Are the "Influentials" Dead?

Duncan Watts, a network-theory scientist who now works at Yahoo, has performed many experiments that disprove the true influence of 'The Influentials'.  An article in Fast Company, Is the Tipping Point Toast, lays out Duncan's beliefs that all the money spent by marketers to target Influentials has been wasted.

Watts believes [...] a trend's success depends not on the person who starts it, but on how susceptible the society is overall to the trend--not how persuasive the early adopter is, but whether everyone else is easily persuaded. And in fact, when Watts tweaked his model to increase everyone's odds of being infected, the number of trends skyrocketed.

So rather than target influentials, marketers should be looking for the easily influenced?   That sounds like fun.

(via Ad Lab)

Comments

[vrempire]

hmmm..that's look like a reverse psychology to me. maybe both will yield the same result after all.