Influential is one thing.
Popular is another.
Damon Cortesi inspired this post with his tweet
Influential is having or exerting influence others around you. Influential individuals are able to catalyze change. They are able to impact the course of events. Influential individuals can alter the path other people are taking and choices they make.
Popularity is not influential.
Being popular is to be regarded with favor. To be looked on with affection from many people. Being popular means everyone wants to be your friend. Being popular is to appeal to the masses.
It is easy to get confused between the two. Especially in an age of “Twilebrity”.
Being popular in social media is a completely different thing from being influential.
Being influential and being popular can look the same. Both get a great number of followers/fans/friends. Both get a great deal of RT’s and reposts. Both get mentioned a lot.
But let’s take a step back here. Let’s remember the substantial difference between influential and popular. Being popular means a lot of people like you. Being influential means you have the power to exert influence over others and make change.
It really comes down to quantity vs quality. You are Ashton Kutcher. You are popular because you have seventy bajillion followers. You are the hot girl in the class that everyone wants to be seen with or take under the bleachers. Or. You are Chris Brogan and you have 115K+ followers. People respect you. You are looked at as a thought leader in the space. Your ideas have merit within the community.
Being influential is not the same as being popular. Let us not forget this. Let us not get carried away with numbers (of followers) and concentrate rather our energy on the value we can add to the community. Let us please keep the popularity pageants and cafeteria squabbles over who gets to sit next to who away from the industry.
If this industry is to mature into something worthy of respect the differentiation between popularity and influence needs to be kept in the forefront of our minds. Otherwise, we will simply begin to eat our young during catty displays’ of sophomoric insanity.
So my question to the community is this: With the many similarities between influential and popular individuals, what are the characteristics that help you filter and define these people in your streams? Or…do you care?
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Influential people to me are the one’s that can come up with some original content (have their own blog with their own thoughts on it) as well as share the really good stuff they learn about. I guess a popular individual could also have a blog, but, perhaps it’s just more of a place where they sell their brand… like a celebrity might.
Now, do I care? It’s pretty easy to start weeding out the people that bring good content to their Twitter followers from those that don’t add any value. So I guess, I do care… I don’t follow people just because they have a bajillion followers… I’m almost inclined to intentional not want to follow those people.
@Peter – I’m with you on that front. Depending on the person of course and the level of engagement they appear to have with their followers. If they have a bajillion (scientific number) followers but also engage and interact then I’d be far more likely. I couldn’t agree more with the ‘sharing’ part combined with original content. I have a far greater level of respect for someone who is willing to share content and spread ideas aside from simply promoting their own content and/or agenda!
Valid concept Kristy
Since I’m neither popular nor influential all I can go is go with my own thinking here.
I think determining whether someone is influential or popular comes down to not judgment but discernment. Taking in what someone communicates and deciding whether what they offer truly helps and contributes positively to our lives in a “fun/follow the crowd to feel like we belong” manner or through something greater than that. Of course, that’s just my opinion.
And if that’s wrong, well there’s always ponies to make it all better!
@Alan I totally agree about the discernment. And lets be honest – we all use social media (Twitter especially) for different reasons. So your definition of influential vs popular will be made through that lense. It’s going to be different for everyone. And you know I’m always a fan of ponies. Every. Single. Time.
Twitter is the greatest masker of reality in terms of “influence”. As of late, I go to Twitter rarely, tweet even less frequently and generally regard the whole thing as an outlet for narcissism. However, I spend 8 hours a day as a consultant for some pretty impressive, influential companies, and then after hours, I answer countless questions for SEOmoz’s Q&A and work on my own projects. That is, I put heart and soul into giving out actionable advice, and following it myself, all day.
