Cultivating Non-traditional Influencers in Tech PR

For anyone seeking to promote a company, cause, product or service, it is often helpful to to get the support of independent authorities such as high profile consultants, researchers, and educators.

But where to start?  Most PR people are very comfortable approaching the media, analysts and increasingly bloggers.  But what is the pitch for independent experts who are not obligated by their job descriptions to report on and analyze developments in a given field?

It’s a topic in which the rules are not as straightforward, and there are as many approaches as there are types of experts and related fields.  Also, the subject is fraught with potential conflicts and ethical perils, which I touch upon in more detail below.

One approach is called Value Exchange.  It is a process in which you seek to gain positive attention from the influencer by offering something of value in return.

Say, for example, that your are a leading vendor of business activity monitoring software (technology that can monitor transaction streams in real time and flag potentially fraudulent activities).  Suppose further that there is a noted authority on security technology and compliance who just came out with a book on the subject and is working the news circuit to promote it.

The first step would be to determine alignment of interests.   Are there specific issues in which the vendor and expert are in synch?  Could the expert gain by learning more the vendors’ offering?  Assuming that this is the case, what would the approach be?  And what specifically would each party hope to gain?

As a first step, the vendor’s communications team could approach the expert to discuss possible alignment of interests.

Assuming the expert is receptive, there are a number of possible tactics:

• Invite the expert or experts to an informal briefing over dinner
• Play to their desire for more visibility by involving them in a round table event on a provocative security topic in which you also invite key media and customers to observe.
• Offer the expert early access to your intellectual property
• Discuss the possibility of teaming up to write articles or speak at events

Although the goal is to get referrals and positive mentions – the halo effect that comes from having your brand associated with a top expert in the field – in each case you are not asking for something for nothing.  The expert will benefit from the association too, especially if your company is seen to be a forward thinking leader in the field, and you offer information, contacts or technology that can be helpful to them.

These soft incentives can be more powerful than hard incentives like money because the media quickly ferret out paid endorsers, and together with the blogosphere sniff out those who try to hide it (recall the Armstrong Williams fiasco, reported in this USA Today piece: Education Dept. Paid Commentator to Promote Law among many other outlets).  And people who are paid to endorse products just don’t lend the same credibility.

And as I said in my post Stepford Wonks, it is possible to take the practice to Orwellian extremes – such as when the the Pentagon was recently outed by the NY Times for currying favor from retired military officers by offering high level access, in return for vocal support of the administration’s Iraqi policies on the news shows.

Note: I am indebted to Fusion PR colleague Stephen Andrews for these ideas, he is an all around brilliant PR guy who is also a former Arthur Andersen consultant and managed influencer relations for IBM in a previous life.

I’ll be interviewing Stephen on the topic next week, so please stay tuned.