In today’s day and age, it is important to put yourself “out there” in the digital world. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn and other social media tools can really help in the PR industry (but not only that—having an online presence can be helpful in many careers). It’s not enough to just create profiles on these sites and follow a few of your peers. The key to having a successful online presence has to do with influence. One must become an online influencer. But what does that mean and how can you become one?
Influence can be defined as the ability to shape thoughts, perceptions, or behavior. So how do you know if you are an influencer? There are several clues to look for.
Several ways to spot an influencer include:
-Popularity: an obvious indicator
-Expertise: to be influential, one must be an expert in their subject
-Listening: a good listener is influential
-Quantity of followers
-The ratio between the number of a user’s followers and the number of other people that the user follows (his audience, or as we designate in this report, followees) -2nd article
Just think about how many times you’ve bought something and it’s been rubbish, so you go to Amazon and give it a bad review (or a good review, if you loved it). In this way, billions of consumers ‘work’ as “citizen marketers,” influencing how brands are perceived by other potential consumers. Brands themselves can do nothing, comment, or encourage such people, but they will still be an influence, no matter what. In a recent article [link], Brian Solis mentions, “Aside from the disciplines and behavior our profession dictates, we are far more than communicators, marketers, publishers or chroniclers of life events. We are also knowledgeable people with ideas, opinions, observations, and experiences that cannot be discounted. We bring opinions, experiences, rapture, and frustrations to each conversation as a consumer. But when its time to reach our peers and colleagues, we regress to broadcasters and purveyors of information and lose site of how what we represent truly impacts those we’re trying to reach.” Very true!
A 2009 post entitled Social Media Reading – Influencers mentions that “Under most conditions that we consider, we find that large cascades of influence are driven not by influentials but by a critical mass of easily influenced individuals.”
A 2009 post entitled Social Media Reading – Influencers
mentions that “Under most conditions that we consider, we find that large
cascades of influence
While there may be many ways of measuring influence, there are several things a person ca do to get noticed:
-Listen with care: you are more likely to be influential if you listen.
-Read blogs: know what’s out there—be informed.
-Read comments: not only the blog posts are important. Comments let you know how others feel!
-Comment: create a two-way communication path
-Be authentic: people will be able to connect with you
Focusing my studies in the area of PR, I realize it is very important that I become influential through my online presence. What I say matters, and influences others. I do, however need to take into consideration that I am, at the present moment, not very influential, and should probably do my best to work on that. There may not be a foolproof way of going about that, but using the resources and knowledge I have gained in class this week, I will give it a shot.
-V
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