This past week has seen a rainbow of activity surrounding the gay and lesbian community that is sure to translate into real spending and more attention to the gay consumer.

Over the last six days, legislators and judges of the great states of Iowa and Vermont acknowledged that gay couples have the right to the legal protections and state benefits offered their heterosexual counterparts through marriage.  That’s two more states to add to the slowly growing roster of change in this country.  Moving the equality issue aside, broadening the market of couples allowed to wed will spell more dollars for the economies of these two states.  Just last summer, in the wake of California’s Supreme Court ruling extending marriage rights to same-sex couples in that state, a UCLA study forecast that same-sex couples could generate almost $700 million of additional income for California’s wedding industry and government budget.  Though Iowa and Vermont should probably not expect numbers that high, it should not be a shock when same-sex marriage boosts their balance sheets.

And today, with the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots coming this June (celebrated as day-one of the modern gay-rights movement), New York City announced its $2 million, global ad campaign aimed at wooing the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community and gay dollars/euro/yen/francs/pesos/pounds to New York to celebrate.  With the theme of the “Rainbow Pilgrimage,” the campaign features some terrific Oz-like creative that will run across all media (online, OOH, TV) in markets including the US, Spain and the UK, as well as partnering with tourist-services providers to offer discounts and special packages that are sure to help the Big Apple’s budget-deficit bushel this summer.

That’s a whole lot for one week.

Understanding Influence - Part II: 7 Thoughts

Previously, we blogged that social media has fundamentally changed the world of marketing. Marketers can no longer consider that they are the exclusive owners of their brand—because brands exist in the minds of their consumers. While social media empowers those consumers and enables them to actively participate in the conversations that define their brands.

To grasp the scale of this monumental change, “Understanding Influence – Part I” offered a brief historical perspective on marketing influence. Part II picks up with the brand conversations that social media bring. And how, by participating in the dialog, you can influence it.

1. Influence begins with listening, really listening.

Put yourself in a social situation. A group you’d like join is conversing. What do you do? First, you listen. Why? To get a feel for the tone of the conversation and see where you fit in. It’s the same in social media marketing.

Your first order of business should be to see who is talking about your brand and what your audience is saying. Identify the followers and the influencers—who, by the way, will not all be customers. These free tools will help you automate the listening process.

• Google Reader – Tracking all the people who are talking about you is easier if you aggregate them into a few places. Use Google Reader to search for anyone talking about your brands and gather their RSS feeds.
• Google Blogsearch and Google Alerts – Use Google Blogsearch to take snapshots of brands and subjects of interest. Then use Google Alerts to automatically email you updates of the latest results.
• Twitter Search – Keep track of relevant Tweets.
• Delicious – Use Delicious save all your bookmarks online, share them and see what other people are bookmarking. The site’s search and tagging tools let you see the most popular bookmarks being saved across your areas of interest.
• Feedburner and Feedcompare.com – By sending your RSS feeds through Feedburner you can easily track your blog subscribers. Use Feedcompare to graphically contrast your Feedburner subscriber numbers with others.
• Technorati – The self-proclaimed, “most comprehensive source of information on the blogosphere,” Technorati indexes more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time. It also ranks them by “authority,” the number of blogs linking to a website over the last six months.

If you need more detailed metrics and reporting, several services can take your listening to a professional level. Their websites will do a far better job of explaining what they do.

• BuzzLogic
• Radian6
• Scout Labs
• Spiral16
• Techrigy

2. Influence is not control

As tempting as it may be to jump right in and control a conversation, especially if it’s not going your way, attempting control is not the best strategy. Social media has customs. You have to be willing to give up the illusion of control left over from Mass Market era-thinking.

A funny thing happens when you surrender control. You actually become more powerful. Athletes will tell you that their best performances come when they “let go,” and get, “in the zone.”

Think what happens in a conversation when someone monopolizes it or makes it all about themselves. If you’re like me, you duck out as quickly as you can. If you want to be around to influence the conversation, you need folks to stick around.

