Synopsis

**This book was renamed The Age of Influence once published by HarperCollins.

Social media represents the convergence of information and communication, and with more people both communicating through and consuming information on social media, we are seeing a true democratization of information. While some still trust only the traditional media outlets, most of us are finding more and more resourceful information in the blogosphere and on social media itself.

The recent growth of visual social networks like Instagram and Snapchat has launched a new generation of influencers that are distinctly unique form their blogger, YouTuber, or even Twitter predecessors.

On the other hand, with social media becoming more and more a pay to play medium, businesses everywhere are trying to figure out how to scale their digital media in a more effective way. More and more businesses are realizing the value in what I have been calling "Leveraging the Other," or leveraging other social media users such as employees, brand advocates, or influencers to help push their social agenda forward.

Of these latest digital relationship marketing trends, nothing is more on the top of mind of executives, marketers, and other professionals than tapping into the influencer marketing ecosystem.

But how to begin, or become more efficient, at engaging with influencers?

How can marketers connect with the right people and increase product awareness by 10x? How do agencies make influencer marketing a core component of their client budgets and still get an ROI?  Who are these influencers and where can business owners or executives find them? Better yet, how do they connect with them in way that fosters long-term mutual growth and reach millions of relevant people in the process? 

Dale Carnegie wrote the manual on how to win friends and influence people, Robert B. Cialdini taught us that skills of persuasion lead to influence, and Mark Schaefer taught us how to leverage the ever-growing power of mega-bloggers and celebrities online. These ideas have withstood the tests of time and have taught millions of people how to become more relatable and gain real influence.

In The Business of Influence, Neal Schaffer explains why the digital era is now the influencer era, and how it now plays a significant role in spreading a message online. Readers will learn how to truly leverage influencers to share your message with millions of people for free, and how to rapidly expand your target audience around a single message or brand.

The truth is, most businesses still don’t understand influencers, influencer marketing, or how these relationships truly work. This is not about asking bloggers and public figures to share your content. It’s about how to get real people with real influence to endorse and actively promote your product or business to a target audience.

Neal Schaffer has been hired by several leading brands such as Microsoft and All Nippon Airways as an influencer. He also launched and managed influencer marketing campaigns on behalf of his agency clients. Neal is also a trusted and leading educator in the world of social media for business. No one is more qualified to help businesses leverage influencer marketing than Neal Schaffer, and this is the book that every business needs to read to plug-in to the influencer ecosystem.

Outline

Introduction

Part 1: 

Why Influencer Marketing

Today, everyone is a publisher, including businesses. And the rules of spreading a message to the masses have changed. This section describers why influencer marketing is trending upwards and which businesses are able to benefit from it the most.

Chapter 1 - The origins of influence in the modern world

Chapter 2 - How digital and social have expanded influence to the masses

Chapter 3 - Why Visual Social provides new challenges to businesses - and new opportunities to influencers

Part 2:

Who Is Influencing 

Influencer marketing must be a core component of your company's overall business objectives. In this section are case studies and real-world applications from those who are currently succeeding at it.

Chapter 4 - The Influencers 

Chapter 5 - The Agencies that hire influencers

Chapter 6 - Brands that work with Influencers

Chapter 7 - The Tools that support the Influencer Marketing Ecosystem

Part 3:

How to Influence Millions of People

In the end, your goal is to increase your own influence with specific target audience. This section is how businesses can leverage influencer marketing to spread their message to millions of people. These strategies are also applicable to personal brands and people within organizations. 

Chapter 7 - Buy influence or influence the influencer?

Chapter 8 - Finding your True Influencers

Chapter 9 - Establishing relationships with Influencers

Chapter 10 - How to work with Influencers

Chapter 11 - Measuring your Influencer Marketing ROI

Final Thoughts: The Future of Influencer Marketing

Audience

As more brands incorporate influencer marketing campaigns into their overall marketing strategies, studies confirm that collaborating with social media influencers to produce, distribute, and promote sponsored content is now one of the most powerful ways for brands to reach consumers. Influencer marketing addresses today's disruptive advertising trends including declining television viewership, growing social media audiences, and increasing usage of ad-blocking technology.

