Whilst browsing Ben Haim’s blog¹ I came across a great series of visuals by David Armano². One of them, shown here, shows the interplay between social media fragmentation and influence. The ripples between individuals nicely illustrate how Social Influentials, one of the subject of today’s Basics post, affect their networks and accelerate the spread of communications.

Social Influentials, e-Fluentials, Digerati, New Media Mavens…The terms are often used interchangeably but they all refer to net users who are more engaged with the online world than average. These individuals participate in online and offline communities, discussing and sharing topics of interest as they do so. They don’t always have leadership roles but they do have authority and influence. Basically, when Socials speak people listen

One of the main reasons Socials have credibility stems from the fact that they’re seen as community members rather than as outsiders trying to push an agenda. In effect Socials are the opinion leaders in an ongoing series of dialogues and discussions. But because those discussions are web-based Socials have the potential to reach millions of individuals through the use of their personalised web-spaces.

Unsurprisingly, Socials are often regarded as vital in driving the spread of online communications, so much so that companies have recruited Socials to represent their brands online. The Corporate Socials are a relatively new, but potentially important, addition to the social media landscape.

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1. Retrieved August 2, 2009 http://www.benhamin.com/ [↩]
2. Retrieved August 2, 2009 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7855449@N02/sets/72157606844282993/ [↩]

Using traditional channels, like TV and print, Ad men have attempted to engage consumers with brands for decades. As you can see from the above short¹ Web 2.0 differs from traditional comms in that the flow of information between individuals and organisations is extensively democratised: Communication becomes an interactive, continually evolving process. In traditional forms of marketing comms a consumer is a largely passive receiver of brand messages and is usually the final link in a top-down chain of communication. With digital, the consumer becomes a de facto partner in communication spread and acts as an agent in creating dialogue about brands. Of course due to the networked nature of new media this dialogue occurs whether an organisation wants it to or not, which sometimes results in everything from minor PR gaffes to widespread calls for brand boycotts.
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1. Retrieved June 28, 2009 Web 2.0 An Intro in 5 minutes by Prof. Wesch at KSU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE [↩]