Want to build influence? Or measure it? Here are four things you need to know:

Influence is simple…
which makes it complicated.

At its most simple, influence is the ability to make things happen. But which things? For whom? Over what span of time? Some people influence ideas, some actions. Some influence big actions, some small. Some influence lasts a moment, some lasts a lifetime.

When we talk about influence, and particularly when we talk about measuring it, we have to define our terms…and know the limits.

Influence is contextual.

Someone writes a post. Someone else retweets it. Another person sees the retweet, reads the post, and writes a comment. Still another person finds the post on his own and then follows the commenter’s advice, to the benefit of hundreds of others.

Each person took an action. Each action had an effect. But which action is the most important? Who had the most influence?

(Not so easy, is it?)

Influence depends on the situation and what you care about. The cause (the idea)? The effect (the actions, the results)? Or the connection between the two? Whether building or measuring influence, we need to understand which type of influence is important, and why.

Influence is the product of reach and authority.

To influence the actions of others, you have to have access to them—and they have to perceive you to have some level of authority, either over them or in an area of expertise they value. Popularity helps with access: the more popular you are, the more reach you have, and thus the greater possibility of influence. But popularity doesn’t guarantee influence, it only opens more doors. And it’s ephemeral: tastes change, needs change.

Authority doesn’t guarantee influence either, though you could argue its tie is stronger. Whether granted or earned over time, authority has the potential to intensify influence: authority grants power.

But it’s ephemeral, too. Earned authority—gained over repeated interactions—lasts as long as its integrity and its relevance do. Granted authority (as in the case of a leader or manager), often lasts only as long as the appointment (or the appointee…) does.

Influence requires both reach and authority, to varying degrees. Focusing on only one or the other will leave you seeing half the picture. Or less. Both need attention. And constant maintenance.

(Most) Influence is invisible.

You see a cause. You see an effect. What you can’t see, and never will, is where influence actually happens: in the “and” between the two. You can’t see inside every individual head to know or understand if and how the two relate, because it happens in the back channel. In instant messages, in DMs, in phone calls, emails, and Waves (sniff…). In person, in meetings. At lunches and dinners and breakfasts. Out of town. Out of sight.

That’s why what we can see gets so much attention, and measuring it the cause of such debate. But understand this: for every person consciously exhibiting their influence (and influences), there are just as many (or more) consciously shielding it.

Every King has his Merlin. Every Influencer has her own.

And you’ll likely never really know who they—the real influencers—are.

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At heart, influence is something we can only guess at based on what we see. We can throw metrics at it, but that’s like throwing dust at light, trying to see the beam.

Like throwing a sheet at the Invisible Man, trying to see what can’t be seen.

Is that what you see, too? Tell me.

image credit: ~Twon~

We’re a little too focused on collecting humans like marbles.

Our fans. Followers. Subscribers. Impressions.

Once upon a time, numbers like gross circulation mattered a bit more, because the available channels and paths for information were somewhat limited. So by putting yourself visibly in one of them, chances were pretty good that you’d actually be seen, and command a fair bit of someone’s attention, at least for a few moments.

Now? Not nearly. Clicking “follow” or “like” is a fleeting, non-commital moment. And just as easily, that attention is off and elsewhere. (How many pages have you liked – whether sincere or just out of support for a friend – and never revisited?). It’s the equivalent of someone picking up the flyer and tossing it in the next trash can. Veneered attention is so easy to give out, because it doesn’t take our time, our effort, or even our brainpower. We simply need to click. And move on.

Is that really the only way you want to define success?

What That Number Does Tell You

What the larger network size represents – has always represented – is potential.

The number of your fans, followers, blog subscribers – they only ever represent the possible scope of your network. And it’s likely an inflated one at that.

Not all of those people are paying attention at any given time, certainly not in today’s firehose of information. An even smaller portion of those paying attention in that moment are actually in the right frame of mind to hear what you’re talking about, posting, or offering. And then again, a smaller percentage of those attentive and interested will actually act.

