Freddie Winckler's blog: Influencers and Advocates. Why they are different and why you need to know it #usguys

Influencers, Advocates. Are they the same, are they different? Does it matter?

A couple of nights ago I found myself entangled into a tweetbattle with a few of the #usguys crew. Tom Cristian Sylvain all of us debating in 140 characters the differences or not between these two groups.
Cristian came back to the subject with a post yesterday ( http://cristiangonzales.tumblr.com/post/2060584924/the-influence-of-advocates ), and I thought I would give you a point of view of this subject.

Why bother? Well because there are fundamental differences I feel between both, and that the success of digital activities.

INFLUENCERS

Let’s start with influencers. Its best definition would be: people with influence. A easy cop out? No straight logic. Now influence, what would that be? Another definition: the ability to drive people into action.

Ability, to drive people to action. Each word ahs its importance here.

Ability first because it’s not just about talking, it about knowing how to talk. To know when to talk. On twitter for example, when you talk has a great impact on if people will be listening:

So it’s not just about talking it’s having the ability for your message to get people’s attention and to get a reaction. Ghandi, JFK, Martin Luther King were great influencers with incredible ability. Their best equivalent today would probably sadly not be politicial, but more likelly the one and only Steve Jobs. Journalists and some bloggers (who never call themselves influencial...) like the sartorialist, but also celebrities who have become the key influencers for luxury brands.

To drive: yes influencers are in the driving seat. They decide what people are going to want next. See how luxury brands have been using celebrity: the it bag become it because it’s been worn, and seen worn by just a few people. Our digital world is filled with web celebrities who might not be know to the large public but drive influence. Staying in the luxury world see the sartorialist, or Garance Doré for example.
Important here is not so much the number of followers, although for them to really have influence it will ultimately be important, but the amount of ‘ear and eye ‘ that they get: how much people listen to them and the combined force of followers they get.

To action: yes because ultimately that is how an influencer needs to get measured. And gets measured. What he does builds action. Whatever it is from revolutions to clicks to opinion. An influencer only is one ONLY because he get people to do, think or believe something.

This now is old, but I think is the ultimate demonstration of one influencer managed to influence other influencers to want to influence... Remember this?

So in today’s world influencers are a little like supreme beings, because they are a media to themselves. And you’ll find that a lot of people are now turning this into a business. In a clumsy way very often : I cannot stand to meet people calling themselves ‘influential bloggers’. It’s a little like Kate Moss. I’m not sure she would describe herself as a beautiful model... When you are people know.
Check out these people: www.ctzar.com An entrepreneur has built a very smart group of influencers that he enrols when they want to in helping launch new projects. Well run, and smart.

And now for ADVOCATES
a person who speaks or writes in support or defense of a person, cause, etc. (usually fol. by of ): an advocate of peace.

Notice that there is no notion of influence at the heart here. It’s about having an interest in supporting, or destroying something. That vested interest might be money or not, just passion or hate.

What is very new here is that advocates have been given tools to influence. For example the H&M case from last Xmas in NYC when they were caught throwing clothes away, or Domino’s Pizza’s now famous ‘cardboard’ reaction. In fact advocates start to have influence when put into groups when 1+1+2+3+1+2 starts to equal millions. These are the users of the like and share button which are their new weapons. They don’t necessarilly have a blog and rarely are seen in people magazines but today their point of view gets influence by combining.

So advocates have found the way to get power, and in that sense everyone advocating has the ability to become for a short time an influencer.

So to conclude, while everyone courts influencers, that they remain a key part of any marketing plan, often actually with a dollar or now euro ticket attached to it, the decade we are entering is the decade of advocates. Because we all have a like button, because the most powerful advertising is one your agency cannot buy. A little like always really, but only at the power of the web: