“This guide combines useful strategies with a compelling case for leveraging the power of influencers.”

A marketing firm leader explains how to use social media influencers, public figures, and celebrities in marketing campaigns.

Katz begins his guide in 1985, when he attended, near the start of his two-decade music industry career, a Live Aid concert. The event was an example of what he terms the “Influencer Effect,” or the “exponential impact” that public figures (in this case, musicians) have by “throwing their popularity, social capital, and platform behind a particular cause or brand.” Now the leader of a firm called Entertain Impact, a “social impact marketing and advocacy agency,” the author first discusses how influencer marketing “is effective, growing, and here to stay,” citing various generational, demographic, and marketing research studies. He then focuses most of the book on how to “engage a public figure, celebrity, or social media influencer who has a passion for your particular brand or cause, even if you do not personally know them.” Katz puts influencers in mega, macro, micro, and nano categories based on their potential audience reach (drawn from such data as Twitter followers and other influencer research resources) and notes the advantages of leveraging any or all of these groups in campaigns. He organizes the approach to influencer engagement and activation via what he calls the “D.R.E.A.M.” method, or “Design your Action Plan, Research your Influencers, Engage your Influencers, Activate Your Campaign, Measure your Impact.” Tips include that six to nine months is generally needed to build a campaign from scratch, allowing time for plan development and approval. Companies will need to identify and target many influencers up front in order to get some positive responses. They must be specific about the level of commitment needed from influencers, be it just a supportive tweet or an event appearance.