RMM

I’ve had a couple of conversations recently where i’ve been explaining to people the difference between ‘authority’ and ‘influence’ online when it comes to social networking. Often people conflate the two but to do so is to be very much mistaken.  Authority and influence are two very distinct ways to measure someone or some-websites’ clout. As a result, i’ve decided to set out a brief guide to the difference between authority and influence online.

Authority

Authority is comparable to the idea of a citation in academia. Whilst in academia it is the most well known, famous, significant and important scholars that tend -on the whole- to get cited most often, so too can we determine that the most authoritative websites, blogs, profiles etc are those that recieve the most inbound links (for an inbound link in this sense we treat as we would a citation) - it is a deference to a greater authority [on a given subject].

Now, of course this is riddled with problems as often websites, blogs, videos, profiles etc recieve a high volume of inbound links for the wrong reasons (i.e. they might recieve inbound links in mockery of a mistake). However, this is where common sense must play a part and one must look at the context of the hyperlinks to determine if a source is genuinely authoratative.

In the main however, it remains the case that authority is conferred on the basis of in-bound links as these in-bound links, much as a citation would in academia, suggest a level of deference to a greater authority.

Influence

Influence is a great deal harder to measure on-line but is no less important. Those websites, blogs, profiles etc which are considered influential are considered influential for occupying what is known as a ’structural hole’. That is to say, an influential website, blog, profile acts as a bridge between 2 or more distinct network clusters.

Where authority is a measure of centrality to the conversation, an influencer will not be central to a given conversation but rather acts as a bridge between two conversations. Such websites, blogs, profiles etc are seen as influential because they can control or influence the flow of information between these distinct groups online.

If you’re interested in this (and if you are in social media you really should be) then as good a starting place as any to get a handle on social network theory is the Wikipedia entry on the subject. To better understand social network theory is to better understand what we do in social media and is thusly a wholesome and worthy enterprise!