Shared Media And The New Influence

The idea of influencers, sometimes known as influentials

, has been a pillar of marketing for more than fifty years. For those unfamiliar with the term, according to The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, an influencer is: "A person who has a greater than average reach or impact through word of mouth in a relevant marketplace."

In the early days of the concept of influencers, these were people whose media influence had a wide reach, such as celebrities and politicians. Respected individuals from various fields such as publishing, academia, high society, the art world and more and large social circles were considered influencers.

Thanks to the Internet, the world of influencers has changed in three significant ways. First, the reach of today's influencers has grown dramatically due to the ever increasing flocks of users participating in social engagement online. Vibrant social networking on the Internet has also changed the profile of an influencer; today's influencers no longer have to have access to traditional media. A large enough or dedicated enough following online gives a user influence. Lastly, the influencers themselves have been shaped by the ever-changing tools available on the Internet for sharing content.

These tools spread an influencer's words much further than ever before. Just a few years ago, before the advent of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. an influential blogger could reach dozens, hundreds, perhaps even thousands of readers if the blog was popular enough. Today that same blogger is usually wired into a variety of tools and networks to spread their shared media, so their message is disseminated much, much further with every keystroke. Among the people who follow what that blogger has to say will be other influencers who likewise spread the information instantaneously in ever-widening circles.

Many in marketing in fact believe that this is permanently changing all the roles involved in business, from influencers to producers to consumerswhether business-to-business sales or business-to-consumer. Consumers have so much information available to them online, they are increasingly in the driver's seat when it comes to responding to marketing efforts. The dramatic rise of online social engagement via social networks reinforces this. Consumers are more influenced by voices they trust and can hear from instantly through their social networks, than by traditional media. The constantly emerging new technologies that have contributed to this, like Twitter to use just one example, are rearranging everything in ever deeper ways.

Furthermore, many of these technologies are enabling new ways to track and measure influence. They offer tools that can reveal exactly who today's influencers are, and how they impact buying trends. They can likewise track who is being influenced. The more detailed tools for tracking shared content can actually measure influence by quantifying it.

You could go further and say that, in fact, the new technologies themselves are the new influencers. They have not only changed who is considered an influencer and how they reach those open to their influence, but by offering constantly in-flux, exciting new ways of sharing content, and disseminating all shared media, these technologies are changing the very foundation and landscape of marketing.

by: Sundar K

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