Today I saw 2 more threads in the ongoing debate over whether social media popularity is a good way to measure influence.
First, my colleague Duncan Brown writes that Google is launching an AdWords-style SEM program across big social networks.
As an online publisher, I can see how this Google program makes perfect sense for media buyers. It will play from Madison Avenue to Main Street. After all, the big advertisers say they plan to shift their remaining 2008 and 2009 spending, cutting traditional ad spending while increasing spending on word of mouth and other forms of social media. (For the latest CMO study visit Epsilon; hat tip to Ken Rutowski for flagging it in his newsletter.) Google is offering just the right media product to pick up those extra dollars and euros. I’ve got no issue there.
However, I do see a potential downside. Call it collateral damage. Google is portraying the program as a measure of influence. Duncan describes the confusion this could cause:
“If Google’s plans get more firms to talk about influence, then fine. But I fear that it will dumb influence down to a few ‘magic’ numbers that have tenuous relevance to real influence.”
Meanwhile, Graham Hill and I compared notes this morning on Peter Kim’s post, “Influencer Lists as Ego Traps“. We came up agreeing, in Graham’s words:
“Popular people are not necessarily good influencers. And influencers are not necessarily popular. There is much more to it than that.”
We’ve got some very bright people on both sides of the debate — those advocating that we equate influence with popularity/connectedness, those advising against it. Neither side is ready to blink.
In the end, the media buyers may have the final vote on whether online popularity is the path to the influentials.
Popularity: 2%
October 20th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Hi Barbara,
Re whether “online popularity is the path to the influentials,” I think it might be, but only for stuff (products, opinions, etc) that is dependent on mass consumer online markets. I can completely accept that buying a digital camera online will be influenced by a consensus of popular opinion. I completely disagree that popularity sways a decision to outsource your IT department or to purchase an ERP system.
As ever, it’s horses for courses. Much of the influence debate is polarised mainly because we’re talking about different products/services to different markets.
Did I just blink?!
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Hmmm. I guess you did.
Seriously, Duncan, you do have a well balanced view on measuring influence and influencers. Your point of view is also well informed from your years of work as an industry analyst.
But let’s face it: you are hardly typical of the people proclaiming who is more popular/influential, and who is less popular/influential. There’s just too much misinformation about influence measurement being published, aggregated, cited, and bookmarked.
Happily, another bright mind has joined the conversation that Peter started — check out Kate Niederhoffer’s post, Influence influenza.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Interesting debate, echoing the one that got started among my fellow Enterprise Irregulars when I announced that my blog on ZDNet was being canceled due to the lack of an appropriate number of page views. I got things started by arguing that raw page views, particularly on a PC-centric, consumery site like ZDNet, were no measure of influence, especially in the more complex, nuanced world of enterprise software. ZDNet editor Larry Dignan’s response was to fall back on the perception that page views measure influence, though he had no supporting data. I jokingly offered to find 20 enterprise software CEOs who read my blog to provide testimonials: I know am beginning to think it’s not such a ridiculous idea. Figuring how to measure real influence would be useful all around.
Meanwhile I have moved my blog to Wordpress, where I at least won’t have to worry about whether I’m meeting expectations for popularity and page views. Influence, however, is still the primary goal.
Josh