{"id":458,"date":"2023-03-14T16:19:39","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T16:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/?p=458"},"modified":"2023-03-22T18:39:46","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T18:39:46","slug":"dont-influence-connect-and-build-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/dont-influence-connect-and-build-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Influence, Connect And Build Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many continue an unhealthy obsession with influence. Except the web isn\u2019t\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0about influence. It never was. The mere fact so many use influence as jargon of choice to define their web startups which tout ability to show \u201chow important\u201d someone is shows a lack of comprehension of the nature of web communities.<\/p>\n

Ask me how important seeking out specific influencers was when building niche-specific blogs to 5-figure subscribers, when creating\u00a06-figure Facebook\u00a0\/ platform-specific pages from the ground up and creating\u00a0viral campaigns\u00a0that spread 100% organically. Not\u2026at\u2026all.<\/p>\n

Rather, I helped those brands connect and build trust with their audiences. And we never tried to use our force or power to manipulate others, as how influence is defined. The notion of influence should probably be thrown out with\u00a0paid brand ambassadors.<\/p>\n

Influence is the antithesis of community<\/strong><\/p>\n

Web\u00a0community building\u00a0is hard work. Anyone who says the opposite hasn\u2019t actually built one from the ground up or is lying to you. And if you do have a thriving web community, well you know the work that went into creating it. So would you really risk attrition of your biggest competitive advantage and throw away years of hard work by attempting to covertly influence them?<\/p>\n

If your efforts are based purely on trying to influence others or simply court \u201cinfluential\u201d users you are building your community on a house of cards. Eventually it is going to fall down because your community will see through your efforts.<\/p>\n

On the web, it\u2019s not influence \u2013 it\u2019s trust<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have read\u00a0Steve Pavlina\u2019s blog\u00a0for at least 5 years, if not longer. I\u2019ve also read his book. A few weeks ago I saw him Tweet about a\u00a0behavioral\u00a0sciences book that sounded fascinating. Immediately I added it to my Amazon wish-list, and I\u2019ve been reading it ever since (if you\u2019re curious,\u00a0this is the book). It\u2019s not influence that I decided to purchase it, it\u2019s trust. I trust Steve isn\u2019t going to BS a Tweet about a book being compelling (he didn\u2019t even include a link). Because it hurts his reputation to do so, and trust is not easily repaired. Losing a member of your community who trusts you is extremely detrimental, you might never get them back.<\/p>\n

Steve is popular, sure, but the above example of hearing a comment and taking an action has nothing to do with his popularity. I\u2019ve taken similar actions from those who are basically unknown except to a small group of people. And similarly, it isn\u2019t due so much to a direct prompt, but rather an emotional response from the person that naturally emerged combined with the fact the person was trusted on a subject. That\u2019s qualitative and not really measurable through a score because it is not so simple to know the nature of our connection.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually not even\u00a0useful<\/em>. Too granular, why would you bother yourself with trying to figure out if someone is influential? If they want to connect with you, they are important, you don\u2019t need a score to tell you that. Also if you\u2019re building a community, you should take the time to know who your community is made up of and not rely on a tool to try and spit out a metric about a person. Be\u00a0data driven,\u00a0absolutely, but focus on the\u00a0critical few metrics\u00a0and get qualitative feedback where needed, don\u2019t try and fit everything into quantitative.\u00a0I am still struggling to find a case where something like an influence score could be considered part of the critical few\u00a0quantitative\u00a0metrics. There are so many more important, useful, actionable datapoints to trend.<\/p>\n

The connotations of influence are wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n

Influence has connotations of exerting force over others. There is nothing \u201csocial\u201d about influence, and in fact groups will rally against such motives. If you wake up everyday and start your social media marketing by thinking about how you plan to influence users you\u2019re basically trying to take but not give. And it is unlikely this approach will ever lead to\u00a0increasing returns.<\/p>\n

Forget finding specific influentials, find real people and connect<\/strong><\/p>\n

Those who are the most influential usually are willing to help your brand the least. Don\u2019t ignore those who are actively seeking to connect with you in favor of those who\u00a0seem\u00a0<\/em>to have greater sway. It\u2019s backwards to do this anyway. Because to some extent, the most influential people want to promote things that already are popular and have\u00a0social proofing\u00a0behind them. By building a close, interested community you create the right environment that influentials will come to you anyway.<\/p>\n

Influence at scale dies with Oprah<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oprah was influential, and exerted her influence very directly. But I don\u2019t trust Oprah. I\u2019ve never spoken with her. I haven\u2019t been exposed to her raw, unfiltered and unscripted feed of thoughts. Do you\u00a0really\u00a0<\/em>trust those with the level of influence as Oprah?<\/p>\n

For me, the difference between Oprah and Steve is trust. But it actually goes deeper than that. It\u2019s the difference between direct, conscious influence and merely sharing ideas due to passion and not anticipating an action would be taken. Oprah\u00a0knows<\/em>\u00a0an action will be taken. It is conscious and while influential there is no way for us to seriously trust it. It\u2019s not that Oprah is disingenuous, we just can\u2019t possibly connect with someone at that sort of scale. Steve\u2019s scale is more workable to build trust.<\/p>\n

There won\u2019t be more like Oprah.\u00a0She was the peak product of a mass media society, but in our fragmented media society the notion of Oprah is a dinosaur. Everyone isn\u2019t praying to the same media\u00a0deity any longer, people are organizing themselves around each other. We have to change our notion of influence because it now happens at the micro level and not the macro level.<\/p>\n

Research\u00a0backs this up:<\/p>\n

And, of course, the most damning point on all of these attempts to declare certain individuals as \u201cinfluencers\u201d is the\u00a0research\u00a0\u2014 already a few years old \u2014 that suggests the people who are declared as \u201cinfluentials\u201d may not really have that much influence. That is, people are most often influenced by people who they\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0know personally, rather than someone who is \u201cfamous\u201d in some form or another. Now I do wonder if that\u2019s changing over time, and many people point out that Twitter and Facebook and the like often do make it feel like you get to \u201cknow\u201d other people who you might not really know in real life, but it seems like in this rush to \u201cgrade\u201d who is influential and who is not, we may have missed out on the fact that influence doesn\u2019t work like that\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, connecting takes work, and that\u2019s the point<\/strong><\/p>\n

To give a personal example, I put a lot of time into connections with friends like\u00a0John Boitnott,\u00a0Louis Gray\u00a0or\u00a0Eric Friedman. If they ever asked me for something, I\u2019d be willing to do it. They\u2019ve gone beyond people I\u2019ve merely connected with due to a shared interest and crossed over into being friends I very much trust.<\/p>\n

Your community building should not be much different from that, and I know that\u2019s hard to grasp but when done right it is very personal. Build connections and trust with those that matter. And the funny thing is, by focusing on less but higher quality connections you position yourself\u00a0far<\/em>\u00a0better for growth than unartfully trying to persuade over-tapped influencers to get a flirting glimpse in front of their audience. This way, you make\u00a0genuine connections<\/strong>\u00a0that go beyond chasing shiny objects that don\u2019t actually help.<\/p>\n

No, this isn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

Yes, this is different than typical\u00a0campaign-thinking marketing.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s exactly why you should try it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many continue an unhealthy obsession with influence. Except the web isn\u2019t\u00a0really\u00a0about influence. It never was. The mere fact so many … <\/p>\n

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