3. Influence is built on authority

Want to have greater authority? Write greater content. It’s that simple—and difficult.

Worry less about chasing authority rankings. Worry more about posting unique and relevant content that reflects your brand and builds the brand experience. That’s what’ll keep your audience interested. And bring them back again and again.

Need help with your writing? Check out “How to Write Great Blog Content” by ProBlogger and follow Copyblogger whose blog focuses on writing great content.

4. Influence is built on relationships and sense of community

Say you’re looking for a restaurant. Who are you more likely to be influenced by: A close friend? Or, a complete stranger? The answer is obvious.

A recent Harvard Business Review study, “The Dynamics of Personal Influence” by Nichlas A. Christakis, finds that “although a person may be connected to other people by six degrees of separation, he or she is influenced only by those up to three degrees away.”

The more people talking about your brand, the more first, second and third-degree relationships you have. And the greater your potential influence. Creating a sense of community—a place—for your customers to gather and talk about your brand allows you to extend those close relationships.

Fan pages can create a hub for brand conversations. You’ll quickly learn what your customers love. And what they hate. You’ll also empower your customers to advocate for your brand.

5. Influence is built on honesty and trust

Trust is incredibly valuable—and fragile. Relationships are built on trust. So it follows that the more trusted you are, the greater your potential influence. Consistency is important. Read, “When Trust Breaks” by Amber Naslund of Altitude Branding.

If you want to have an influence, strive for honesty, humanity and humility in your all your social media communications because they build confidence—and trust—in you and your message.

6. Influence means being responsive.

Bad word of mouth can go viral almost instantly. You need to stop rumors before they spread. Like, now. When you blow it. Admit you’re wrong. And fix the problem. Here, your actions will speak louder than words.

Social media gives you the tools to listen, build positive relationships and a sense of community and provide trust-building opportunities that can help carry you through and resolve the inevitable trouble spots.

7. Influence is more powerful when it’s fully integrated

Those who say, “advertising is dead,” are just as off base as those who ignore social media. It’s not the medium. It’s the brand message and experience. Consistently delivered. At all points of brand contact.

Go and influence better

The aim of this two part series was to provide a perspective for understanding the value of social media in a marketing context. And to help you understand the components of influence. Effective influence—and marketing success—depends on going where your consumers are and joining them in the brand conversation.

Understanding Influence - Part I

Social media has fundamentally changed the world of marketing and there is no gain in going back. Marketers may no longer consider that they can “own” their brand—if indeed they ever did. Brands exist in the minds of their consumers. And social media empowers those consumers to actively participate in the conversations that define their brands.

To understand just how powerful a tool of influence social media has become, and its potential to further reinvent how we market, it helps to gain a little perspective and understand where we came from—where Part I begins.

A brief history of marketing influence

Mass Market Era. During the 1950s and 1960s, marketers developed a mass approach to selling standardized, mass-produced products to similarly standardized, undifferentiated mass consumers. For major brands, decisions were simple. Advertise heavily on one of the three major television networks and succeed. If success wasn’t automatic, fire the ad agency, freshen the creative and heavy up the media plan. Minor brands were effectively blocked from the game (and turned to more creative solutions).

Communication in the Mass Market era was all top down, company out. Whether consumers had a problem, or wanted to sing their favorite brand’s praises, their influence was pretty much limited to a closed circle of friends and contacts.

Positioning Era. In 1972, Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote a series of three articles for Ad Age that led to their groundbreaking 1980 book, “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind,” now in its 20^th printing. It recognized that advertisers and agencies don’t position products, consumers do. It suggested that companies need to determine what position their products occupy in the consumer’s mind relative to other products and then to act strategically to reinforce or change that position.

Communication options, however, did not advance with the theory. Brand marketers fought the battle for consumer’s minds with essentially the same mass media to which they’d long been accustomed. Warily, the book also identified communications clutter—that consumers were being bombarded with more and more advertising messages and beginning to pay less and less attention.

