Wednesday night I got to meet Richard Branson, not just for a brief handshake. We originally met downstairs where the quick photo shtick happened and later I found myself in the heavily restricted VIP area. I’ve also received free return tickets on Virgin America which I will blog about soon. The event was part of a larger #VXToronto campaign which aimed to create online buzz by offering ‘digital influencer’s’ free flights and potentially tickets to the launch party based on their Klout score. The problem is most of the bloggers were pissed off and none of this was the fault of Virgin. April Dunford of Rocket Watcher beat me to summing this up so instead I wanted to look at why this happened (and how you can prevent it).
Know who you are targeting
Influencers are networkers. I have been in Toronto about 6 weeks and already know the core group at every technology event. Issues are far more likely to go viral, this group has an audience, regularly see eachother and are not afraid to speak their mind.
Bloggers have egos. We may not admit it but it is inevitable. When you get invited to an exclusive launch party because of your influence it is certainly a humbling experience. Sadly, when you consistently put your life online you do require a slight ego to survive (and I don’t see that as a bad thing).
So, we have a group with ego’, perhaps too easily bruised, that have a busy platform and talk amongst themselves. Best be careful to not make mistakes, eh? (that makes me sound too Canadian).
Be specific on what can be expected
There were few cues on where the event was, what was to be expected or the group that was to be expected. The general consensus was that it was going to be a medium-sized event where everybody was able to mingle, interview, find things to promote and enjoy the evening. Imagine our surprise when we arrived to a venue of at least 100 people, half of us invited were nowhere to be seen on the guest-list and were not allowed to access a VIP area where the promoted guests were. On it’s own, this is no problem but sparse details led to false expectations and inevitable disappointment.
Beware of the Build-up
The Virgin event was good. Had any blogger waltzed straight into the Virgin event they would have been happy, I had a fantastic evening. A great atmosphere, great crowd, free alcohol and Branson was talking to everybody. Sadly, most of the influencer’s I met were annoyed at the Klout pre-party from the previous evening. Admittedly, I left the same party 30 minutes later but the general consensus was that the community was insular, the goal of Klouter’s was to hand their business card and leave and engagement was severely lacking. Several examples were provided of Klout staff leaving attendees mid conversation.
The overall Klout campaign was convoluted, directions were not entirely clear and as April points out, people were never entirely sure why they did / did not get flights or invites. Each e-mail about the event had to be re-sent due to errors (sometimes the date) and the day prior we were all instructed to come friendless. I get it, exclusive event, tight guest list, but there are ways to tell me I can’t bring a significant other.
Remember what I said earlier? Influencers are pack rats. A small issue becomes a huge issue once everybody is done complaining. Know your audience, know this happens and try to prevent it (or if you don’t want to deal with it target somebody else). Each issue on it’s own would have likely been nothing. When things begin to accumulate, you have a problem. The buildup left everybody in a bad mood.
Pick your partners carefully
A Klout score is a natural fit to pick social media influencer’s for the Virgin party. The issue was not the tool but in the execution. When people are annoyed at Company A it will inevitably transfer to public partners when there is a symbiotic relationship. Picking a partner for their offering is one thing but be sure to look at their track record in successful execution too. In this case, most of the bloggers I spoke to were frustrated at the points above and began transferring this to Virgin.
Summary
There is no doubt that I was happy with the Virgin launch party. I had a great night, met some new people and ticked everything off on my check-list. The event and Virgin campaign hit every mark and every blogger I know was praising the agency. Sadly, the Virgin event as a stand-alone event had to win us all over. We entered in very negative mindsets and, had the event not been so incredibly, probably would have left unhappy. Props to whoever organized the event as a whole, it was fantastic.
I feel obliged here to also point out that this is not a case of blogger or influencers being crybabies (as has been insinuated on Twitter). As you can see it was an unfortunate chain of events that left many in an (understandably) negative mindset. If you spend 20 minutes with customer service and get incorrect information, you complain. If you feel you were neglected, mis-informed or bounced around, you complain. ‘Influencer’s’ (I use the term loosely) are no different. Social Media is built upon open communication and if you don’t like that it may be time to leave online entrepreneurship.
