Who Influences the Influencer? Response to Travis Murdock's blog

I’m a huge fan of Edelman’s reputation of public relations efforts. I follow Steve Rubel on Twitter (@steverubel) to gain insight on new tech trends and lifestreaming – a concept that I’m not sure I can grab ahold of. So, when Travis Murdock, Senior Account Supervisor at A&R Edelman, tagged Rubel in this blog post, I listened. I’m always intrigued by anything that the Edelman minds think up and this topic really intrigued me as a self-proclaimed Influencer.

For public relations professionals who are trying to get the biggest bang for their publicity buck, influencing the influencer is a great bet in broadcasting a clear consistent message. When looking at marketing ICFJ’s photo auction, I wanted to make sure we researched and reached people who would appreciate both fine art and classic photojournalism… and who had deep pockets to help out our cause.

Travis hits the target by listing some of the best ways to research your Influencers: Friendfeed, Twitter, RSS feeds, Facebook, and more. Searching through FriendFeed subscriptions, past Facebook activity, and Twitter hashtags are all beneficial, but it begs the question: doesn’t this slightly resemble stalking? I am an advocate for thorough research, but it seems that pulling their entire online history may be a bit invasive. On the other hand, if people put specific information out there with the understanding that it can be seen by everyone, then why shouldn’t we use it as research?

What are your thoughts? At what point does research become too in depth that it resembles stalking? What are some ways to research your Influencers’ activity on the Internet, other than what Travis suggests?

I’m all ears…

(Make sure you read Travis's entire blog post here: http://blog.travismurdock.com Great guy!)