Executive influence and visibility is increasingly important. Our eBook provides structure and process to help transform executives into influencers.

1. Executive Influence
Transforming Your Top Team into
Powerful Influencers

2. • Influence marketing is the practice of marketing to individuals
who, in turn, have influence on a larger audience – repeating
and amplifying your message to dozens, hundreds, thousands
or millions of others.
• Many different types of people or entities can be influencers:
The role of executives in influence marketing
Your company’s executives can and should be amongst
your most potent influencers
Analysts &
academics
Employees &
executives
Traditional &
digital media
(journalists, bloggers)
Consumer influencers
& tastemakers
(bloggers, top customers)
Politicians & government
agency personnel
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3. • As companies become more transparent (due to the ubiquity of
information on the web), the C-suite is more exposed to the
public and expected, more than ever to become the physical
embodiment of a company’s brand
• As executives grow their own influence, the influence of that
company grows as well
• Our own research1 shows that there may be a correlation
between executive influence and market capitalization
Executive influence can have far-reaching
effects on a company’s success
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1Appinions First Annual CMO Influence Study, October 2012

4. When should you apply executive influence?
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To change attitudes
towards a brand
To change perception of
a particular executive
To help shift the
marketplace conversation

5. • Executives are a class of influencers who intrinsically have
contextual influence for your brand, industry or area of interest
• They are a conduit to express a point of view that is meaningful
enough to potentially elicit action from others
• It certainly helps that your executives already have skin in
the game
What is an Executive Influencer, anyway?
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6. We consider thought leadership
to be one of three pillars of
Executive Influence
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Thought leadership is: Becoming an authority on
relevant topics
• It allows you to put faces on your business
• It may provide your customers or audience with
a level of trust for your company
Thought leadership alone is not executive influence

7. The three pillars of executive influence
could each stand alone, but together
provide a stronger foundation
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Executive
opinions in
traditional
media
Executive Influence
Executive
social
media
presence
Executive
thought
leadership

8. There’s the old way of marketing…
and the new way
Traditional Executive Marketing Executive Influence Marketing
Determine key topics for executive
engagement by understanding influential
conversations
Executives use social media and thought
leadership to demonstrate corporate
involvement in causes
Executive bylines on corporate blog,
or create content for other publications
Executives build relationships with key
journalists via social media
Executive social engagement
Executive engagement in online events
and video; long-tail amplification of executive
event content
Story-mining sessions & building
storylines for journalists
“Buying” board memberships on
non-profit boards
Executive bylines in publications
Executive desk sides with journalists
Corporate social engagement
Speaking engagements at conferences
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9. • Influence should not be limited to your CEO
• Build credible influencers from within your management and
employee ranks
– Executives and employees score higher than CEOs as trusted
sources (50% vs. 43%) according to Edelman’s Trust Barometer,
giving them more clout as credible influencers
• The potential benefits of creating credible executive influencers
are worth your time (and resources)
Give your internal influencers the skills
to be influential
Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/121501475/Executive-Summary-2013-Edelman-Trust-Barometer
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10. Our recommended process for developing
Executive Influence encompasses three phases
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● Discovery/define
objectives
● Audit influence
landscape
● Develop strategic
framework
● Benchmark initial
findings
● Develop tactical
plans & content
● Execute content &
influencer outreach
● Quantitative changes
to KPIs
● Qualitative learnings
& opportunities
Prepare Implement Analyze

11. Scenario One:
Change Perception of an Executive
• Scenario: An executive comes under fire in the media for
an internal decision she made
• Recommendations for Leveraging Executive Influence:
– Use other executives to tell the inside story in the media of how
and why the decision was made, publically supporting the main
executive
– Executives use company social media and content platforms
to explain the rationale behind the decision, and to
publicly support that person
– For the next major decision, get ahead of the
story by having the main executive prepare a
video or online event elaborating on the pros
and cons of the decision and inviting
feedback from employees and media
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12. • Scenario: A brand wishes to attract new customers within their
product category
• Recommendations for Leveraging Executive Influence:
– Engage the most influential media using executives as
spokespeople
– Build momentum on existing and growing opinion trends about
the brand/products by leveraging executive social media and
relationships with brand influencers
– Create differentiated messaging for executive
thought leadership based on opinion research
for competitive brands
Scenario Two:
Raise Visibility of a Brand
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13. • Scenario: A brand wishes to shift into a new product category
and needs customer/media support to do so
• Recommendations for Leveraging Executive Influence:
– Executives provide interviews to vertical/niche media on how and
why the decision was made to enter the new product category
– Executives network via social media with influencers in the new
product category
– Executives appear with influencers from
the new category in online events and
video explaining the new product
– Place executive thought leadership
content on blogs/sites of influencers
in the new category
Scenario Three:
Shift The Marketplace Conversation
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To learn more about our Executive Influence module,
click here.
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