360DigitalInfluence

When it comes to accessing influence, Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence Group measures a diverse set of criteria, including reach, engagement, social graph, frequency of social media contributions and more.

In an effort to stir up conversation and controversy among social media influencers, Fast Company and Mekanism collaborated to launch The Influence Project, a tool that challenges the notion that influence is based solely on reach and number of followers. While admittedly not a complete or holistic assessment of influence, the project calls out passive or dormant followers and makes a strong case that influence should be determined on the level of engagement and action of one’s social following.

We caught up with Jason Harris, President of Mekanism and one of the masterminds behind The Influence Project, to find out more about why social media influencers are buzzing about the collaboration.

What was Fast Company and Mekanism’s objective for launching the Influence Project?

Fast Company wanted to get people engaged with and talk about their brand. They were also intrigued by the concept of influence as it relates to the rapidly changing space of social media.

Mekanism wanted to give them a platform to contribute something valuable that would start a conversation around influence.  We wanted to launch a social experiment in which Fast Company is actually participating and building something different, while taking a risk and generating word of mouth.

Why do you think this project is so controversial?

It’s the label we put on it. We called it “The Influence Project,” and we decided to challenge social media influencers to prove that self-proclaimed “influencers” can get their network to take action and support them.  Of course, this is only one of dozens of possible ways to measure influence.

What’s also controversial is that we are offering normal people, who don’t typically read Fast Company, the chance to get coverage in a business publication. In the close-knit community of self-professed “social media influencers,” our project is a bit disruptive.

What lessons do you think marketers can take from “The Influence Project”?

If you want to make a splash, be prepared to take a risk. In order to be controversial, you must have thick skin. Of course, you can hand something to the blogosphere and hope for all good reactions, but you have to be prepared for the negative feedback as well. You have to create something that will drive some tension or controversy or else the audience won’t be inclined to care or participate.

When your objective is virality, some bashing may be involved.  We knew there would be some controversy around what influence means.

What is the impact of The Influence Project to date?

Over 13K people have registered to the project in over a week. Hundreds of thousands have participated and a healthy dialogue has been started.  Consumers find it to be fun and challenging to get their picture as large as possible in the magazine.

Are popularity and ego involved? Yes and yes.  We will see what happens after the November article and the winners are showcased, but we think that we’ve successfully questioned the notion of influence.