Influence and influencers online, the thin line between sharing and spamming
It’s an eggplant! It’s a meatball! It’s… Super Grover!
Do you remember Super Grover? Yeah, the Muppet who taught us the differences between left and right and up and down is back. Well, try to imagine him back to show you the difference between delivering information in different networks and spamming.
But, first of all, before we start, we need to understand what an influencer is, because I’m beginning to think we have been a little misled here.
As the name indicates, an influencer is someone who has the power to influence others, that is, the power to make people change their opinions, to make people start doing things differently. I’m sure we can all name some influencers in our lives: athletes, celebrities, journalists maybe, politicians… mainly “famous” people.
We all have the power to influence someone. I undoubtedly influence my closest circles (my family, friends, colleagues…). But am I an influencer because of this? I wouldn’t say so.
Size matters — but it’s not enough.
So, who is an influencer? Are there any skills required to be one? Is it up to you to say you are an influencer? And, more than that, does influence work the same offline as it does online? Who determines the influence? Is there a tool able to measure if someone is really an influencer on a given topic?
According to the influencer definition given by Cool Brands, he or she
“is a person who is well-connected and who is regarded as influential and in-the-know; someone who is looked to for advice, direction, knowledge and opinions. People like CEOs, CMOs, PR Professionals, Creative People, Bloggers, Journalists and other Experts.”
We can see the meaning of “famous” has changed. Today, bloggers might be very famous in their niche, and influence their audiences. I’ve seen, in some cases, these audiences grow from zero to several thousands of people in networks like Twitter.
People who were “nobodies” some years ago, have become influencers because they found a gap somewhere and they filled it for their audiences. Social networks have increased these people’s influence due to their multiplying effect. But influence is nothing without these followers echoing a message.
It’s clear — an influencer must have a large network.
I’ve also seen people trying to seek out the influencer’s heaven in many ways. One of the most popular is spamming. Well, they don’t think they are spamming, but they are.
So, posting your latest article to hundreds of accounts is spam. Posting your latest article every two hours is spam. Sending out an unrequested email is spam. DM-ing or mentioning all your followers is spam. Yes, I know the audience of each of these accounts might be different, but we all know they belong to you. Your size is not equivalent to the number of your accounts. And the size of these audiences is important if your followers really engage with what you say.
And that’s what counts. I prefer a really engaged community of 1000 followers, than a community of 100k never reading or sharing what I tweet.
Measuring influence
That’s another funny thing. There are some tools that supposedly rank your online influence. But…
You can be a super master of the Universe at Kred and Klout without necessarily influencing the whole universe.
Ok, so a Klout 72 supposedly recognizes you as an influencer, but not a superstar? Does anyone really believe that a high Klout score means something? Having a high Klout score only means you are highly active on social media, but it doesn’t reflect the quality of your posts or the quality of your audience (in terms of engagement, of course). An Instagram picture with, let’s say, 20 likes, scores higher than a thoughtful tweet with 10 RTs. And, of course, the trick involving someone sending the same message through 70 different networks also scores high for the Klout rank. Great… I would be allowed in the VIP lounge of Cathay Pacific airlines… so what?
Real influencers
They never say they are influencers. That’s a big point. Even if they have an amazing reach every time they post a picture of their toes, they shut their mouths. They never write posts about how to become an influencer because that’s bullshit. The only way to become a real influencer is, excuse the repetition, by really influencing others.
Do something exceptional and be humble — that’s what it’s all about.