The balance for you is that of course, you want the greatest possible potential. So sure, building a broad network with large reach can be a good thing. But in order for that potential to pay off somehow, you want to expend the effort growing both the size of your audience as well as the density of its overall relevance to your work.

This is really what we’re saying when we refer to quality over quantity. Having 500 engaged and interested community member versus 50,000 ambivalent ones. Size only matters if there’s substance beneath.

Patience, Padawan

Building that powerful network, though – the one with both reach and relevance – takes relentless work and patience. It requires:

• Targeting: which means understanding your audience incredibly well so that you know where to seek them out, and can identify them when you find them.
• Filtered acquisition: focusing your work, outreach, and content on that customer profile (as well as being willing to let go of those that don’t fit the bill).
• Nurturing: providing value to your existing customers in a consistent fashion, through content, products and services, community experiences, or otherwise.
• Propagation: Making everything shareable and spreadable as much as possible so your current “good fit” customers and community can help you identify others.

None of these are instant. They require time and effort. Sometimes you have to adjust them based on what you learn, or how your business changes. But over time, they together return a more sustainable network fabric.

The second one is the hardest for most businesses; we’ve always done the “cast the net wide and hope to catch a few good fish” approach. It’s just far less efficient today than it once was. Why? Simple laws of supply and demand. The supply of information, opportunity, and people and businesses vying for our attention FAR, FAR outweighs the demand for it. And the minute we give our attention, we’re distracted by a zillion other things.

But there’s still a demand market based on personalized experiences, experiences with companies that feel like they’re well-tailored to our needs as customers, and backed up without outstanding service and delivery. So getting attention is harder, and keeping it is harder still. The only answer for the latter is delivering great business, relentlessly, and in response to  - and in anticipation of – what your customers tell you they need. (Remember, though, that the quality of that experiences is determined by the customers, not how awesome you think you are.)

Making the Case For Relevant Reach

Fishing with a net seems like the easier approach. And it can be tempting to just gather, gather, gather. Counting our marbles, celebrating how many we have, amassing some numbers that look impressive on a spreadsheet. And stopping there.

But when you want to show your results, is it more impressive to see:

50,000 Facebook Fans and 3% of them took a qualified action (opted into a newsletter, purchased something, wrote a positive review…something more than just clicking a link)

or

7,500 Twitter Followers and 20% of them took a qualified action

If I’m the boss, the second set of numbers is much more telling to me. The net result is the same on the surface – 1,500 people did something – but the second is a greater activated proportion of our audience. That ratio represents focus, efficiency, and impact. Those things matter.

So what we want isn’t just reach, but relevant reach.

If your total number of fans, followers, or subscribers is the potential, when the ratio goes up, the larger network yields even better results. Not only are they more likely to do, say, or create something that’s valuable to you, it gives you a richer base upon which to build communications and invest in those people in return. The reach may be part of the means, but it is not remotely the end.

It’s a different way of thinking. But then again, we’re in the midst of a different way of doing a lot of things.

I think we focus much too heavily on collecting superficial demonstrations of attention, and not nearly enough on the composition of the communities we build.

What do you think?

Today’s post is a guest post from our friend and tack-minded cohort Matt Ridings, Founder of MSR Consulting, and a thought leader on integrating social media into the realm of Relationship Marketing. He blogs over at Techguerilla, and you can find him on Twitter at @techguerilla

I recently had the pleasure of finally meeting Jeff Pulver in person. While here he gave a brief talk to the group of people present in which he made the statement that “sometimes, ROI can mean Return On Inspiration, or Return on Innovation”. As soon as I heard it I started dreading what was going to come next.

Like clockwork I started seeing tweets about that statement. By far it was the thing most commented on. People loved that remark. It resonates with that part of us that thing all businesses are selfish and if we’d just care a little more the world would be a better place. It certainly resonates with me.

