What is influence anyway?
Nina Thomas
Founder | Harmonic Advisory | Growth focused strategic communications, stakeholder engagement and relationship development
The role of influence has been going through an evolution over the last 5 years or so. According to data published in The Australian earlier this week, half of Gen Z would "give it all up to become an influencer".
If you've seen any of The Aus this week, you would have seen The Influence Index, which highlights the entrepreneurs "changing the face of how business is done, how to sell to consumers and even how to sell themselves."
It's an interesting space to watch and a complete contrast to the 'quiet influence' seen (and sought) in the B2B world, although relationships and engagement are still at the core, just at a different scale with a different style.
It's also interesting to observe the ongoing relevance and durability of influencers. The most successful influencers have been building their businesses for some years, but many (read: millions) fall by the wayside given the relentless need to create viable content to stay relevant and visible.
There are of course influencers who more closely resemble the business leaders people are familiar with: Bill Gates , Richard Branson , Susan Cain , Gretchen Rubin and the like. But how many of us act on the information they provide?
I'm still forming a view on this type of influence, a part of me is concerned about the pushing of sponsored product by influencers, I also don't love being bombarded with content, but it's hard to argue with their influence on people's decisions and behaviours.
An interesting example of the impact of influence was Olivia Rodrigo encouraging American young people to get vaccinated. Via a few short public service announcements on hers and official government pages, she was credited with crashing the COVID fatality curve (see link below).
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Side note: Olivia has 27.6m followers and has only done 193 posts, confirming that less can still be more.
Business leaders need to take notice of this space, because this is what the next generation of business leaders is being influenced by now and it's important to understand that, even if you can't relate, yet.
What do you think?
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2 年Nina Thomas personally I am turned off by them...but recognise that I am at and age/stage where I am unlikely to be their target audience. Separately, I guess that they're just a new way of companies to market to their key target audiences...so the Influencers themselves are smart of pick up on this. And, it's becoming a super competitive space where the regulators are now getting involved...see ASIC chasing down 'finfluencers' for offering financial advice when they are not licensed.