“Beam me up, Scottie. There’s no intelligent life down here.” How many times have you heard this Star Trek joke?
I’ve even seen it on bumper stickers and coffee mugs (note to self… I need to get one of those).
Pop culture holds a lot of lessons for us, especially where leadership and business are concerned.
We hear stuff like this all the time with movie franchises like Star Wars, The Matrix series and others.
When I think about influencer marketing though, I think Star Trek.
You remember Captain Kirk and his loyal crew, right?
Kirk always gets the girl (green ones too) while Spock and McCoy debate the merits of logic over emotion – or is it the other way around?
There’s Scotty who always manages to fix the engines at just the right moment.
While Uhura, Sulu and Checkov find ways to help Kirk solve the problem facing them.
These characters are great, no doubt about it.
Yes, I admit it guys, I am a long time fan of this show, especially the original series.
The stories are engaging and hold up over time.
Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with this iconic TV show, Captain Kirk and his crew go out and explore the universe.
They have a mission to seek out new life and new civilizations.
This is how they expand commerce as well as their Federation of Planets.
As a business person, you’re like Captain Kirk and his crew — and you have a mission too.
Your mission is to seek out ideal consumers and turn them into paying customers.
So, let’s explore this theme a little further.
New planets are like Facebook groups, blogs, YouTube channels, forums, even events.
These are all places where your ideal consumers gather and mingle.
Now:
Piloting the Enterprise in search of your ideal consumers, you’ll find some planets that are good prospects.
Engaging with your consumers there means you have some options.
You can advertise to them… but that’s disruptive and people get wise to ads and find ways to block them.
Just check out the influencer marketing statistics and you’ll see what I mean.
You can choose content marketing – which is a good strategy, but that takes forever to get traction.
Or, you can work with influencers –people who already have the trust of your ideal consumers.
And as a smart marketer, naturally you choose the most effective and fastest route to reach them:
Influencers.
But what happens when you beam down?
Remember when captain Kirk and some guys in red shirts beam down to a planet together?
As this picture illustrates, the guys in the red shirts always die.
Poor red shirts! They got no respect.
It became a running joke with the show’s fans.
Beaming down a party of red shirts is like picking the wrong influencers.
Poor selection is a waste of money as Paul Johnson points out in Adweek.
This is why I emphasize proper influencer selection with all of my clients and students.
However, when Captain Kirk has the right team with the right skills, yes, there might still be some trouble, but you know they are going solve the problem.
Not only that, they’re going be able to enroll another planet into their happy Federation of planets.
And the Federation gets bigger, gets more citizens and grows.
And Star Trek gets another happy ending: the Enterprise crew saves the universe.
Your business should be the same.
Because Kirk and team go down well equipped, they solve problems and they add value.
And you’re no different.
So what does all of this Star Trek stuff have to do with how you treat influencers?
I’ll tell you about that…
When I saw this post by John Obeto, a technology / healthcare influencer, on his blog Absolutely Windows, it really struck a chord with me.
In it, John goes on to explain that he was invited to attend a medical / healthcare event — as an influencer.
As I said, he covers tech and healthcare, so having him there made a lot of sense.
His mission was to cover the event, interview interesting people and blog about the experience.
Also, by being there, John got to make new professional connections.
Everybody wins.
But when he bumped into another influencer on the show floor, things got interesting.
After some polite introductions, John asked the other influencer what he covered and why he was there.
The answer was astounding…
The young man explained that he has a blog about hot rods, of all things. We’re talking about souped-up cars!
The trouble is, he didn’t understand why he was at the event. Why he was invited or why he was pressed to go.
But it gets better:
Evidently, he did post to his blog a couple of times about his child being a preemie and the challenges he and his wife faced.
(Note: This is how he got noticed by whoever invited him)
But he went on to explain that his contact, a “social media person” needed to have “bodies at the event” — so they pressed him into accepting the invitation.
They paid for his travel and hotel which is the least they could do.
But, he still felt pressured.
And to fit this into our analogy here about Star Trek…
This automotive blogger was the Star Trek “red shirt.”
Why?
Simple… he was left to wander aimlessly around not knowing what he is supposed to do, or what was expected of him.
He was sent into the unknown as cannon fodder.
As a result, he added zero value and he got nothing of real value in return. Zilch.
This did a disservice to him and to those who pressed him into going.
Now, let me ask you something…
Would you toss aside a golden nugget if you found one on the ground?
No, you wouldn’t. You’d hold onto it and might even make a nice piece of jewelry out of it.
The point is, you’d value it and you’d find the right use for it.
Influencers are like golden nuggets. You don’t cast them aside when you find them.
Nurture influencers … don’t treat them as disposable Star Trek red shirts.
This fellow influencer who John met was treated as just another “body” to have at the event.
Nobody comes back to look for him or beam him up.
Treating him like this means he’s nothing more than a transaction, disposable.
Guys, this is marketing at it’s worst, especially with influencers.
Choose your influencers carefully and with a plan in mind.
You’ve got to understand that congruence is king.
When it comes to working with influencers, congruence is the factor that you’ve got to focus on, over and above everything else.
It doesn’t matter if it’s for your personal brand, your small business or a Fortune 500 client.
You’ve got to know your ideal consumer.
The people who you want to turn into those long-term raving fans and longtime customers.
To do that, you have to choose influencers who already have their trust.
They have your ideal consumers as audience members… readers, viewers and followers.
So congruence is about agreement, harmony, compatibility … between your ideal consumer, influencers and you.
But there’s even more to it:
Using influencers is using leverage, like when Captain Kirk uses his judo moves to flip his opponent!
Gotta love Kirk!
Think leverage.
You reach many by using only a few!
Own this idea, guys.
You get the benefit of leveraging the TRUST they’ve built up over time with their audiences.
And that’s something to take seriously.
You’ll be rewarded many times over.
Make new friends and get new customers by working with influencers.
Make sure the influencers you choose make sense — are congruent with you.
Then make sure they speak to your ideal consumer, the people you want to turn into customers.
Be sure to beam down, like in Star Trek, to a planet with the right influencers.
You’ll be kindly welcomed!
Look, I hope you’ve enjoyed this little lesson today as much as I have.
I really enjoy kinda weaving the whole Star Trek theme into it!
But, no matter what, come join me in my free Facebook group: Influencer Marketing for Badasses
I’ll see you on the inside.
