Lots of chatter this week about this article from Fast Company, debunking the notion of a bunch of ‘Influentials’ - a theory by Ed Keller and Jon Berry that there is a set of people (the 10% of us who are super connectors) who allegedly set the tone for how the rest of us get information about how to live and what to buy.
I’m not sure I ever thought there was a cadre of people who ‘controlled’ everything, but I do think that getting the right information to certain people will help it spread quicker. I think of my friend Jack Horner at Frukt who just seems to know more people and speak to them on a more regular basis that anyone I know. He knows more friends from different parts of my social life than anyone else and is probably one of the most charismatc people I know. If I could get him excited by an idea, I’m sure it would get passed on pretty quickly. He’s an influential.
The problem is that I need to get him excited about the idea in the first place. Jack’s no slouch and he doesn’t get excited about just anything, so it would have to be a good idea in the first place.
Which leads to my dilemma. Is it that influentials are more influential because of their social standing, or is it that they have good social standing at least in part for their nose for a good idea?
Answers on a social bookmark, please.
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Joe 30 Jan 2008
ReportI think there are fewer preordained influentials than the whole tipping point/influential theory infers. But depending on the situation, brand objective there are those who will be better at spreading the word than others. They may be brand evangelists, early-adopters, connectors, influentials what ever, but the key is to Locate, Listen and Leverage these people. As we talked about in the Dolly Session “super-serving” this nucleus of people by giving them something valuable, surprising, useful and worth passing is essential.