Re:You Are More Influential Than You Think You Are
by gwern on Wednesday May 22, 2013 @11:18PM
(#5755151)
Yes, 'influence' is perhaps a questionable term. If we rewrite it as 'attention' or 'judging you', then it becomes true and something worth knowing: OP did not realize that ~80 people were clicking through to the articles he was recommending (to grab one random number), and that could well make him realize he was risking his reputation or angering people to an extent he didn't appreciate before and that he should be more careful.
It's almost an obvious application of the '1% rule', but the nature of this sort of thing is that it's hard to appreciate at a gut level until you generate some data yourself. The imbalances between actual audience and intuitively-observed audience is just too extreme.
Re:You Are More Influential Than You Think You Are
by ekianjo on Wednesday May 22, 2013 @10:05PM
(#5754947)
Yeah, influence is not about generating interest or gathering clicks. You measure influence by tangible actions coming from what you created. All in all, clicking on a Facebook link is not much different than checking out a newspaper and forgetting about it a couple of minutes later.
There are three responses: (a) find a way to make it look like clicks and views are relevant (and there's a whole set of evangelists who are into that form of self- and other forms of deception, and I believe they're all doing the world a grave disfavor), or (b) look for other metrics, or (c) don't worry about it and stick to the common wisdom regarding how to go about persuasion and networking while being essentially decent about it.