Defining "A-list" authorities

Good post by Mack Collier at the end of December.

Basically, it's the age old question of defining who is influential (whether traditional media or "new media") -- the A-list of media (bloggers, journalists, etc.).

But as Ted Weismann from Beyond the Hype mentions Jan. 9 (What is Authority), the wrong question isn't who is the A-list, but who is your A-list. In other words, don't try to influence those who others define as top tier, but invest your time influencing those speak "passionately about your specific market segments' problems and concerns."

For a business-to-business IT services firm like Avanade, our A-list is going to be a lot different than an enterprise software vendor, even if that A-list is extremely well known and "influential."

By way of comparison, when I worked at Fleishman-Hillard, I would have clients who would tell me they wanted to be in The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal -- not because the outlets were strategic to reaching a target audience, but because they were perceived to be influential. Yes, absolutely, they are highly influential, but they are only influential to those they influence. And if the people they influence are not the ones your company is seeking to influence, then it was a wasted effort. Sounds like a duh statement, but it's true.

The same principles apply to social media as they do to "traditional media" (side note, let's drop "social media" or "new media" from our lexicon -- it's all just "media").