I then prepared myself for the fact that I was going to be approached by several people who knew that I have argued vigorously against that very statement before. Sure enough, I was soon surrounded like the leader of some cult compound. And I was in a tough spot. On the one hand, I didn’t really have any issue with what Jeff said in the context of the moment.

On the other, I’m a well-known proponent of the fact that ROI is ROI and that it means one thing and one thing only. Moreover, we should not be trying to re-purpose it into having any other meaning. How do I explain that I didn’t feel his statements and mine were in direct conflict with one another?

Context is Everything

The keys here are context and objective. What was Jeff’s *objective*? I don’t want to put words into his mouth but I think his objective was to tell a story. To illustrate the power of a medium to make a difference. To inspire others to socially think beyond themselves. In that *context* it makes perfect sense to say that one doesn’t have to only be motivated by business financials (ROI) but that you can also reap rewards outside of that realm (Inspiration, etc) that can make things worth doing. And I 100% agree with that.

I tell that story as a mild illustration of what is a real issue within the social media community. Make no mistake, the problem exists in virtually all other facets of society as well, it’s simply that social media has better acoustics in its echo chamber than most other arenas of life. That problem is “contextual confusion”, or in many cases contextual laziness.

The pace at which we move through this social realm is staggering. Read a tweet, rinse, and retweet. An idea, no matter how incorrect, can build momentum and become a commonly held belief within moments. So there’s a drive to jump on a hot topic, insert an opinion in a wizened Yoda-like voice, and shove it out to the world lickety-split. What we lose in that process however is any reflection on that hot topic. What may sound completely logical in passing might make no sense whatsoever if broken down into elements that contain context and objective.

Educated Guessing or Just…Guessing?

Let’s take a popular topic like the Old Spice social media campaign as an example. Here is a campaign that within 24 hours had a surge of comments to the effect that it was “genius”, as the hours wore on there were those who took a different tact and said it was a “failure” and waste of money. On either sides of those opinions you could find really good reasons for why either one was right. But both sides had no actual context or objective by which to make the statements they did.

What if there had been no bump in sales at all? That’d be a failure right? Not so fast. What if their *objective* was simply to experiment with using social media as a means for changing their brands perception in the marketplace? What if it was a PR stunt used to setup some future campaign strategy? If I know that information then I can put the activity into *context* and try and make a judgement, otherwise I’m simply turning over my Magic 8-Ball and making uneducated guesses.

I’m ok with guessing. There’s nothing wrong with a little monday morning quarterbacking, just please drop the certainty from your voice if you have no insight into the objective or context. Or better yet, how about following the old programming model of If->Then->Else (if the objective was x, then the answer is y, else the answer is z). I can respect that. It shows that you may not have all of the information, but that you have formed educated opinions based upon the “possibilities”.

Thoughtful Conclusions

So back to the original storyline. Jeff’s job is to inspire you to think beyond the business. My job is to make your business money. It is perfectly acceptable within his context and objective to use language like “Return On Inspiration”, he’s painting a picture for you that there is more to life than financial success. If, on the other hand, he was using that language to try and sell a business on the fact that they didn’t need to really measure their social media activities in financial terms I’d blow him out of the water.

Some in that audience that night will take his statements as justification that true ROI isn’t that important. We tend to say things like “they misunderstood”, or “they didn’t get it”. But what actually happened is that they were simply being contextually lazy. When we say things like “they are just inexperienced”, what we really mean is that they haven’t had enough exposure yet in their life to various objectives so as to place something into possible contexts.

This is why some of the most effective problem solvers you meet tend to immediately question facts when presented with them. How were they arrived at? Who produced them? Are they biased? What was the intention of the data? etc. They are attempting to find the objective and context. Go ask Tom Webster (@webby2001) if he instantly accepts information that is put in front of him.

So no, I have not changed my opinion about the usage of the term ROI. I will still absolutely jump in if I see you trying to re-purpose the word to justify not having to measure your work. But in the right context, I will still sit in the audience and feel just as inspired as you when someone chooses to manipulate the word to make a great point about life.

Matt Ridings – @techguerilla