Swelling Twitter numbers? Don’t mistake popularity for influence
What new insights can we learn about the mercurial properties of influence from Hewlett-Packard, a company who’s chief influencer, Mark Hurd, is now out of a job for wining and dining a former B-movie actress on the company dime? Well, as Hurd now knows: don’t be seduced by fleeting fame. What really matters is who listens to you, respects your opinion and repeats what you have to say. That’s the true definition of influence. Yes, there’s a a Twitter angle here.We’ve warned here a few times here about the perils of the “follower fallacy” – i.e., taking too much stock in your follower numbers. Whether it be a figure or a brand, influence is not measured in how many people follow you. That’s called popularity and while it may get you an invite to an A-list party, it’s not going to earn you respect. We refer to this as the Nutella Syndrome of online influence as in, yes, everyone likes it, but at the end of the day it’s just a chocolate spread. A damn tasty one, we should add.
Back to H-P now and its findings… Scientists at its Social Computing Lab just completed a rigorous study of Twitter activity that more or less validated that celebrity is a far cry from influence. Tom Foremski at ZDNet outlines the most crucial findings as:
- Most Twitter users are passive, they do not re-Tweet.
- There is a difference between popularity and influence. High numbers of followers does not equal influence because those followers do not re-Tweet.
- To become influential, Twitter users must somehow persuade their followers to re-Tweet.
For greater detail, here’s the full scientific paper on HP’s online influence findings:
Influence and Passivity in Social Media – HP Labs Research
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SMI writes:: Swelling Twitter numbers? Don’t mistake popularity for influence http://bit.ly/9LBxDT
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Swelling Twitter numbers? Don’t mistake popularity for influence http://ow.ly/1qNxqA #socialmedia
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Swelling Twitter numbers? Don’t mistake popularity for influence http://ow.ly/1qNxqA #socialmedia
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Reading: Swelling Twitter numbers? Don’t mistake popularity for influence http://bit.ly/c1F1Kb >interesting insights
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[...] the “follower fallacy” – i.e., buying popularity. We’ve also pointed out that popularity does not equate to influence in the discerning world of social media. New research now shows yet another side: marketers are [...]
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