I spoke to a public software company yesterday about an influencer program they want to setup.
They framed it in such a brilliant way. Experts in Residency.
I love it and I'm going to steal that moving forward.
I have always disliked the term influencers. Creators is a bit better. But experts is spot on.
An influencer is not necessarily an expert. And some experts aren't great at influencing, yet if they are taught how to use their expertise to influence for good purposes, than they will be the ones that get the most attention.
What would an experts in residency program look like?
I think it belongs as part of a content or community team, or better yet those two teams are part of one overall team. Like how I structured the team when I was at Drift.
The program would could have two or three different types of expert tiers each with benefits for the experts and for the company.
I would try and make a micro-community of these experts with the program.
Getting the experts to learn together and get value outside of the monetary compensation and brand name association that comes with the commercial side of the relationship would be a big win.
Holding a monthly get together, bringing them to an event once a year, and trying to create regular dialogue between the experts.
Having them do content creation, webinars, research, attend events, and give direction on the product could all be part of this program.