this influencer thing because my boss asked me about it, but nobody has any freaking clue what it means or any of the results and stuff like that, right? It's almost like account-based marketing right now. Everybody talks about all this stuff, and then nobody really knows where the rubber meets the road. The truth is that influencer marketing has been going on for a very long time and has been extremely successful. We have just never had technologies to help process it. It just happened naturally. So I think the number one thing is whether it's getting exposure to technologies, simply thinking of it as No!

Simply thinking

of

it—

What a pivotal moment!

We're going to come back to that one. I'm sure he'll come back any minute now. Val, why don't you start up and we'll go up.

Simply thinking of it as a campaign— here, I'll try to finish his sentence for him— is not necessarily the right way to go. I agree with what Devon said, and I think that in the future it it is about kind of that always-on. I mean, back to what he said, anybody's an influencer at different times on different things. So how can you engage across a spectrum of things? And, you know, how can you just have a conversation sometimes? Maybe it has nothing to do with your product, with your brand, but it's somebody you've engaged with. So again, it's that personal touch. I mean, I have— I'm fortunate to even have a small team, right? So I mean, I just have a couple of people that work with me in social, and fortunate to have some tools like Insight Pool, but you better believe that I'm the one who's on maybe at midnight or at 1 o'clock and I'm looking and I'm still engaging with people then. I mean, I see things and I'm going on and just saying hi or throwing a thumbs up or trying to do these things just to keep that engagement going. And in the future, I think it's just about continuing to have the conversations and

Fantastic. I couldn't agree more, and I'm happy to hear that you're saying the technology aids you or supports you, but you still have to be the one to make that engagement happen, whether it's at midnight or at 5 AM or wherever you sit. You've got to— people are people. They're going to be up and tweeting when they tweet. Devin, you had us, like you were just about to gift us this magical moment, and then you went—

Well, I mean, that just means—

Tell us what you're going to say.

That just means you have to invite me back, right? That's my cliffhanger. No, like I said, stop thinking of it as a campaign. Think of it as a distinct activity that should be part of your marketing. Mix as a marketer or business owner, and make sure that you're attributing time to do so each week or each day and celebrate that. When Bryan connects with you or talks to you, be like, oh wow, look at that. Don't look at it as one person, look at it as who is he connected to that I want to be connected to and celebrate that. There should be a wall of influence at your office, there should be great things that happen where you celebrate that as opposed to Hey, I got 2% just on my email campaign. It just is what it is. Do it more consistently and celebrate it more often.

That's great. That's a whole other topic, and maybe we could talk about that at some other time, which is the invisible influence and what happens behind the stuff that we all can see. I think that's a great point. Thank you so much, Val. Thank you so much, Devon, for being on today. I can't thank you guys enough. This is such an important topic, and we're just in the infancy of this new influence marketing that's happening. While we've been marketing as influencers for a long time, the way that we're starting to do it, the technology and tools are allowing us to do it in a much different way, which is where obviously Insight Pool comes in. I definitely would suggest everyone out there to go try Insight Pool. Try the tool and take it for a spin. I just did, and I absolutely love it, and I'm not just saying that. So definitely do that. And then up next week, next Monday is going to be Dun& Bradstreet. So we're going to be talking about some really cool things with them. And then otherwise, I will hopefully see you back here again next Monday, same time, same place. Thank you guys again, really appreciate it. Everyone out there for some great tweets, great questions. Without you, we wouldn't have such a great show. Thank you all. Cheers.

Thank you. Thank you.