by: David Armano
I’m working on a blog presentation I’ll be giving to our NY and Boston office in late Sept. (more on that later), and I wanted to visualize the idea of the blogger “A List”, B, C lists and so on. But I thought I could take a slightly different angle on it.
Rather then view bloggers as "micro celebrities" with an "A list" etc. I view bloggers as influencers not just in pop culture as celebrities often do but as influencers in somewhat specialized areas. It could be technology, art, marketing, design, PR, advertising, business, parenthood—or multiple combinations of these areas with cross overs.
The bigger point that I want to make is that bloggers at each level command a “sphere of influence”. The higher the “level”, the more people are exposed to a blogger’s influence. The degree of influence is mainly related to the quantity (and quality) of the blogs and sites that link back to them. And of course a blogger who is well known before they even start a blog has a better chance of reaching the top levels of influence vs. one starting from scratch (though it’s very possible to start at level 4 and work your way up).
What’s interesting about this is that in a way, it does represent a “human pyramid”. As much as the social media network acts as a great equalizer—you can only influence as many people as you have access to.
Keep in mind that this is more complex than I am making it, but I wanted to communicate this in a very simple way that folks not familiar with the lingo will grasp. And besides, I don’t think the “A-lister” analogy does it justice.
Original Post: http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/08/levels_of_influ.html
