Table

Influence and popularity on the topic of “blog
marketing”
July 21st, 2006
Blog Marketing............................................................................................ 2
The difference between influence and popularity ............................................. 2
Results ...................................................................................................... 3How to measure the influence on an issue...................................................... 7
Onalytica – How we can help ........................................................................ 8

Blog Marketing
In a previous1 analysis we analysed who the most influential authorities on
“business blogging” are. Since then there has been great interest in both the
results of the analysisand the methodology used.
We decided to do a new analysis on another topic of interest to many bloggers
but this time also use some time to make a point of illustrating influence versus
popularity.
In the new analysis we identify the most influential authorities on the topic of
“blog marketing” and compare this list to the list of the most popular stakeholders
of that topic.
The differencebetween influence and popularity
The difference between influence and popularity can be highlighted by looking at
the parameters taken into account when measuring the two.
When you measure the popularity of a stakeholder, you count the number of
other stakeholders who refer to the first stakeholder in the context being
analysed.
So the only variable taken into account is “number ofreferrals”.
Analogous this can be used to measure the link-popularity of a particular website
by counting the number of inbound linkers.
However, when measuring influence we take one more variable into account: The
influence of the endorser (or linker).
The influence of academic journals and universities have been measured this way
for more than 30 years, but it also intuitively makes sense: Ittypically means
more to any of us to receive the endorsement of someone we regard as an
authority in the field than from someone we know hasn’t got a clue.
So in order to establish popularity all we have to do is count. But to establish
influence we have to turn the references (or links or endorsements or citations)
into a system of simultaneous equations and solve them to find an equilibriumstate2.
“But aren’t those who are popular in relation to a topic also influential on that
topic?”
The short answer is “Yes, they often are”.
The little longer answer is “Yes, they often are, but you don’t have to be popular
to be influential; and some of those who are popular are not as influential as their
popularity would lead you (or them) to believe”.
In that answer lies one of the mainreasons why it is interesting to identify who
are influential on a topic: If someone is influential, but not really popular, then we
may not know about them and we are therefore not able to take them into
account.
In a public relations context there is a more interesting side to this thinking as
well. Someone who is less popular may be easier to influence than someone who
is popular. And if theirinfluence is roughly the same, it may be more costeffective
to influence those who are not so popular.
The findings of our analysis may underline my point here.
Results
Table 1 shows the 20 most influential authorities on the topic “blog marketing”.
The table also shows their popularity3. (Both measures are relative and linear.)

The table shows that New York Times is the most influentialauthority on “blog
marketing”. Interestingly enough it is also the most popular4.
Table 1 contains many of the usual suspects: Seth Godin is here, so is Steve
Rubel from Micropersuasion (now Edelman PR), BusinessWeek, Fast Company
and a handful of other well known names.
But there are also some surprises, or “not so well-known” names like Hyku, Next
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