Everyone is an influencer

Lately, I have noticed that when it comes to tracking your buzz a lot of companies are only focused on tracking the so-called influencers. The problem that I have with this approach is that today, everyone is an influencer. You never know at any given time who can influence who and in what way. The barriers to publishing online are so low right now that anyone at anytime can damage your reputation, and they have a number of channels they can use to do so. That is why it is important to track everything and everyone, not just the influencers.

It is as if these companies only think that if a blog has a certain number of readers they are worthy of your attention. I am here to tell you that this is absurd; you should track everything and everyone because you will never know who can influence others until it is too late.

Do you think that AOL ever thought Vincent Ferrari was an influencer? I'm guessing they never even knew the guy existed until it was too late. Had they been properly tracking their buzz they could have addressed the issue before it escalated beyond control. I am not saying that AOL is only watching the influencers because I honestly have no idea, but I do know that they clearly did not track and manage their buzz effectively. What happened to them was every company's worst nightmare.

Even if someone does not have a popular blog, or they are a well-known name, they are still an influencer. With sites like YouTube, MySpace and Digg that have audiences of millions of people that are reachable at anytime, all one needs to do is shout through the megaphone and people will hear it, loud and clear. Once that happens it won't be very long before all-hell breaks loose.

The point I am trying to make here is that everyone is an influencer. Information can spread so insanely fast right now that you need to track everything and you need to track it closely. Forget about buzzwords like "influencers" and realize that today, everyone's voice is important.

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Dave, September 28, 2006

I agree, most people don't understand that when someone posts to a blog, they are posting to both the "time dimension" and to Google. What may be an unimportant posting today could wind up meaning more three years from now when something happens and people are prompted to search for the very mundane point made otherwise.

soxiam, September 28, 2006

Nice write-up. And speaking of tracking every blog, have you heard about buzzlogic.com? It's sort of like blogpulse.com and looked about as powerful.

Dharmesh Shah, September 28, 2006

Great article, wrote a quick follow-up on my blog here: http://OnStartups.com

Cameron Olthuis, September 28, 2006

Dave - great point!

Soxiam - I have heard of Buzzlogic and I've actually had some interesting conversations with one of their executives. The look to have a nice product, one of the better ones out there, but they still put too much emphasis on the influencers.

Jason, September 28, 2006

This is a great point. I am starting up my own blog, as you may or may not know...and I have wondered what my influence would be.

Natalie Ferguson, September 28, 2006

Uh huh! Especially in blogging! You may only have ten readers, but what if one of them is one of the blogospheres superstars? I love it how open communication means that everyone matters, tis a good way to be.

Jason, September 28, 2006

I added the RSS links like you suggested. I also updated the look of my blog to match the look of the rest of my site. Let me know what you think and if I need to change or adjust anything.

Cameron Olthuis, September 28, 2006