Uncategorized Melvin Yuan on 24 Feb 2008 07:01 pm
A Personal Note on the Year Ahead… [Second of three posts]
In my previous post, I shared my top professional priority for 2008 – to break traditional limitations in PR through effective, rock-solid Digital Strategy for Waggener Edstrom clients in Asia.
I also mentioned two theses, or areas of research, that I will embark on outside my work for clients. I’ll save the second thesis for my third ‘year-ahead’ post following this, but here’s my primary interest:
Omnifluence
‘Omnifluence’ is a word I coined early last year when thinking about the changing dynamics of influence and its impact on business leadership, marketing goals… and everything else!
It’s a contraction of the words ‘omni’ and ‘influence’, and is pronounced ‘om-ni-flu-ence’ (removing the ‘in’ from ‘influence’).
It recognises that Influence is not linear, uni-directional and time-bound; but is 360-degree, multi-directional and 24/7. Not a straight-line, but a map of interconnected nodes.
And for me, ‘Omnifluence’ perfectly sums up the all-encompassing characteristics of Influence that business leaders and marketing professionals must deal with today.
Why Omnifluence? Because that’s what PR is really all about.
From the start, I’ve loved the discipline of Public Relations for what it stands for, and the role it plays. But for too long, the practice of PR has been almost entirely focused media, analyst and government relations. And that has frustrated true PR believers because it puts the emphasis on ‘influencer-relations’ and ‘coverage’ when it should be on ‘Influence’ and ‘business results’.
Understanding Influence and knowing how to deal with Influence will be our key to a seat in the C-suite. That’s when PR strategy will start meeting business objectives instead of purely communications or marketing objectives.
Why PR could never succeed… And what’s different today.
As an Infantry Officer (in Singapore’s conscript civilian army), I know that military strategy will only be as good as the effectiveness of our weapons and the ability of our soldiers.
In the same way, PR professionals could never master the craft of Influence because our tools for the task were ineffective (think press releases, articles and events) and our measurement was flawed (think size of news coverage and the ad-dollar equivalent). Both never did translate to direct impact and measurable results that businesses really need.
But today we have the right tools (think blogs, micro-sites, e-mails, search engines etc.), the right knowledge (in search, digital storytelling and social media), and better ways to measure business (not communication) results (think click-throughs, readership and online decisions).
We have what it takes to communicate directly, track and measure results effectively, making Influence as much a science as it is an art.
And so, Omnifluence is my one-word proposition for an entirely new way of thinking about Public Relations and Influence. Influence. Not communicate. Achieve business results. Not simply fulfil marketing objectives. Measure real results. Not resolve outcomes.
Chief Influence Officer and Integrated Influence Agencies
I assure you that in the near future, we will see the appointment of Chief Influence Officers. They will be generalist-specialists who understand the art of communication, the science of measurement, and the strategy of orchestrating a concerted PR effort so that everything and everyone in an organisation communicates. And that impact is tracked and measured. Their mandate will be to develop integrated perspectives towards all stakeholder groups; and to work with every function in the organisation in the way I alluded to in my post last April on the concerted PR 2.0 effort.
A quick search today will show that a couple of designated Chief Influence Officers exist. But I’m not talking about theorists or academics. I’m talking about practitioners who can say: here’s the strategy, here’s the message, here’s what’s happening and here are the numbers to prove it works. The art, science, and math of Influence.
We will also see PR agencies evolve into Integrated Influence Agencies. The one reason why I love and joined Waggener Edstrom is because while every other PR agency is thinking about blogger relations and viral videos, WagEd is way ahead of the curve in presenting the ‘Changing Influence Model’ as a primary paradigm for strategy development; and ‘Integrated Influence’ as a core tenet in its approach towards PR strategy.
And the third trend we will see is the emergence of Influence Specialists from the ranks of PR professionals – individuals who know how to craft a story, tell it in the most engaging way possible, track the immediate, consequent and residual effects of that story, and measure the results in terms of reader-engagement, click-throughs, online purchase decisions etc.
Moving PR into the boardroom
Communication has been, and will always be a vital part of PR. But as long as we think of ourselves as in the business of communicating, we will only take incremental steps forward.
Omnifluence – or the measure of our effectiveness in influencing the entire stakeholder universe will enable us to make the quantum leap.
Note: To keep the conversation here focused on PR 2.0, I’ve created a separate blog for Omnifluence. I can’t promise frequent or regular posts there because my end-in-mind is a book – and the chronological structure of a blog runs somewhat contrary to the outline of a book. But I’ll provide updates on any significant progress I make in my research, as well as links to useful resources if you’re interested in the subject.
on 06 Mar 2008 at 10:53 pm 1.The Emergence of the Chief Influence Officer « Amybeth Hale - Research Goddess said …
[...] week, my colleague Melvin Yuan in Singapore posted his thoughts on a new adaptation of this, the emergence of the Chief Infuence Officer. He uses the word ‘omnifluence’, a term he coined last year when thinking about the [...]
on 09 Mar 2008 at 2:18 am 2.Are we really influencing our audiences? « said …
[...] good friend and a fantastic blogger, Melvin Yuan recently stated in his blog post… In the same way, PR professionals could never master the [...]
on 25 Mar 2008 at 3:16 pm 3.Steve Jensen said …
It’s great to hear Wagged thinking outside the box!
on 26 May 2008 at 5:09 pm 4.Hun Boon said …
Hey Melvin,
I found your web site.
