Influence is a power that can affect, persuade and cause changes to someone or something. But, to attain this power to get intended output isn’t easy, especially when it deals with people. In order to influence people, we need to discover what is already influencing them. What makes them tick? What do they care about? What are they listening? And, Whom are they listening?

Recently  I was working on a formula for deriving most influential users on social media. This formula was intended to work across sources [Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, Digg, Reddit, etc]. The challenge was not to find people who are influencing others but to find how much influence they have. This was little tough when we had to measure it across sources of various nature. Nevertheless, the formula was constructed and we used it at ContextMine. Once this feature was added to the application, I tried to test it. The first thing I did was to find out who is the most influential user for keyword “Social Media”. I was amazed to see the output. It was showing Pete Cashmore and TechCrunch. You can get the list of most influential users for your own keyword here.

Moving further, I tried to research little more on this subject. I came across Twitalyzer which publishes The Most Influential People in Twitter. There are so many other reports on Influence of people in different aspects of life. There is an article on businessweek about The 25 Most Influential People on Web.

Few questions which may drag attention on this entire discussion are: Do we really need to know who are influential? Does that really impacts my business? I would say – No, this is not required but Yes, it does have impact. We must have this information and how to use it, should be our call.

There is an another thought. Jonah Peretti, who the New York Times called the “viral marketing hotdog”, says, Influence is overrated. He further explains –

We all love the idea of “influentials”—those hyper-connected, ultra-respected thought leaders that can make your product reach the tipping point. But have you ever actually met an influential that can repeatedly and consistently make a product go viral? Probably not, because the latest science and real world experimentation shows that “influentials” don’t really exist, that viral growth is partly random, and that riding a wave is much easier than creating it.

If we consider this thought – nothing is constantly influential. It changes. It acts randomly. The viral effect can be an outcome of a trivial incident or a trigger. But, if we can measure the influence – can’t we use it? Reason may be different. It may be random. But, can we deny the importance of this information? Probably not. Though, how to use this measurement may be a matter of personal / organizational thought process.

Looking for your views.