When Malcolm Gladwell applied Pareto’s 20/80 principle to communications by pointing out the individual traits of those few people who can influence others, and even start social epidemics, it was an eye-opener for many marketers. At least, it should have been. In the social media environment, who you are connected to is more important than how many.

The metrics of successful digital communications should by now have become purely qualitative and, not the least, tangible. However, we do not see it’s happening so much today. Influence is still measured by numbers: Facebook must be the most optimal arena to advertise on, after all, it is the largest social networking platform. Those who have thousands of followers on Twitter are considered the best potential brand ambassadors, blogs with most traffic are suddenly on all the PR VIP-lists, and are bombarded with commercial proposals. 

Marketers apparently are trying to reach out to the ‘vital few’, but in doing so they apply the same old principles as always: the more exposure – the better. But in reality, not only social web is highly fragmented – so are the levels of personal influence.

There are small influencers in all possible niches, and some of these might not have thousands of connections and nevertheless be essential for marketers. The opportunity lies in the different kind of relationship these small influencers have with their network. They influence their readers on much more intimate, personal level because they have a chance to engage with every single one of them. And on the other hand, as Shirky puts it, ‘the larger the group, the more significant [the] asymmetry [of communication] and disconnection will become‘. Secondly, the chance for the juicy bits to be spread further is quite high – it’s a great ego-boost to be one of the few to discover a great content, as opposed to just be one of hundreds of retweets. Thirdly, these small-scale influencers are probably much more receptive to commercial messages, than attention-spoiled top-bloggers. And lastly, by reaching out to these niche-influencers you’re very likely to hit the nail on the head when it comes to your target audience. 

So instead of notoriously using the old list of blog-gurus to send your message to, spend some extra time on researching your local blogosphere. You’d be surprised to see how much more creative and target-tailored your blogger relations can be.

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