Influencer Marketing – The Silicon Valley 100

Brad Stone at Newsweek as the scoop on a new “influencer marketing service” called the Silicon Valley 100.  It’s the brain child of Auren Hoffman, founder of the SF-based Stonebrick Group.

This month, 100 of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, bloggers and promoters will begin receiving cool new stuff for free, delivered straight to their homes and offices. In return, these movers and shakers promise to sample the products and offer feedback to the their manufacturers. The companies hope that, if the mood strikes, the Silicon Valley 100 will chat up, blog on, or just plain recommend the products to friends and colleagues, generating that most invaluable of currencies: buzz.

Stone later questions whether the service inadvertently turns the Valley’s geek chic and business elite into corporate shills:

The larger question is whether an endeavor like the Silicon Valley 100 inadvertently transforms natural Connectors into public-relations flacks. Does it dilute these bigwigs’ influence when companies are, in effect, buying the chance to get worked into their cocktail chatter?

I’ll admit, it’s a really interesting business model, but influencer marketing is nothing new.  It can take a lot of different shapes, this latest example just so happens to be the most commercial manifestation I’ve seen so far. 

The way I’ve always approached influencer marketing programs (and to a greater extent, buzz building activities) is by thinking about them in the context of concentric circles.  At the core you’ll always have your influencers which serve as the catalyst for buzz, but as the buzz builds, reaching the outer rings becomes increasingly difficult and requires either a steady push from your core group (which is unlikely, at least in this set-up) or some calculated help from key connecters (which is typical). 

I guess I don’t see how the SV 100 will bring connecters into the mix?  But like I said, it’s an interesting service and one I’ll be following closely.  High fives to the gang at Stonebrick for exploring this particular direction of an influencer program.

[Via SiliconValleyWatcher]