Remember our quick chat on what PR is? If I substitute the word “marketing” for “PR” in your article above, it’ll still ring just as true.
So what is your take on the difference between Marketing and PR?
Cheers
Hun Boon
on 27 May 2008 at 5:22 am 5.Kenneth Phua said …
Came across your post. On PR 2.0 while doing some research on PR.
I have a few responses, quite lengthy to be honest to your blog post. Hopefully, it might serve to be more constructive than others who just concur.
Idea of Influence
The model presented by the change influence model has principally assumes that the customer or consumer is coagulated as a whole. However, this might not necessarily be true. Opinion leaders must be considered as a principal nodes within the consumer set in the equation/model.
As all marketing and PR practitioners would know, this has its major challenges.
To identify principal nodes (opinion leaders), one must first be able to plot the entire network and not rely on guess work, which is impractical to some sense, even though arguably these principal nodes can be estimated, attributing hits to influence of industry leaders, experts… basically people whose popularity we can measure.
However, measuring is of the biggest issue to date. For example, we assume that bloggers with the highest hits are opinion leaders because they have extremely high hits. Thus, we see countless PR firms flocking unwittingly at these bloggers, getting them to test drive a new software, a new product, etc. (bloggers include opinion leaders in the field, such as Tech experts, fashion gurus, or just ‘star bloggers’).
So the question lies…. Are we really ready to challenge this new frontier? Do we really have the tools to measure? Is it even possible to plot this web? Or are we just hastily estimating?
Coverage and issues
The biggest challenge to revamping the mindset towards that of a direct correlation of PR and business results has long been a challenge to Practitioners. Why? 2 reasons, measurability (again) and misunderstanding.
Measurability
Unless run through a detailed regression, which I believe no one has actually done, it is not possible to show direct correlation between PR and profits, or rather divorcing PR efforts from Marketing efforts to show how much each has contributed to profits/business results. Therefore, PR firms start adopting the simplest method they know how, assuming that positive news coverage (arguably more credible than ads) can be quantified and therefore counted as a “more credible ad” accounting it to the increase in business results.
Mis-understanding
One of the fundamental problems of the relations between in house Corp Comms and PR agencies is the issue of not understanding the true function of PR. While PR is fundamentally a function on its own used to manage opinions and to ultimately influence purchase. In house Corp Comms often lack in the expertise to do as such, using PR as more a marketing function than anything else most of the time, distinguishing themselves with ‘coverage’ as its main difference. This leads to the misconception of CEOs and Senior management of their Corp Comms function, which in turns brings about a constant need to self-justification by the Corp Comms, using the only tool they have to show for – coverage.
on 09 Sep 2008 at 12:47 am 6.Vanessa Tan said …
Hey Mel. Update this blog, lah!
on 28 Sep 2008 at 12:47 am 7.Melvin Yuan said …
What? And disturb the peace and quiet around here?
on 17 Dec 2008 at 5:00 pm 8.inggita said …
Melvin, you have articulated perfectly what’s been bothering me for years – i feel a bit concerned of my profession each time they pat each others’ backs for coverages – and not responding to online buzz. you zeroed in on it: influence and results (i would like to say [business] impact for corporations)
on 19 Dec 2008 at 10:43 pm 9.Michelle said …
Melvin, I can’t agree with your post more.
I’m interning at a PR company for the Christmas break and quite honestly, I’ll be surprised if they’re around in another 10 years. In my personal opinion, PR companies are going to have to do something drastic to stay viable…like get on the web, be open to blogging and using social media to their advantage. I can easily see the day where each company will appoint a PR person or Chief Influence Officers of their own who will maintain their website/blog and will be transparent with their audience. It’s different these days, people don’t want to have to go through 5 people to get your message and they shouldn’t have to. They should be able to go straight to the source: you, and hear straight from the horse’s mouth what you have to say.
PR companies, take heed.
on 08 Jan 2009 at 1:03 pm 10.Scott Sykes said …
Nice post Melvin. Happy new year. Any plans to be in Beijing soon?
on 08 Jan 2009 at 11:45 pm 11.melvinyuan said …
Thanks Scott,
It’s been a long time (since this post; and since we caught up in real life!)
No plans for Beijing this quarter… but perhaps the next. But we need to catch up soon!
on 24 Feb 2009 at 7:24 am 12.Meet Yongfook, Joel Postman, and Melvin Yuan @ BlogOut 2009 at theory.isthereason said …
[...] Edstrom Worldwide. If you ever see him, he enjoys talking about this word he coined up called Omnifluence. Also, I apologize on his behalf: It’s been exactly one year since he updated his blog! Oh, a [...]