When it comes to Social Media there has been tons of talk about those few influencers who are able to spread your message like wild fire. But finding those few influencers has been the proverbial challenge.
Several good books have been written about this topic by some really smart people. But when doing some data mining on my blog using a new tool called SM2 from Techrigy (special thanks to them for helping me get trained on this tool), I noted that the far reaching impact of my blog is found in the proverbial Long Tail. (see graphic)
What this says is that the conversation about topics on my blog and where they are occurring is coming from the long tail (dang it, that Chris Anderson is right again!)
So what I think this means is that exclusively looking for reach with your social media initiatives by targeting a selected few influencers is a flawed concept (sorry Ed Keller from WOMMA). To me this graph says it needs to also contain a component that delivers adoption (ie Reach) through the Long Tail of bloggers out there.
The bottom line is Social Media is fluid so you might as well go with the flow!
