How influential is influence?
By Linda Forrest
Whenever the concept of influence comes up, I’m immediately confronted with a mental image of Will Farrell positing that he’s “kind of a big deal,” a memorable and oft-quoted line from the raunchy comedy Anchorman. The irony is that in the film, he is, as stated, kind of a big deal. The same is true of influencers, tastemakers, trendsetters or whatever term best describes people whose opinions and actions hold weight amongst your target market.
There is an entire discipline of marketing devoted to this concept called “influencer marketing.” Wikipedia describes it as:
a form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers.
Influencers may be potential buyers themselves, or they may be third parties. These third parties exist either in the supply chain (retailers, manufacturers, etc.) or may be so-called value-added influencers (such as journalists, academics, industry analysts, professional advisers, and so on.)
A key takeaway is that influence is most effective when it’s not overtly used to deliver a specific result. Rather, influencers affect their markets without necessarily using certain tactics or well-defined parameters to do so. This distinction is what makes the concept of influence measurement so compelling.
