Dan Schawbel wrote a post about 'Why Numbers are Important for Personal Branding'
in which the discussion briefly talked about those who have a large
following are branded as "influencers." My main counterpoint against
this thinking, and one discussed by Danny Brown, is that people can't be labeled as credible solely on the number of followers they have. With the amount of spam accounts on Twitter,
it's easy to game the system. I'd encourage someone with 20,000+
followers to go through their list and see how many of their followers
are truly active.
I pose the following question: is someone considered an influencer
because of the number followers, or are people following because the
person is an influencer?
Has social media, which allows us to connect with a wide audience in a more efficient manner, caused people to put their guard down and crown people "influencers" simply because they know the unknown? Are we in a time where people can simply sign-up for social media and brand themselves experts? Social media allows someone to "talk" a lot more, without the "walk" to back it up. Are we inviting people to conferences simply because they have a lot of followers?
What do you think? Does social media take away the value of being considered credible? Are we jumping on the bandwagon of unproven people simply because they have a lot of followers?