This is the second of two articles introducing participants in the upcoming PubTechConnect Breakfast Panel on Influencer Marketing. The panel will take place on Wednesday, November 14th from 8:30 to 11:00 AM and is co-hosted by The NYU School of Professional Studies Center for Publishing and PW.
This debut breakfast panel discussion will look at the rapidly expanding use of influencer marketing. What are the nuts and bolts of how it works, and what are the benefits–and pitfalls–of using influencer marketing to promote books?
The breakfast will gather six very different panelists with different perspectives, all of whom have considerable knowledge to share about influencer marketing.
Suzanne Skyvara is vice president, communications for Goodreads. With more than 80 million members, Goodreads is the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations. Skyvara will share her insights on how Goodreads can help authors and publishers break out a book, including the power of early pre-publication reviews by Goodreads influencers. Skyvara has 20 years of communications experience, working with leading consumer brands in the U.S., England & Australia. Prior to Goodreads, she had her own PR consultancy, and also worked at Fleishman-Hillard, a global communications agency.
Brittany Hennessy is the bestselling author of Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media. Co-founder of Carbon, a technology company that builds solutions for influencers, she is the former director of influencer strategy & talent partnerships at Hearst Digital Media. Brittany is also a member of the Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts and Sciences, for which she judges the annual Shorty Awards and the Shorty Social Good Awards. In 2007, Hennessy created ChiChi212.com, which was nominated Best Nightlife Blog by Paper magazine, and she became an influencer for Bacardi, Popchips, Svedka, and The Gap. An early adopter and “influencer whisperer,” she is excited to share her insights with you.
Adam Small is a partner and co-founder of Southern Made, a Nashville-based digital solutions lab that works with publishing, entertainment, and consumer lifestyle brands to create influencer marketing campaigns, promotions, and augmented reality and voice applications to drive consumer engagement. Clients include Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HBO, Lionsgate, NBC, Universal Music, Live Nation, LVMH, PepsiCo, and Constellation Brands. A serial entrepreneur who is passionate about building long lasting business relationships as well as mentorship, Small will present a variety of digital activations which have utilized influencers within book publishing as well as other industries in order to illustrate a spectrum of potential avenues to explore the role of influencer marketing. Prior to launching Southern Made, he was involved in numerous start-ups within the healthcare, technology, and event services sectors as an operator, advisor and investor.
Also featured on the panel (and profiled in our previous article about the PubTechConnect breakfast) will be: Karah Preiss, co-founder of the online reading community Belletrist with actress Emma Roberts; Leslie Prives, senior director, consumer engagement and analytics, Penguin Random House; and moderator Kristin Fassler, vice president, director of integrated marketing, Atria Publishing Group at Simon & Schuster.