I guarantee you I influence more people’s money-oriented decisions than some gobby twat who has twice the Twitter followers I do. I don’t care that this goes under the radar. I’ve learned that not only is that where the real success is, but it makes for a much more peaceful life. I ain’t much of a religious nut (read: not at all), but the Bible sure is a good read sometimes:
http://bible.cc/matthew/6-5.htm
Amen Jane, Amen!! Real influence often does fly under the radar of the social media scene. That’s where the rubber meets the road. And wow – could that link have been more appropriate!!! lol
Bible as Literature, senior year at WSU, was the most interesting class of college
Awesome post Kristy. I know we have talked about this a few times and I agree with 99% of what you say up there
With that said I think sheer mathematics isn’t in favor of this argument.
Either way…this is a topic we all need to start discussing, thanks for opening the flood gates lady…
Influential by definition is the ability to sway an opinion or action in one direction or another. When you build up a popularity based on # of Twitter followers, numbers of tweets, and RT’s, etc you are in fact pushing your message with a heavier weight then say someone who has a smaller network or isn’t as “popular.”
Where I agree with you is how we view influential. The influence people have on Twitter brings with it a blind eye to the obligations that come with being influential. Too many marketers are on their pushing company brands and personal brands while not enough are on their using this virtual popularity/influence for something more substantial. There are exceptions of course–donation tweets, charity causes, awareness pushes, etc.
I think you and Jane are spot on when you talk about how people need to refocus on what it means to be successful and let influence come as a byproduct of producing quality work, but I also think there is something to be said for using (what might be at first) trivial popularity to build a larger network and transcend that mass engagement into an influential power to be reckoned with.
Whoa sorry rant over.
popularity + credibility in a space + comment in that space = influence on that space
ohai Miss Joanna!!
I think we’re saying the same things here. I agree that you can turn popularity into influence, but I think there needs to be an explicit desire to do so. It’s like…using your power for good instead of cotton candy like fluff. Not every person who is popular chooses to do that, and that’s fine. And I totally get what you’re saying about the math part of it. Someone with a greater number of followers does have, at some level, a higher level of built in influence than someone with a smaller number. I guess I look at influence as being less quantitative than that. Some of the people I respect the most in the seo/sem/sm industry are not what any would consider popular based on follower numbers. But the relationships I have developed with them and the quality of work and content I see them produce has created an environment where they are highly influential – for me.
I guess what I’m saying is, that regardless of their desire to be either influential or popular as consumers of whatever content they are producing, we need to be careful about how we “bucket” them. And as a by-product, I also think we need to be careful at what we are striving to become.
@Jim – Credibility is key in that equation imho!
Aging, I try to keep considerations of both popularity and influence out of my decision processes as best as I can.
True, I like to be seen with the popular people or to be quoted, referred to or whatever by influential people. I’m vain too and enjoy the feeling of an implied compliment when someone “famous” acknowledges me. But I *try* to push that away
Why?
Because “being popular” or “being influential” is not possible.
Compare it to “being funny”; one can’t. What we mean when we say that XYZ *is* funny is that through experience we’ve come to *expect* that this person *can* say or do funny things.
Now, do I not want to hear a good joke from someone for whom I haven’t (yet?) built up that expectation of funniness?
Do I not want to read a life changing tweet from someone?
Do I not want pick the good stuff?
Who is popular and who is influential – who is beautiful and who is ugly — who is the geek and who is cool: I (try to) really not care. Instead, I’d like to learn how you dealt with losing your child. I’d really want to come to see your point of view. I’d love to understand your passion.
(ps: I often read Twitter in my desktop feedreader FeedDemon … In it, no images appear for people… W/o those “hey, I know you!” clues, it’s remarkable to see what you read & what you skip…)
@Ruud I really like the idea of reading Twitter without the pics. I think it would definitely affect how the content was digested for sure. I say this as someone who admits to scanning my stream and using the pics as a way of keeping an eye on people I don’t want to miss. I think it’s human nature to try and use visual cues to make order out of chaos, but for all of the reasons you mentioned it seems a good exercise!
As for your other points, well I love them! And I do agree. I think if you are getting something out of the content that is being provided then that is what matters for you.
I also believe though, that as any industry grows and matures that certain individuals get promoted by the community as its “leaders” (for lack of a better word). I mostly want to point out that as this happens we need to consider who we are promoting and why.