More about influence being different online

On Thursday a number of people I follow on Twitter were at the Arts Marketing Association conference and as expected the #ama10 hashtag was peppered with interesting nuggets amongst the “surely this should be blindingly obvious by now?”

Curiously it was a throwaway comment by Christian Payne reported by Rob Lindsay from BRB that caught my attention and got me on my high horse. [Update: In a typical Twitter-storm way I'm misatributed - Rob's asked me to clarify that it was his glib comment made during Christian's talk and wants to make that clear. Sorry Christian.]

I responded that this “reeks of early adopter self-importance” but that’s unfair as I’m sure it wasn’t the thrust of Christian’s presentation [Update: it wasn't!] and I’m certain I’ve used the line a few times. What worried me was that this kind of approach to Twitter and the like might be seen as a sensible and comprehensive strategy by someone new to the concept of marketing over social networks.

Part of my worry is that marketing in a conversation space is hard and no-one to my knowledge has really figured out how best to do it, so an idea that connects easily with traditional marketing techniques is going to resonate quite strongly. And yes, getting well connected people involved in your project so they amplify your message is a good thing to do. You should be doing this anyway be they Twitterers, bloggers, radio DJs, members of the parish council or politicians in high office. Even a monkey like me that shies away from anything with PR attached to it knows this is PR 101.

The problem I see is that influence online is quite different to influence offline. How it’s different is, of course, complicated but I’ve had a stab at it before – see last year’s Influence is weird and Towards a Theory of Yurtification.

So here’s the thing. I think you shouldn’t rely on the influential Twitter users in your sphere too much because the nature of Twitter means they’re influence isn’t that great really.

• Twitter makes it easy to connect with people. This is great but the importance of those connections is lessened. This is not an indictment on Twitter (I have good friends I only communicate with through Twitter and my connection with them is strong) but merely an observation that when something is easy that doesn’t automatically make it worth anything.
• It’s a two way street. I can ignore you as easily as I can listen to you, and when I listen to you my attention is variable on my terms. In other words the listener controls the influence. This is radically different to, say, the newspaper journalist who could dictate the reception of a message by putting it on the front page, or an advertising agency by buying all the billboards. (cf Tom Ewing’s What Happens When A Celebrity Links You On Twitter?)
• The number of followers someone has on Twitter has very little bearing on how they are perceived in someone’s stream. Their tweets are not bigger or flashier – they look just the same as your friend’s tweets. The difference is in the content and how it resonates with the reader.
• This brings in a law of diminishing returns. The more people you’re addressing the less personal you can be. My favourite illustration of this is the threat videos of gurgling babies with 10 views on YouTube pose to broadcast television networks. Given the choice between a glossy TV show with a famous cast and a badly shot 5 minute video of my newborn nephew I know which I’ll choose to watch over and over.

It’s not that you shouldn’t involve the well-networked seasoned communicators. Having someone like that on your team can help inspire others to get the message out and help you avoid some easy mistakes. Better to think of them as guides who can help you navigate the terrain than couriers who can deliver your message for you.

How you craft that message and how it travels through the network is another thing altogether.