Several weeks back I had the opportunity to host a
#socialmedia chat (#sm75 to be exact) on the differences between influence and popularity in social media. First of all, forgive the fact that it has taken me this long to write a recap. I had planned to write this several weeks ago but, as usual, duty called.
We covered a wide-range of topics, but some of the core questions included:
- How do you define influence and popularity?
- What metrics can help define influence or popularity?
- Which (popularity or influence) is most important?
- How does relevance factor into influence? Popularity?
- What did Fast Company do well? What could’ve been improved?
It’s always been my feeling that we should be looking for people to talk with online who could, potentially, influence others in a meaningful way. We’ve talked about it some here, and anyone who’s seen me speak knows I rail against the notion of chasing the big numbers online. I don’t care if
Ashton Kuchar has a kagillion (technical term) followers if he’s not talking about anything relevant to my brand. If someone has a large network and is also relevant to my brand then that is what’s golden.
That being said, this chat opened my eyes to the possibilities of leveraging popularity and the question as to whether popularity and influence are mutually exclusive terms online.
Matt Ridings, known to most everybody as
techguerilla on Twitter, raised a couple of great points along these lines. His point was that the two items – influence and popularity – can both be used in any social media effort. What it really boils down to are the campaign’s goals. That’s not necessarily an angle I had ever considered before, but think there’s definitely legitimacy to the point. Are we attempting to reach the most eyeballs online (lets save the philosophical debate on whether that’s appropriate online for another time, thanks)? If so, maybe we want to find someone who can (potentially) reach the most people. What if we’re trying to change behaviors? Then, we might be looking for someone who has a large network, but could also influence someone into doing something.
That brings us to our other key takeaway: Are popularity and influence mutually exclusive terms? Does popularity make up one component of influence, or do we want to target people who are either popular or influential? My inclination is to say we need to be targeting both, and that they are terms that definitely intertwine. Admittedly, though, my preference would be for us (social media practitioners) to target those who are influential. Again, our primary goal should be altering behaviors.
After 60 minutes, 96 participants and 537 tweets I’m not sure we answered anything completely but I think we’re furthering the discussion on the importance of both in social media. What say you?
