Ann Handley is the epitome of a personal brand. Not only is her name her equity but as Chief Content Officer she has also become the face and voice behind MarketingProfs, a one-stop-shop for educational marketing materials. (In the off chance you live under a rock and aren't familiar with Ann Handley, do yourself a favor and get to know her.) Even the savviest marketers could use a little guidance sometimes, right? MarketingProfs helps you stay on the moving target.
MarketingProfs’ tenth annual B2B Marketing Forum (#MPB2B) will take place October 18-21st in Boston. This quirky event brings together B2B marketers to swap secrets to success (and could easily be renamed The Annual Ann-Handley-Palooza). Given the impact that Ann has on MPB2B we decided to investigate Ann’s influence on the MPB2B speaker community.
How to Define Online Influence
At Traackr, influence is determined by people’s online interactions and engagement with one another. For example, if you like, retweet, favorite, and comment on Ann Handley’s posts, then it can be assumed that you are influenced by her. When you engage in someone’s content, there is a basic assumption that you are subjecting yourself to their thoughts and opinions, and are being influenced by that person. However, influence is not always mutual. You can influence others and others can influence you.
Influence can be a one-way or two-way road. For example, Erika Heald and Ann Handley mutually influence each other on a very strong level. These two Chief Content Officers have mentioned each other 54 times and retweeted 7 times in the past 90 days. Michael Brenner, on the other hand, strongly influences Ann Handley with 15 mentions and 3 retweets from Ann within the past 90 days. The screenshots below come directly from Ann’s influencer profile, which is an aggregate of all her public online presences. This data drives insights into who influences who and how strong that influence really is. Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, both Erika and Michael will be at MPB2B next week.
Who Does Ann Handley Influence at MPB2B?
To understand Ann’s influence around MPB2B speakers, we built a project with all of the speakers at the event. The screenshot below is the network map, a visualization of the online connections that exist within this group. It should come as no surprise that Ann is the most engaged within this community, influencing 31 people. (Followed by CMI’s personal brand, Joe Pulizzi, who influences 23 people.) See the full list of MPB2B speakers influenced by Ann below (in no order).
- Stephan Hovnanian, Content Solutions Architect, Bambu by Sprout Social, Sprout Social, Inc.
- Loren Todd McDonald, Marketing Evangelist/Client Success, IBM Marketing Cloud
- Christopher Penn, Vice President of Marketing Technology, SHIFT Communications
- Matt Heinz, President, Heinz Marketing Inc.
- Ardath Albee, CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist, Marketing Interactions
- Andy Crestodina, Strategic Director, Orbit Media Studios, Inc.
- Scott Monty, CEO & Founder, Scott Monty Strategies, LLC
- Michael Brenner, CEO, Marketing Insider Group
- Andrew Davis, Author, Brandscaping
- Tamsen Webster, Executive Producer, TEDxCambridge
- Jay Acunzo, Founder, Host & Writer, Unthinkable Media
- Mitch Joel, President, Mirum Agency
- Jason Miller, Group Manager, Global Content and Social Media Marketing, LinkedIn
- Joe Pulizzi, Founder, Content Marketing Institute
- Doug Kessler, Creative Director & Co-Founder, Velocity Partners
- Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Marketing
- Ja-Nae Duane, Bestselling Author, The Startup Equation
- Shaun Dakin, CEO and Founder, Dakin Associates
- Kerry O'Shea Gorgone, Instructional Design Manager, Enterprise Training, MarketingProfs
- Rob Zaleski, Marketing Manager, MarketingProfs
- Eric T. Tung, Co-Founder and Board Memeber, Social Media Association of Houston
- Erika Heald, Content Marketing and Social Media Consultant, Erika Heald Consulting
- Mark Schaefer, Keynote speaker, Schaefer Marketing Solutions
- Sam Hurley, Managing Director, OPTIM-EYEZ
- Tony Mack, Creative Director / Inbound Marketing Consultant, One Source Graphics, Inc.
- Jan Gordon, CEO, Publisher and Editor in Chief, Curatti
- Björn Owen Glad, Marketing Manager, Spoon Publishing
- Jay Baer, Author, Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers
- Gail Gardner, Small Business Marketing Strategist, GrowMap.com
- Jeff Julian, Chief Marketing Officer, AJi
- Drew McLellan, Owner, Agency Management Institute
Who Influences Ann Handley at MPB2B?
Potentially more valuable than who Ann influences, is who influences her. Using the same network map and project of MPB2B speakers, we can flip the direction of the influence to understand who has Ann’s ear. The 16 people below are influential in Ann’s world. Understanding who these people are and why they are influential to Ann could provide valuable insights that would otherwise not be possible. Additionally, these people would be ideal to “socially surround,” if you were trying to get on Ann’s radar.*
- Loren Todd McDonald, Marketing Evangelist/Client Success, IBM Marketing Cloud
- Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Marketing
- Jay Acunzo, Founder, Host & Writer, Unthinkable Media
- Jason Miller, Global Content & Social Media Marketing Leader, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
- Mark Schaefer, Social media keynote speaker, author, & consultant**
- Björn Owen Glad, Marketing Manager, Spoon Content**
- Joe Pulizzi, Founder, Content Marketing Institute
- Scott Monty, CEO & Founder, Scott Monty Strategies, LLC
- Doug Kessler, Creative Director & Co-Founder, Velocity Partners
- Ardath Albee, B2B Content Marketing Strategist, Writer, Storyteller & Author of Digital Relevance
- Andy Crestodina, Co-founder of Orbit Media
- Rob Zaleski, Marketing Manager, MarketingProfs
- Andrew Davis, Author, Brandscaping and Founder, Monumental Shift
- Erika Heald, Chief Content Officer, SpinSucks
- Stephan Hovnanian, Content Solutions Architect, Bambu by Sprout Social, Sprout Social, Inc.
- Michael Brenner, CEO, Marketing Insider Group
*All the names that appear on this list have mutual influence with Ann.
**Although Mark Schaefer & Björn Owen Glad are not attending the conference, they are both tightly woven within this network and influence Ann.
The strong connections between Ann and the speakers tell a bigger story than simply “both are following each other on Twitter.” This is a community that Ann has built around MarketingProfs, and an extremely influential one.
Kickstart Your Influencer Marketing Like a Pro at MPB2B
The Traackr team will be attending and speaking at Ann-Handley-Palooza B2B Marketing Profs. Our Fearless Leader Traackr’s Co-Founder and CEO, Pierre-Loic Assayag, will be speaking about how to Kickstart Your Influencer Marketing Like A Pro: What SAP Gained By Scaling Influencer Relationships. We will be joined by SAP VP of Influencer Marketing, Jim Dever on October 20th from 3:15 to 4:15pm to discuss how SAP is scaling influencer marketing through long-term relationships. Whether you’ve already launched an influencer strategy or are still struggling to identify your influencers, this session is for you.
If you are looking for more influencer marketing sessions at MPB2B we HIGHLY suggest Lee Odden’s session appropriately named Sexy Hot B2B Influencer Activation. Lee’s session will highlight the art and science of romancing B2B industry influencers to collaborate, co-create, and advocate content using leading influencer marketing tools.
Will we see you at #MPB2B? Tweet us and let us know at @Traackr. (We might even have a special event to invite you to.) See you in Boston!