Fishing for Influencers: Integrated Online Marketing

Forgive the unoriginal metaphor, but online marketing and fishing have much in common. We can fish with broad nets as commercial fishermen do at sea, and (not or) we can fish more precisely as the fly fisherman does on a stream. With the net, the commercial fisherman casts broadly and indiscriminately pulls in the catch, while the fly fisherman hunts for that special fish. The volume of the catch would of course be drastically different, however at the end of the day, who’s to say which is more successful.

In online marketing, the catch is moving from the broad web ocean up smaller tributaries of the social web. The special fish are “influencers” who serve as unknowing word-of-mouth marketers as they share experiences with brands to their networks of friends. What is funny is that they aren’t even aware of their impact or value. It isn’t like someone that updates their Facebook profile with “I just had an epic powder day at Stowe” is consciously trying to help Stowe’s marketing department, but they are and they’re doing it for free.

The channels we find these influencers are unique to brands. The sneaker brand going after teenagers will find influencers in a much different place than the computer accessory brand trying to reach geeks like me.

What is fun now is that nobody expects us to have the formula. Our partners understand that we’re all experimenting, but because the investment is so modest and our ability to measure conversions is so clear, partners can afford to take the risk to just try it. Our circle of test, analyze, and adjust is ever so tight, so we can quickly determine whether this nook is better for fishing than the last very quickly and with little investment.

While there is no formula, what I do feel sure about is that the deepest success is found in fishing in many spots simultaneously. Alone, website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube… will not produce. They must all work together to get the greatest traffic exposure, SEO boost, and content distribution. Naturally the ultimate is when the audience distributes the content on your behalf with their comments added… ah that’s the digital WOM love we all are working for.

I’m sorry. I have to stop. I need sushi now.