Philip Sheldrake’s ideas on the subject of influencer marketing and social media should be standard reading for all communicators.

I’m hoping to review more literature on marketing and communications on the blog over the coming months. First up is a must-read by Philip Sheldrake, which covers a area which is need of a serious improvement by our industry – influencer management.

Philip’s narrative and clarity of thought are superb; there’s an easy flow to the book which makes reading it a delight. The book is also written to cater to those who don’t have much communications experience (many people working with influencers have little communications knowledge).

The first couple of chapters look at the theory underpinning influence. He introduces his six influence flows, which simplifies how communications occurs between different groups (the visual is below).

The book highlights the measurement trap of “we can, rather than we should,” and shows practitioners how to use influence-centric approaches (the caveat here is that there’s no one way to measure influence, and influence is a complex concept).

The first of the two big “ahas” of the book are Sheldrake’s influencer scorecard. This is a framework which he has developed, based on the balanced scorecard approach used in strategy, to make influencer marketing more scientific. What the influencer scorecard does (and you can see how it’s set out below), is enable communicators and marketers to implement measures, targets and reporting which are continuous and which feed into the business. In effect, it allows us to better show the value we are bringing to the organization through influencer marketing, using measures and goals which have a clear business impact. There’s almost forty pages dedicated to this concept, so I’m not going to do Sheldrake’s model any justice here (in other words, go and read the book).

What excites me the most about his thinking is the second revelation. Sheldrake argues that organizations will need to take influence much more seriously, and re-design their organizational structure around a new role, the Chief Influence Officer. I’ll quote from the book:

The Chief Influence Officer is charged with making the art and science of influencing and being influenced a core organizational discipline. They will be keen to network with peers in other organizations, to share best practice, to identify, refine and codify proven techniques, and to flag up unseen or unanticipated flaws in the processes described in this book… In my opinion, the role of Chief Influence Officer will be regarded as being on a par with the COO, as CEO-in-waiting.

The Chief Influence Officer will sit at the nexus of marketing, PR, customer service, HR, product development and operations. He or she will lead all communications and marketing, and be responsible for every touchpoint with the customer, with suppliers and partners. In short, the Chief Influence Officer could be the next step for the Chief Communications Officer.

I haven’t read a book with so many original thoughts for some time. If you’re working in influencer marketing and you want a dose of inspiration as to how to do things right, get your hands on Philip Sheldrake’s The Business of Influence. You can thank me later.