High Tech/Media Options Era. Technology and media advances in the 1980s and 1990s began to shift the tectonic plates of brand power.

Media options began to explode with the advent of cable TV. Video recorders enabled consumers to time shift their favorite programs and skip past commercials. Video games gained a large, loyal following. Special interest magazines experienced tremendous growth as well, their success providing proof of niche marketing’s value.

But most of all, the growth of the Internet and effective search tools enabled consumers to do something they never could before. Suddenly, they could find all the information about brands that they might want. Shopping for a new camera? Get all the facts before you buy. And they could get that information from sources they trust, outside of the brand’s control.

The marketer’s top-down communications monopoly was broken. With the ability for individual consumers to choose when they’ll be receptive to brand communication, consumer’s were at last in control. We demanded legislation that soundly trounced unwelcome telemarketers. And wise marketers recognize us as a market of “hand raisers” who can opt in and opt out the moment we aren’t receiving value from our membership.

Social Era. The rise of social media and the ascendancy of the individual alters the game again. Totally. You and I and the folks next door now have the ability to directly communicate with and influence large audiences, decision makers, CEOs and celebrities. Even President of the United States.

Social media levels the playing field. Big dollars don’t equate to success as they did in the Mass Market era. Niche marketing Davids can slay their Golliaths.

Blogs. Facebook. MySpace. LinkedIn. Twitter. YouTube. Wikis. Podcasts. iTunes. Hulu. Each of us can customize our online experiences as we wish. Invite friends and business associates into our circle. Participate as a brand fan. Create a group. Launch a business. Support a cause.

And actively converse.

Whereas earlier marketing eras were primarily one-way communication. Brand to consumer or brand to distribution channel, for example. The social era is about two-way communication. Success today is about relationships. Conversations. Give and take.

You can ignore the conversation that’s going on. Or embrace it and participate. And by your participation, influence it.

Tomorrow, “Understanding Influence – Part II” will continue with 7 thoughts on how influence works in brand conversations.

I will never forget my first big win while a green AE at Leo Burnett. I could hardly keep myself from jumping in the air to high-five my boss after our client approved what would become one of the first LB client websites. While on the way to the elevator, my wise mentor leaned in and said “Nicely done, do not breathe a word until we are in the rental car, doors locked – windows up!”

On the way to the airport she shared several horror stories - some likely exaggerated and others urban advertising myths - of new business wins that soured thanks to bravado on elevators and airplanes. Some things never change. But back then we only had to worry about ear shot; today the whole world is in e-shot.

By now, this e-shot heard round the world is likely old news. While many bloggers are taunting the seemingly innocent yet likely deal breaker post below as “foolish” and “crazy stupid”, I think we owe the poster a big THANK YOU for reminding us all of some common-sense lessons learned. The short-and-sweet Tweet simply reads:

theconnor:  Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

Common Sense Lesson 1
Cisco Systems being a global technology company and all - may have a few Tweeters and maybe, just maybe, someone is following you. One of those Tweeters is now getting his nana-second of internet fame – Cisco employee, Tim Leved. His response:

timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Common Sense Lesson 2
The poster wisely since turned on their private settings. Not sure the poster intended to be funny with the ironic image that appears – which is a conflict for me: see Common Sense Lesson 3A and Common Sense Lesson 3B.

Common Sense Lesson 3A
Apologize, Resolve, Move On

Common Sense Lesson 3B
Use humor to deflate the situation.

Common Sense Lesson 4
Don’t you have anything else better to do?  In a mere two days this has gone from the Twitter community completely vilifying this person (riddle me this Bartman and crazy Cub fans) to a website entirely dedicated to this two sentence Tweet! The same can be said for the news media now picking this up.

Finally, of the tons of comments, blogs, Tweets out there, while I do not agree with all his points, Don Sears is on to something with smart advice for job seekers, human resource pros and recruiters like me.  Take a look at his March 19th posting, Big Brother - How Not to Get a Job Via Twitter.

My take away, Think before you Tweet.