The myth of the influencer

So, to reach the public through social media, you target influencers, right? Wrong:

Our data show that online sharing, even at viral scale, takes place through many small groups, not via the single status post or tweet of a few influencers. While influential people may be able to reach a wide audience, their impact is short-lived. Content goes viral when it spreads beyond a particular sphere of influence and spreads across the social web via ordinarily people sharing with their friends.

I think a lot of marketing and PR companies desperately want the influencer theory to be true – it makes reaching a target audience and managing the message more feasible. But I think there’s a degree of willing self-delusion here, but the true reality of the new social sphere is so very unmanageable.

Anyway, good read.