Influencers. It’s the next big social media catchphrase and it kind of makes me want to vomit. Why? Because it’s just another intangible that people are making up idiotic equations for and pouncing around announcing their self-proclaimed genius.
Way back when(March 2009) , Mashable gave us this theoretical equation: Influence = (Personal Brand * Knowledge * Trust2).
While it’s a good thinking theoretically, practically- it’s stupid. Trust makes a massive part of this equation and is generally immeasurable. You can “approximate” trust through other metrics, but then are you really measuring trust or something else such as mass appeal or return visits? I visit Perez Hilton’s site often, but it’s definitely not because I trust him. Just like Mr. Perez, quasi-related metrics are ALWAYS biased. Plus most of the metrics proposed in this article are more measurements of a brand value than anything else. Likely because trust and knowledge are nearly impossible to measure since they are entirely relative. This is a theoretical equation, but not one that actually works in practice. It’s excellent example of the biggest flaw in the space currently- too much thinking in ideals, too little thinking about how to make practical application feasible. I could argue this further, but that’s NOT the point of this post.
The point is, people are confused. They’re baffled by how they match up everything. They know that in a world of millions of messages they have to pick and choose who they respond to- simply because it’s impossible to address every piece of online content. Thus was born the term “ influencers” which became a proxy for pretty much every possible engagement population in social media. “Make sure we alert influencers of our campaign. Take care to address influencers needs. What are influencers saying about our brand?” The list goes one and one with one common theme, the word “influencers”. Barf. Double barf.
Here’s the thing, when you see some one’s social media profile and activity where available; you’re missing one thing. Context. All you can see is who they are online and whom they digitally interact with on a single social site. The full picture of online social activity is not currently measurable. That activity on one site is a very small part of the picture. I am sure many of us have singel site relationships that are further supported by other online & even offline engagement. For example, say I have a friend Alice, who I see quite often. We may share messages occasionally online, but it’s far less then I share online with other people. However, I would consider Alice one of my best friends even though it may not be discernible on open access social sites ( twitter, blogs, etc). However, I am pretty certain if I ever needed some one to go to bat for me, Alice would be there regardless of how strong our “public” online relationship is.
Now lets pretend I am a nobody on social media (that’s not hard to pretend -I kind of am 
) and Alice is a uber elite social media guru. And to drive this story forward let’s say I am refused service at McDonald’s because I want to order a happy meal & I am not a child. Remember this is all hypothetical. If I get pissed off and write a blog post on my experience and & it’s valid issue, Alice might go to bat for me and spread the message. So while up until this point I am not measurably “influential”- all the sudden, without warning, the story spreads. Why? Because there was no way to predict digitally I was connected to Alice or further more that she would go to bat for me. Proof that, in general, online conversation is not predictable (yet).
So here’s my take on influencers. The concept is a load of rubbish- at least in the way people currently think about it. I think the term generally leads us to black and white perceptions of customers and friends and so forth. You’re either and influencer and valuable to my [insert marketing terminology such as campaign, brand awareness, promotion] or you’re not. And lets be honest the world (and the internet) is rarely black and white. Instead I think the question we should be asking instead of “how do I isolate influencers?” is “how do we monitor what conversations matter & which are just noise? “
My thoughts:
1. Know your community
Learn who the biggest voices are in your target areas. Explore the landscape and understand the strengths and weaknesses in how conversations travel within your niche. Don’t just learn about it, be an expert.
2. Keep your ear to the ground
Simple street smarts-watch your back. It’s not a novel concept, but one many companies large and small forget to do it. Who can blame them? It’s easy to get caught up in reporting and forget that one of listening’s biggest strengths is the ability to spot a storm before it forms.
3. Adapt, grow, & learn the hard way
Brands are going to make mistakes, and the first reaction is always going to be to freak out, As result, especially after a crisis, companies try to monitor every single brand mention. That’s not sustainable. The fact is, and I say this all the time, monitoring has and element of trial and error to it. The idea is to focus on growth and admit up front that there will bumps along the way. Key phrase here- you marketers will love this- hockey stick approach.
I’ll be the first to admit that there is more to this story than is in this blog post. The space, in general, is not evolved. And yes, there is that tricky feat of operationalizing this thinking to work for thousands, perhaps millions of conversations. I’ve got some good ideas on how to do this, but I’m keeping my mouth shut. Let’s call it “competitive advantage”.
