The Business of Influence: Reframing Marketing and PR for the Digital Age

Summary

• No organization is an island
• The Six Influence Flows is a new and simple model to think about what we’re trying to achieve
• The 1st flow (our influence with our stakeholders) and 3rd flow (our stakeholders’ influence with us) are well understood, even if the 3rd is rarely attributed symmetrical/equal importance with the 1st
• The 2nd flow (our stakeholders’ influence with each other with respect to us) has caused debate in the context of previously accepted models
• ‘Internet mediated’ communication exhibits emergent behaviour
• Organizations will find it advantageous to maintain awareness of all Six Influence Flows regardless of the genesis or properties of the influence that flows therein
• The netizen is a new stakeholder – not synonymous with ‘online publics’ but rather a person who responds to stimuli online
• Organizations will find it advantageous to wield information technologies to ‘relate’ to the use (both directly and programmatically) of information technologies by others.

Given that we’re pivoting our model here on influence, we’re going to invest the next chapter looking more deeply into what we mean by the word and how it relates to many of the other words and phrases in common use.