Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Millions of updates are shared on social media every day and years worth of content is spread along with it. When we log in to Twitter we are greeted with “What’s happening?” On Facebook it’s with “What’s going on?” Social media demands content from us and is driven by user-generated content, but it adds a lot of noise across the social media channels we are using and on the social web.

Some organisations sport hundreds of followers and unique visitors to their blog every month while others have thousands of followers and generate so much more unique traffic. Which one has more influence? Of course you will think that the organization with a larger audience has more influence, and in some cases, you might be correct. But, digital influence goes so much further than the number of people following you or the traffic you are generating to your blog....

...According to Neilson Global trust survey back in 2009, only 14% of people trust ads while 78% of people trust consumers’ recommendations.

While the number may change today, the concept of consumers trusting their friends’ recommendations remains the same.

Recently, I wanted to watch a movie and I couldn’t decide if I should watch Wreck it Ralph or Rise of the Guardians, so I asked my editor Henry for his opinion, and he recommended me to watch Wrect it Ralph. I went with his suggestion and I didn’t regret it. But guess who just lost one customer here because somebody I trust pointed me the other way? 

The big question is how do you find these influencers or brand advocates? There are a couple of tools out there that can help you with that....