Justin Bieber and Influencer Relations

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February, 2012

Recently, Klout (a company that measures online influence) released a list of the most influential topics and people of 2011. So who topped the charts?  According to Klout, Justin Bieber followed by Lady Gaga and Lil Wayne are the world’s most influential people.

But wait – before you ask the Bieb to help you with regulatory issues at the FDA or to live-tweet a meeting with healthcare providers – let’s take a step back and look at the different types of influence and what they can achieve.

Influential people tend to fall into one of two categories:

  • Thought Leaders are those influencers who generate new ideas. Thought Leaders are credible experts with the ability to initiate and shape dialogue – the architects of change.
  • Accelerators are those who have a large audience, but typically are citing other sources. They maintain the interest of large groups of people by honing an awareness of popular culture and conversation, echoing ideas from external sources that resonate with their audiences. Biebers, if you will.

So how do we effectively leverage the Accelerators to do their thing?  And how do we measure it?

While not complicated, these answers involve more than just the number of people who “follow” them via a blog, Facebook, Twitter or other platform. Message-spread comes from increasing the number of people who embrace an idea and share it. Powerful Accelerators develop messages that are re-tweeted, re-posted and re-written with fresh perspective. Great influence inspires dialog.

Identifying the most influential Thought Leaders requires an analysis of citations and audiences over time. Over the last year, JPA has been using social network analysis (a technique used by sociologists to study the movement of ideas through a network of people) to map how health topics are discussed and impacted. This capability allows us to see which Thought Leaders are cited most widely within specific audiences (scientists, health policy advocates, medical professionals, etc.). We can also identify which Thought Leaders have the ability to reach across audiences to change conversations.

That said, if your goal is a public education campaign and you want to quickly spread a message online, then you should focus on finding a highly ranked Accelerator. (If you can get Justin Bieber – go for it.) But if you are focused on influence, take a moment to learn about the tools that can help you target and measure. It may not make you a teen pop sensation, but it will get the job done.