Last year, I wrote about the fact that the A-list bloggers don't exactly wield the greatest influence over buyers of enterprise technology. It is more important, I said then, to determine who your A-list is (those that speak passionately about your specific market segments' problems and concerns) vs. the A-list when identifying individuals to engage through social media.
I decided to revisit this topic after coming across Mack Collier's great post on how he saw an unexpected spike in his blog traffic over the holiday season because the post was tweeted and re-tweeted over the course of a couple of days. The very interesting aspect to this was the fact that most of the folks that tweeted it had very modest numbers of followers. The great point that he made was that those individuals that have 50-100 followers most likely are using Twitter to connect and interact with close friends. The trust factor within these small networks are greater, making followers more inclined to read a post that someone recommends.
The experience Mack describes in his post is a great illustration of the idea I originally explored and shows how two great tools work together to create connections with people that matter to you. Given the number of IT users on Twitter talking about their experiences and asking questions about technology, this example and idea is very relevant.
Do you know who those influencers are for you?
UPDATE: Corey Olfert weighs in on this topic with a great point about the relative influence of traditional media...a great side note about how it's time to stop distinguishing social media.
