Regular readers know that I have been covering the Mobile space for the last few years because I believe it's rapidly evolving the world. Even now, I am more bullish about the possibilities of mobile technologies and how they will enable consumers to live better lives.
For brands, the future is equally as bright. The ability to reach targeted consumers on mobile devices without having to interrupt their experience (and actually extenuate it) will be the new method for reaching consumers. Today's mobile advertising race to the bottom mentality of bad ads, accidental ad clicks, and contextually irrelevant ad videos are just a blip on an old DynaTac display.
Mobile advertisers are beginning to discover new ways to reach mobile consumers and they're doing it without interrupting game play, while reading news articles or consuming other forms of content. I've covered companies like P4RC and Kiip (Brian Wong is #14 on the list) before, they're proving that on mobile devices, there are much better ways to reach consumers than traditional forms of interrupt advertising.
But there are several other people that are educating people on the mobile advertising space. People that have clearly shown that whenever they discuss the topic, people listen and engage. So when I was approached by Impact Radius to work with them to identify the most influential in the space -- I agreed. We set out to find the people that are helping to shape and inform the industry -- then recognize them for their work. The thirty listed below don't always discuss mobile advertising, but when they do people engage and listen.
So with that as a backdrop, let's examine the top 30:
"The future of mobile advertising is context -- moving away from blasting messages at the masses and instead creating lasting value with the individual by connecting with them at the right place, the right time, and with the right offer," Benjamin Robbins told me (#14 on the list). Clearly Robbins gets it, and so do the rest of the people on the list.
Cindy Krum (#25) reminds us that with any advertising campaign, "Don't forget that a strong mobile SEO strategy should be in place to support any mobile advertising campaign. Prospects who are receiving and processing your marketing message will likely be searching online -- possibly directly from their phones, to find out more information. Apps do little good here - having a mobile websites that ranks and gives a good user experience is critical."
Methodology
David Ogilvy once wrote, "Many corporations have told me that they need only reach "thought-leaders" -- the people who influence other people. This sounds sensible, and not too expensive. The problem is that nobody really knows who the thought-leaders are."
Today, it's still a lot of work but because of the incredible amounts of data we can pull, it's possible to identify the most influential people in a space through social signals.
We created the top 30 Mobile Advertisers guide by using the social scoring system outlined in my book Socialized! The formula takes information collected from Little Bird (all of my influencer research begins there), Twtrland, Twitter, Kred, Klout, Facebook, Google+ and Alexa. We also use a service called "Fake Followers" as part of the formula to eliminate followers that are either inactive or are fake twitter accounts. Other than that, this is the same research and methodology that has been covered by the NY Times, Forbes and several other publications.
We also looked at each influencer in the context of mobile advertising. While not everyone on our list is focused on mobile advertising, when they did write about it, they moved the awareness and engagement needles the most.