Modern-day PR and media relations certainly follow a different plan of attack these days. But the goal remains the same – Influence the influencers.
Heard that before, right? I hope so. It’s the name of today’s game.
In his post, “Value-Added: A Pioneer in Consumer Communication”, The Washington Post’s Thomas Heath makes the case loud and clear with a social media success story. The familiar “influencer” quote comes this time in the form of Pete Snyder, a 35-year-old social media millionaire behind New Media Strategies, doing “online intelligence” to capitalize on the conversations about companies going on, on the Web.
Snyder defines moden-day PR and what his company does as “…influencing the influencers,” he said. “If you are a cable channel and the success or failure of a show that you have invested tens of millions of dollars in hinges on 100,000 viewers, you are going to want to identify the 100 tastemakers who are going to impact hundreds of thousands more who can make or break your show.”
Snyder told Heath he saw the Internet early on as “the world’s largest focus group.” Precisely. A lot of us wish we had that kind of forethought, or did something about it way back when.
