Why Social Influence Matters to Businesses
Eight industry insiders define what social influence means, how to measure it, and why it truly matters.
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" 'Special' individuals have an important effect on the opinions, beliefs and consumption habits of a large number of 'ordinary' individuals..."
Social Media has forced businesses to reassess the definition of influence. Influencers are telling us what to do on a regular basis across the social sphere, but who is listening and how does it affect our behavior and buying decisions?
A trend that has gained considerable attention in recent years is measuring influence, both in real life and in the social world. Depending upon whom you talk to, these people who are termed to have influence also have considerable value in the marketing world and weight with other peers in Generation Y.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the traditional noun "influence" as: The power or ability to affect someone's beliefs or actions, a person or thing with such ability or power, the power arising out of status, contacts, or wealth and the power to produce a physical change.
But real-world and social influence is far from the same thing, despite the unavoidable truth that social networks have considerable connecting power. "Whether they are called 'opinion leaders,' 'influentials,' 'influencers,' 'e-fluentials,' 'mavens' or by some other name, the idea that a small number of 'special' individuals have an important effect on the opinions, beliefs and consumption habits of a large number of 'ordinary' individuals has become conventional wisdom in the word-of-mouth marketing community," wrote Duncan Watts, the principal research scientist at Yahoo! Labs and a former professor of sociology at Columbia University, in a paper titled "Measuring Word of Mouth."
Inc.com's Lou Dubois spoke with eight different people who consider influence a big part of their job. The panelists, representing various backgrounds and beliefs on influence and in business, included:
Joe Fernandez: Founded San Francisco-based Klout in early 2008 to measure influence across the social web. The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence, with scores ranging from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.
Carol Leaman: CEO of PostRank Inc., an Ontario-based technology company that monitors and collects social engagement with online content in real-time across the web. Publishers and people interested in their content use PostRank Data Services and Analytics to gauge influence and reach with audiences.
Duncan Watts: Principal Research Scientist at Yahoo! Labs and a former professor of sociology at Columbia University, his research on influencers was listed among Harvard Business Review's Breakthrough Ideas for 2007, and published in the Journal of Consumer Research. He is the author of Everything is Obvious: Once You Know The Answer.
Matt Monahan: Director of social media at New York-based EpicSocial, the social advertising arm of The Epic Media Group. Matt is also a Stanford University graduate and thought-leader for new and innovative socially driven marketing platforms.
Eric Peterson: Senior partner and founder of Portland, Oregon-based Web Analytics Demystified and Twitalyzer, which measures five fundamental aspects of a individual or company's use of Twitter: influence, signal, generosity, velocity, and clout.
Mark Schaefer: Executive director of Knoxville-based Schaefer Marketing Solutions, with 28 years of global sales and marketing experience and advanced degrees in business and applied behavioral sciences. Schaefer is a frequent writer on the topic of influence.
Scott Roen: As vice president of OPEN Forum and new product & capabilities development at American Express, Roen manages a team charged with the development of new card products, reward platforms, and OPEN Forum.
Peter J. Auditore: Head of SAP's Business Influencer Program and is a senior fellow at the Society for New Communications Research. As a veteran of four technology startups including Zona Research, Survey.com and Exigen Group, Auditore has twenty years of experience in selling and marketing software to LE and SME organizations worldwide. He also assisted in development the Influencer Scorecard.
Why Social Influence Matters to Businesses: Definition of an Influencer
Leaman: An influencer is someone whose opinion or information has an impact on someone else's thought process or action. Their influence can be rooted in, or arise from, many things, for example:
. they are considered an "elder" and therefore full of wisdom and experience
. they are people with whom we have long-standing and respected relationships
. they are considered (rightly or wrongly) to be an expert or authority in a particular topic area, so there is a perceived level of belief, trust and accreditation
. they are "loud" and get attention (either positive or negative)
Watts: Everyone has their own definition of an "influencer" and they're rarely the same definition: sometimes the term is used to refer to "ordinary" individuals whose influence propagates via direct interpersonal networks. Other times it is used to refer to celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, whose influence propagates via the mass media. And at other times still it is used to refer to intermediate cases such as bloggers, columnists, experts, authors, and other semi-public figures whose influence is some mixture of mass and personal influence. In principle, there's nothing wrong with having different types of influencers, who exert different types of influence. But because people don't adequately specify what they mean when they talk about influencers, it's never really clear what they're talking about.
Auditore: An influencer is someone who is honest, trustworthy and knowledgeable, in addition to having a history of managing and creating influence flow through a large ecosystem. They also have a significant following with track record of consistent opinion that is objective and not influence by outside entities, they are not pay for play.
