The boy behind the curtain

Network of testimonials. Originally uploaded by GustavoG.
Red are staff; green are some particularly highly connected individuals.

A combination new-media/local-interest story in the Toronto Star caught my attention last weekend and brought home the importance and evolving nature of influencers. The story focused on a local 12 year-old boy who has successfully established himself as one of the highest rated submitters of news stories to the user-submitted site Reddit.

In essence, Reddit is a news site that removes the functions of an editor, leaving the decision of what stories to have on the front page up to the readers. Similar to Digg, the largest and most successful such site, people submit sites/articles/stories/photos and other users vote on them. If a story gets rated highly by the masses, the story moves to the front-page, and raises the ranking of the submitter.

A story on web-influencers in the Wall Street Journal introduced the boy back in early February.
WSJ even listed him as one of the top web-influencers on cultural issues. As users grow their ranking and credibility on these sites, their influence over internet traffic grows. Getting a story onto the front pages of these sites can generate hundreds of thousands of unique visitors to a site. A fact not lost upon advertisers, who have already tried to make inroads into these communities through payola schemes to direct traffic. The WSJ digs much deeper into some of the nefarious activities of marketers on these sites.

While the boy’s age may come as a surprise to many, as well as the influence that he has, it certainly underscores the anonymity provided in these environments. One digg user even commented on the forum attached to the story that “this article could also be read as an attempt by the traditional, MSM to dismiss the rise of sites like digg and reddit as ‘news brought to you by 12-year olds.’” Certainly the reaction by many to the WSJ article was a mix of surprise and skepticism, according to the Toronto Star.

Yet elsewhere in the same Sunday Star paper, there was this little factoid:

Percentage of people who have concerns about the accuracy of reports made by “citizen journalists”: 62. Percentage who have concerns about the accuracy of reports made by “traditional journalists”: 61. (Gallup Poll).

This article highlights how important key influencers can be. If you manage to get the attention of only one of these highly connected individuals, your message can be spread to thousands of others. It is important to know who those key influencers are, and how to find them. Certainly in the realm of new media, with ever evolving landscapes, it can be a challenge to track those individuals that wield this sort of power. Whether it is the gadget expert/critic on CNET, or a boy down the street who has a knack for sniffing out what’s hot on the net, that next springboard of your message can take many forms.

Find out where your market gets their information, where the decision makers spend their time, then find out who they listen to. A testimonial from them is worth far more than any marketing pitch from you.

Further reading:

• A little more insight into today’s most valuable consumers: the influencers – Advertising Is Good For You
• Influencing the Influencer – iMedia Connection
• Influencing Key Influencers – Paul Allen (the lesser)
• Research on Digg.com Influencers – WebMetricsGuru