The Fast Company Influence Project Squanders Their Influence

Fast Company created their Influencer Project supposedly to show who has influence in the social web, or in particular, on Twitter and Facebook. People are being asked to send a unique link to their friends and followers to see how many people will click on it.  Those who can get their link clicked on the most will be featured on a Fast Company magazine cover.

This is a great example of leveraging the psychology of humans needing connection and validation.  Or in layman's terms, it is a brilliant popularity contest, but it doesn't prove anything about influence.

The thing with influence, like the thing with trust, is that it cannot be accurately assessed in a blanket statement.  If you can influence someone to see a movie it does not correlate with your ability to influence them to buy a certain brand of wine.  I may trust you to be punctual to a meeting, but that does not mean I trust you to watch my children or to hold on to my wallet without taking the money out of it.

Influence, again like trust, lives in multiple domains.  Writing a catchy phrase on Twitter that arouses a followers curiosity enough to click on a link has no reflection on your overall influence.  If I click on your link about online influence it's because I am deeply interested in social media marketing.  You could have a tweet right above that one with a link to information about professional wrestling and I would never click on it.

So are you influential over me? Yes, in the domain of subjects that you and I are both passionate about. And no, in the domains that you are passionate about and that I am not interested in.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I received a Twitter direct message and an email about the Fast Company Influence Project before it launched.  The experiement sounded great to me and I did participate ...until I realized that it was an empty experiment.

There are two achievements of the Fast Company Influence Project.  First, they have enticed thousands of people to spam their friends and followers.  Second, Fast Company is getting a ton of press (albeit mostly negative) about the Influence Project on mainsteam news outlets and blogs. (My favorite post and comments on the Fast Company Influencer Project are on Amber Naslund's Brass Tack Thinking blog.)  In fact, you're reading about Fast Company right now.  So if the old adage that "all press is good press" is true, then Fast Company hit a vein of gold on this one.

On the other hand, if you understand that the currency of your influence is based on your reputation and how much others trust you, the Influence Project is a blemish on Fast Company's relationship with the public that many will not soon forget.