Lots of people believe that the ratio of influencers to the influenced is one-to-ten (1:10). I believe the ratio is more like 1/1000 and as high as 1/10000 in terms of someone who is indeed an opinion leader or indeed truly influencial.
I think there are classes of influencers, too. The 1/10 is a naive number because although 1/10 people in a community might be influencers (or influencials), the ratio is more like 1/1000 and as high as 1/10000 in terms of someone who is indeed an opinion leader or indeed truly influencial.
That 1/10 guy (or girl) is a waste of resources, especially now when the truly influencial — the real opinion leadership — are able now to not touch merely those ten people they see every day (that 1/10 model is antiquated and obsolete) but the penetration and impact is much deeper and also permenant.
I would daresay that since there are 285,000,000 Americans, give or take, the truly important cultural influencers are probably under 5,000 people. Maybe 10,000-20,000 worldwide.
And most of them are in the databases and rolodexes of the traditional PR firms already.
Shel is right: the blogger communications citizen created media revolution is important and powerful. What will these truly emerging and emergent leaders of tomorrow (who might be young or old or women or men or of color or non-native or undocumented or whatever) look like?
And, will you be smart enough to have these folks in your database and rolodex?
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Don’t you think that the 1:10 ratio feeds into an individual’s desire to be counted among the special class of influencers? With a 1:10 ratio, I might be able to see myself as among the rare set who can influence people. With the 1:10,000, you have just killed my ego.
Furthermore, if I think that I am among the class of America’s influencers, I might take that responsibility seriously and start promoting products and sharing my views, no matter how trite or trivial, via my blog. If you have killed my ego, you will render me ineffective and I will no longer perpetuate America’s brand of consumerism or civil society.