“Influence isn’t spawning retweets. Influence is getting people to do what you want. Justin Bieber doesn’t want you to retweet him, he wants you to buy his music and pay to see his concerts.”–Tom Webster from a recent post on Online Influence
I spoke with an author of a recently published book who spent a considerable amount of money promoting his book online but did not see a measurable increase in book sales. This experience speaks to Tom’s quote–that high volume and high action do not often go together. Simply ramping your online efforts without thinking through how well those efforts are connected to people that have both influence and potential to take the right action will not produce effective results.
“It’s conversations that spark mentions and retweets, and those with greater than one million followers are necessarily broadcasters”–Tom Webster
If you are have not purchased a Tiger in Brazil or date Selena Gomez then you may want to exchange thoughtful, interesting, and helpful content with those whom you are seeking to influence.
It’s extremely helpful to think about what you want people to do as a result of your online efforts. What would you want people to think, feel, and do as a result of your tweets, facebook updates, and blog posts? Look at your last 10 tweets or blog posts–are the predominately positive or negative? Are they mostly broadcasting information or do they integrate sharing and interaction?
Bieber fever for most of us is not getting to a million followers but challenging, helping, and promoting those who share common goals and values.