Jim Larrison

Best Practices for Influencer Collaboration

Speaking Topic

Leading brands are increasingly recognizing that it is important to complement paid media campaigns with high-engagement earned media efforts. After all, when consumers are asked which sources most influence their purchase decisions, it is recommendations from people they trust that they always name first, not paid advertising messages. The power of word of mouth marketing is only increasing as social functionalities are woven into the fabric of all digital media.

Of particular value to brands are influencers – passionate, outspoken consumers who are highly active in a chosen niche, and who have a trusting audience. Forward-thinking brands have recently upped their efforts to win influencer mindshare. Their approach toward working with influencers, however, has often had serious flaws. In the best cases, these flaws create inefficiency, and make the brands’ earned media campaigns difficult to replicate and scale. In the worst cases, they can alienate influencers and damage brand equity.

Jim Larrison, who has helped brands such as General Mills, Martha Stewart and Disney build valuable alliances with influencers, will describe brands’ needs in this area, and will deep-dive on best practices for influencer collaboration.

About Jim Larrison

Jim Larrison is GM & Co-Founder of Dynamic Signal, a white-label enterprise platform company focused on brand marketing through conversations and word of mouth marketing.  In his role as GM of Corporate Development, Jim focuses on driving new businesses and markets, while guiding product innovation and customer successes.

Prior to founding Dynamic Signal, Jim was an early employee at a handful of successful start-ups.  Jim was the Chief Revenue Officer at Adify, a digital advertising platform that was acquired by Cox Enterprises for over $300MM in 2008. Prior to Adify, Jim was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development for comScore, where he was responsible running a commercial business unit focused on financial, telecom, and government sectors. Larrison led the development of many cutting edge applications, including the first technology used to collect and report integrated online traffic patterns and buying activity across the entire Web.

Before joining comScore, he held management positions at leading US companies such as: Information Resources, Lever Brothers, and Vision Quest Research. Jim received a BS in Marketing from Bradley University and MS in Information Systems from DePaul University.

Jim lives in Chicago, IL with his wife and two sons.   He is on several local boards, including the Information Technology Commission for the District of Columbia, and serves as Vice Chairman of the Alexandria Sanitation Authority. He invests in early stage start-ups, including Red Answers, Social Trust, and TiqIQ.    Jim is a movie fanatic, local politico, blogger, and photographer.  You can read more about Jim at About.me/Jim-Larrison