This debate has been going on since social media and social networking has started. What’ more valuable and what is influence? People that have influence in a small niche group or popular people with tons of followers?
A study conducted by Vocus and Brian Solis was reported by eMarketer and found that marketers are already suspect of large numbers of followers and their true value. Better said, it is all about popularity vs. influence, with influence being the desired target of most marketers.
The new report from Vocus and FutureWorks principal Brian Solis throws a healthy dose of skepticism on the supposed correlation between popularity and influence. The report—provocatively titled “Influencer Grudge Match: Lady Gaga versus Bono”—surveyed 739 marketing and communications professionals who work with influencers to gauge their perceptions of what makes an influencer.
While the numbers pointed to more marketers seeing influencers with smaller groups of tightly connected friends being the more desirable target v. larger groups with loose or no connection (57% v. 44%) how they end of measuring success in campaigns falls back on quantity trumping quality. Presumably this is because it’s the easiest metric to obtain and is more objective (or is it?). The chart below bears this out.
.What’s your thoughts. When you’re trying to get your message out do you look for influencers that might not have many followers but their active in a niche network? Or do you try to get someone to tweet your message that has a large following base?