To help brands and marketers make informed decisions about how to allocate valuable advertising resources, Neal Schaffer offers his unique experience working with top brands like Microsoft and All Nippon Airways, as well as small to medium size business.

New research says that 86 percent of marketers used this strategy in the last year and most marketers are looking to double their investment in 2017. This is no surprise since audiences turn to social influencers more than ever to be entertained and informed.

• 70 percent of teenage YouTube subscribers trust influencer opinions over traditional celebrities. (Source)
• 51 percent of marketers say that video content produces the best ROI. (Source)
• 86 percent of women turn to social networks before making a purchase. (Source)
• 32 percent of US influencers who currently work with brands cite Facebook as the best platform, followed by Instagram at 24 percent. (Source)
• 71 percent of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on a social media reference. (Source)
• 86 percent of the most-viewed beauty videos on YouTube were made by influencers, compared to 14 percent by beauty brands, themselves. Beauty video views have increased 65 percent year over year. (Source)
• 57 percent of beauty and fashion companies use influencers as part of their marketing strategies, while an additional 21 percent are also planning to add this strategy to their campaigns in 2017. (Source)
• 11.7 percent of US marketing budgets is devoted to social media, up from 3.5 percent in 2009. (Source)
• US digital ad spending will hit $72.09 billion, about 37 percent of total ad spend. (Source)
• On average, businesses generate $6.50 for every $1 invested in influencer marketing. (Source)

Stats prove that influencer marketing works:

• Influencer marketing content delivers 11X higher ROI than traditional forms of digital marketing, (TapInfluence study with Nielsen Catalina Solutions, 2016) 
• 74% of people turn to social networks for guidance on purchase decisions, (Ogilvy Cannes, 2014)
• Influencer content on social media earn more than 8X the engagement rate of brand-direct content (RhythmOne & Forrester, 2015

Stats prove marketers and business will continue to spend more time on influencer marketing:

• 73% of marketers say that they have allocated budget for influencer marketing. (Forrester, 2015)
  
• 71% of marketers believe that ongoing ambassadorships are the most effective form of influencer marketing. (TapInfluence & Altimeter, June 2016,)
  
• 70% of influencers feel that the most effective way to collaborate with brands is through an influencer marketing platform. (TapInfluence & Altimeter, June 2016,) 

What does this say about the target audience for this book topic? Influencer Marketing touches upon the heart of Digital Marketing in today's mobile-first, social-first, and digital-first world. Every business, non-profit, and even government organization should be investing in Influencer Marketing by 2018 and will want to read this book.

On the other hand, the growing number of "side hustling" millenials and professionals who are looking to cash in on the influencer marketing trend are obvious readers for this book.

Finally, many business professionals and executives not related to the marketing function have heard the term "Influencer" without understanding its true meaning and significance in the business world. This book will help them decipher this new wold of influence marketing.

Promotion

Neal is backed by several of his business clients and industry partnerships. This book is for this audience of readers, coaches, clients and colleagues.

The combined social media following of Neal Schaffer and his brands (Maximize Social Business, Social Media Center of Excellence) are in the hundreds of thousands. He will establish awareness and relationships on these platforms to push this book into his extended network and target readership

Larger orders and corporate sponsors have come from pre-existing relationships and new ventures. These have also acted as distribution points for the book during preorders.

Neal's speaking engagements, influencer workshops, online videos and social media following are the main platforms with thousands of new and existing potential readers for this book.

