Propagation Planning
Over the last year or so, one of the kinds of planning that I’ve been hearing more and more of is propagation planning. Propagation planning is planning that reaches a tier of people beyond those your agency directly connects with through its work, by providing a core group of people with material they find useful enough to spread on their own.
In the words of Griffin Farley, Strategy Director at BBH New York, “planning not for the people you reach, but the people that they reach, by giving them assets to propagate.”
Propagation planning has assumed increased importance lately because it puts influencers in the limelight, as opposed to assuming they are just another cog in the generic PR wheel, which encompasses multiple traditional offline PR elements as well as digital ones.
Word-of-mouth initiated by influencers is key to the success of any campaign or project, and propagation planning makes the spread of word-of-mouth a more researched exercise. I’d like to clarify two things here: one, that by word-of-mouth I don’t mean merely blogger outreach, which a lot of social media agencies do, and two, that by ‘influencers’ I don’t necessarily mean people who are big in the social media world – I mean people who are passionate, knowledgeable and who occupy positions of influence within niche communities. These communities will need to be selected according to the nature of your campaign (tech people, parents, artists, writers, movie fanatics and so on), and the strategy shouldn’t take a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
At Made by Many, we’ve made propagation planning a larger part of our work over the recent past. As I searched for relevant information about this discipline, I realised that there just wasn’t enough, and that what existed was dispersed across a number of places. Taking matters into my own hands, I decided to set up a wiki to document all these pieces of content, and Griffin kindly agreed to be a key part of it.
You can find the wiki here. Don’t forget to check out the sidebar with its different categories (including useful files and Slideshare presentations from Griffin). Comments, suggestions on information that should be included, and discussions about propagation planning itself are welcome here. I’ve kicked the first one off: how is propagation planning different from engagement planning and connections planning?
9 comments
Great questions Anjali. I think there’s a real gap at the moment between being able to identify influencers-which a number of companies are claiming to have the perfect algorithm for-and being able to activate those influencers once they’re identified. There are a lot of people wanting to play in this space, from both PR and Digital backgrounds but I haven’t seen many who are meshing scaleable data with genuinely creative and engaging ways to help fans/advocates/influencers spread the word.
Very interesting post. The less in which bought space impacts meaningfully, the more important propagation planning will become. Perhaps a good exercise is to bring those potential message amplifiers into the strategic and creative process to heed advice and ensure the relevance. Kinda like messaging specific co-creation.
As Pats says it’s about getting the right heads in the first place which is the trick.
Thanks for your comments!
Pats, quite right – as more and more companies play in the PR/digital space, we need to get this done right, and a mechanism for that simply doesn’t exist as to stands. Hopefully we will be able to slowly develop a framework that will be executable.
Sam – ‘the less bought space impacts meaningfully’ – you’ve hit it on the nail right there. I am increasingly fatigued by the ads I see as I surf the web daily, and the good ones can be spotted a mile away. The rest are just trash, and I see that proportion increasing as the days go by. Messaging specific co-creation is a great thought, and hopefully we’ve started something which can make that a reality.
Nice stuff! I especially like for your redefinition of the term “Influencer.” It’s much more useful than the hyper-connected-but-rarely-spotted-in-the-wild beast that usually comes to mind.
Hey Anjali,
Great post. We’ve been kicking around something similar recently but under the guise of ‘opportunities to experience’. Your words (and Griffin’s also) resonate nicely.
Adding the wiki to my bookmarks now and hopefully will add some points of interest in the months ahead.
Good work.
I agree. I think “social media experts” are too quick to say: Find these people who are on Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, YouTube, etc. When in actuality, the most influential people in any particular area may not be a “hyper-connected-but rarely-spotted-in-the-wild beast”. They’re probably out in the world doing exactly what it is that got them in the position their in. Whether that’s cooking, or painting, or recording, whatever.
I feel like I have to ask a question that has been racking my brain for a little while after a conversation I recently had. Is social media simply meant to facilitate conversations for the sake of having conversations, or is it meant to create social experiences? I want to lean towards the latter, which is the point of the person I was talking to; but then what makes “social experiences” any different from any other digital application/program/service/etc. that simply has share buttons.
Digital agencies like R/GA and AKQA can make develop amazing digital work that gets people talking, simply because of the cool factor. And a share button can make it go viral. But then that’s not a conversation is it? It’s spreading through people, by people. So, does that make it propagation planning? Or is it just the same old advertising (in digital form) and a few sharing options?
And on the other hand, you have true blue conversation strategies, but with no “wow”. And then the question I was asked is: What’s the point of this? Is it for brands to engage in conversation with its customers for the sake of engaging in conversation? Is there a purpose? If not, is it just a support presence?
These are questions I don’t have answers to.
Amadeo, excellent questions, and thanks for taking the time to comment. Is a share button conversational? No, but it does help to propagate content. It is but one element of the propagation process, because it helps people to share good content which in turn leads to a conversation.
True blue conversation strategies with no ‘wow’. Nice way of putting it. But I think the problem is that a lot of planning does not in fact have conversation built in. i.e they don’t answer the questions you’ve asked – what is the point of this? is it just to help the brand and consumer talk? Those are vital and often brushed-aside questions. It shouldn’t be for the sake of engaging in conversation, but to increase utility of a platform, by answering or clarifying questions and rendering the brand’s product/campaign/platform even more useful. In an ideal world! (or at least that’s what I think!).
James – thanks for your kind words, and hope to see you adding useful stuff to the wiki soon!
With the spirit of collaboration and having something Made by Many, I created a Draft Propagation Planning Brief on my blog. I would love feedback from this group so we might move beyond draft and into something that we all agree upon. I included the social experience that Amadeo pointed out, really great points you all made here.
http://griffinfarley.typepad.com/propagation/2010/04/a-draft-propagation-planning-brief.html
http://griffinfarley.typepad.com/propagation/2010/04/a-draft-propagation-planning-brief.html
Very insightful article. I have been closely observing the power of propagation for a few months now.I just had many questions one of them being, is it possible for a single influencer to start a large scale movement ?
Can there be a possibility that a closed group of people which include a primary influencer and a few scouts once an idea convinces this group it becomes viral.