Are you an influencer or a manipulator?

Audience by Adam Hawkins http://anodiseproductions.com

How influential are you? (really?)

I got into trouble recently because I was having a rant (as I do from time to time) about people making a fuss about how influential they are on Twitter according to a dubious tool called Klout, (which, incidentally, recently gave a perfect 100 score to a celebrity I’ve never heard of who had had an account for only a week).

What got me going was this whole idea of ‘influence’.

You see, in my book, and that other more famous one, the dictionary, to influence means to be a compelling force on the behaviour or opinions of others.

Now, I am often entertained, informed and helped and sometimes, even provoked and infuriated by people on Twitter but I don’t think I’m often influenced by them to the extent that I’ll change my opinions or alter my behaviour.

Do you make a difference?

Getting excited about being recognised as an ‘influencer’ is understandable. Most of us want to make a difference in our own way and using social networks to influence behaviour and opinions has worked really well in a number of cases like the backlash against The X Factor at Christmas, the subversion of the Daily Mail ‘hate’ polls and most famously, the way emergency services were mobilised by Twitter participants in the plane in the Hudson crash.

However, in these cases it was the medium and the viral nature of the message that was important and not the person who started the campaign.

Becoming a real influencer takes more than gathering followers, fans or arbitrary scores. It’s not about the transitory nature of celebrity or seeming popularity but about establishing a reputation and becoming the person that others turn to when they want information they know they can trust.

In business, its probably the most valuable thing we can achieve but influencers don’t set out to deliberately become influencers, its something that happens as a by product of the ‘real’ work they do, when others start to seek them out or recommend them and they gain very little from it directly.

Are you an influencer or a manipulator?

When someone asks your opinion do you give it honestly or are you afraid of upsetting people? Do you only give your best when you are being paid for it?  Do you deliberately build a large following so that you can brag about it and use it to your own advantage? (This is the opposite of building a following organically because people are interested in what you have to say.) Do you do deals for commission before recommending a product or service? If so, you’re a manipulator rather than a real influencer.

If you feel the need to try and measure your influence, you’ve already lost the plot. If you need to shout about it on a social network that touches a tiny fraction of the 6 billion people on the planet, there’s no hope.

Influence is about the number of people who trust your opinion, not the number of people you collect and those who join social networks as a vanity exercise are missing not only the point but most of the fun.

Why Tweeting Quotes is a Waste of Time

Quotations and aphorisms are generally just verbal Christmas presents; enticingly done up in pretty paper and ribbons, but once you get them open they generally turn out to be just socks. Tom Holt (2007)

I frequently have a rant about the uselessness of quotes on Twitter. Not ‘quotes ON Twitter’ as in “He who tweeteth quotes shall be deemed as wise as the person he tweeteth” because that’s just silly and most of the people who are quoted were dead many hundreds of years before Twitter came into being.

There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it. Cicero (106-43 BC)

No, I mean the endless, indiscriminate parade of stuff that is so saccharin it makes you want to throw up, has no interest or meaning for most of the people who receive it and in many cases is just bullshit.

Some recent examples are “Thoughts become things so choose the good ones.” This is an example of such sloppy thinking that I’d like to slap the originator but instead devoted a separate post to it.

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…W. Somerset Maugham (1926)

The next one was something along the lines of “Before starting a journey don’t ask advice of someone who has never left home”. Now, I get the idea of this but, you know, there are circumstances when the person who has never left home might be exactly the right person to ask. They may have studied the place you’re going to or they may have the best maps. Hell, they might have invented Google Earth! Does anyone really believe that the only person to consult on anything is someone who has had personal experience of it? (Pause until the screams of many coaches has died down). Frankly, I’d rather consult a doctor who is healthy than one who has the same illness as me.

At all events, the next best thing to being witty one’s self, is to be able to quote another’s wit. Christopher N. Bovee (1857)

Another was “The person who wants to demolish a mountain starts by moving a few stones.” You know what? If I wanted to demolish a mountain I’d hire a bulldozer. Even taking it literally, if I had a job that seemed insurmountable, I’d get help. Wrapping things up in allusions and metaphore doesn’t necessarily make them more powerful.

In a pinch, any orphan quote can be called a Chinese proverb. Ralph Keyes, “Nice Guys Finish Seventh”:

Then there was a quote from Einstein. Now Einstein was a great scientist but deeply flawed in other respects. He was widely regarded as oversexed, immature and lousy at sustaining meaningful relationships so forgive me if I don’t follow his advice unless it’s directly related to science.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. Oscar Wilde (1905)

Quotations can be used to great effect when used in articles or essays. They serve as really good hooks or attention-grabbers and can give emphasis to a particular point but on their own, with no reference point to their significance, they are just brain fluff.

Given all this, why do people feel compelled to share a quote, apropos of nothing, with their whole list of contacts?

Famous dead people make excellent commentators on current events. Ralph Keyes, “Nice Guys Finish Seventh”

I guess its because something in that quote spoke to them, which means that they probably need to take action on something that’s happening in their lives. It most likely doesn’t have any significance to anyone else unless they are sharing the same issues.

The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other very well. Elias Canetti (1942–1972)

What would be interesting would be to hear what folk did as a result of reading a quote but sadly, I expect the answer would be not a lot except nod wisely and pass it on.

Meanwhile nothing changes. Its thinking for ourselves AND TAKING ACTION that changes things not taking someone else’s thinking and believing it can change anything.

Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (May 1849)