Speaking engagements - Large social media and marketing conferences, client engagements, university teaching

LinkedIn followers -37,000+

Twitter followers - 245,000+

Facebook followers/group members/fans - 18,000+

Instagram followers - 18,000+

Pinterest followers -29,000+

Email subscribers - in the tens of thousands

Endorsements from previous book (reviews) - 

"Looking for a smart social media strategy? If so, look no further. Schaffer's Maximize Your Social provides a clear and effective road map that'll help your business thrive in an ever changing social world."
—Michael Stelzner, founder, Social Media Examiner and host, Social Media Marketing podcast; author of Launch

"Maximize Your Social provides an awesome framework for creating a powerful presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and really ALL social media sites. You will love the pragmatic, step-by-step tactics as well as the comprehensive and creative strategies. Get this book today, not tomorrow!"
—John Haydon, author of Facebook Marketing For Dummies

"Neal Schaffer is the real deal. He's proven that social media can work for real business, and in Maximize Your Social, he provides the playbook. It's a logical, realistic, clear-eyed recipe for doing social right."
—Jay Baer, bestselling author of Youtility and The NOW Revolution

"Maximize Your Social is straightforward, simple, and superb. Two 'Likeable' thumbs up!"
—Dave Kerpen, New York Times bestselling author of Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business

"I've been working in social media for seven years, and there's just about nobody in the business that I'd feel comfortable leaving alone with a client but Neal Schaffer. He gets the business case, the strategy, and the tactics—enjoy this primer of straight-up social media advice."
—Adam Metz, The Social Concept and Firespotter Labs

"Neal has been a social media leader for years. With this book, he takes all of us again to the bleeding edge of how to survive in today's world with a social strategy that actually works. This should sit on every CMO's bookshelf."
—Leo Widrich, CMO/cofounder at Buffer

Competition

1. How To Win Friends and Influence People 

By Dale Carnegie. Published by Simon & Schuster (September 2, 1981)

Designed to get you out of a mental rut, give you new thoughts, new visions, new ambitions. Enable you to make friends quickly and easily. Increase your popularity. Help you to win people to your way of thinking. Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done.

2. The Art of Influence: Persuading Others Begins With You

By Chris Widener. Published by Crown Business (July 8, 2008) 

From Chris Widener, the author of the breakout bestseller The Angel Inside, comes an inspiring new parable on the power of influence. The Art of Influence will make you think twice about everything you've ever learned about influence. As Chris Widener’s inspiring story reveals, it’s not something you "do" to other people but rather something that starts with how you shape and transform your own life. Forget about manipulation and slick fast-talking; The Art of Influence teaches that your ability to influence others begins from within.

3. Return On Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing

By Mark Schaefer. Published by McGraw-Hill Education; 1 edition (March 16, 2012)

Return on Influence is the first book to explore how brands are identifying and leveraging the world’s most powerful bloggers, tweeters, and YouTube celebrities to build product awareness, brand buzz, and new sales. In this revolutionary book, renowned marketing consultant and college educator Mark W. Schaefer shows you how to use the latest breakthroughs in social networking and influence marketing to achieve your goals through: In-depth explanations of the sources of online influence—and how they can work for or against. Interviews with more than 50 experts, including tech blogger Robert Scoble, Influence author Robert Cialdini, and industry thought leaders such as Mitch Joel, Jay Baer, and Christopher S. Penn

4. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

By Robert B. Cialdini PhD. Published by HarperCollins e-books; Revised edition (May 28, 2009)

Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say "yes"—and how to apply these understandings. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His thirty-five years of rigorous, evidence-based research along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior has resulted in this highly acclaimed book. You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and how to defend yourself against them. Perfect for people in all walks of life, the principles of Influence will move you toward profound personal change and act as a driving force for your success.

5.The Art of People:  The 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want

By Dave Kerpen. Published by Crown Business (March 15, 2016).

Dave teaches what it takes to win success and influence. Some people think that in today’s hyper-competitive world, it’s the tough, take-no-prisoners type who comes out on top. But in reality, argues New York Times bestselling author Dave Kerpen, it’s actually those with the best people skills who win the day. Those who build the right relationships. Those who truly understand and connect with their colleagues, their customers, their partners. Those who can teach, lead, and inspire. In a world where we are constantly connected, and social media has become the primary way we communicate, the key to getting ahead is being the person others like, respect, and trust. Because no matter who you are or what profession you're in, success is contingent less on what you can do for yourself, but on what other people are willing to do for you.