Page 133 - The Content Code: Six essential strategies to ignite your content, your marketing, and your business - PDFDrive.com

authority.
“In the online world, social proof is what makes you legitimate,” said Jay

Baer.1 “There are small cues on the web that convey this type of authority.
There’s a very good reason bloggers keep a tweet counter open at the top of their
sites. If a post has been tweeted 100 times, the assumption is that it’s worthy of
your attention. Well, truthfully, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. There are different
ways to game the on-line system and still be recognized as an authority. It’s
much easier to create a scenario and be seen as an authority online than it is to
become a truly authoritative person offline.”

At no other time in history has the appearance of authority been so easily
assumed and promoted. Words like “best-selling,” “award-winning,” and
“expert” have been rendered almost meaningless. People crave any possible
shortcut to rapidly distill meaning from the information-overloaded world.
Unfortunately, in this setting, the badges of influence may become even more
important than legitimate authority built from true knowledge and experience!

“How much do you think we’d be talking about Twitter followers or
Facebook Likes if the number wasn’t attached to your public profile?” said Baer.
“We care about Twitter followers and Facebook Likes disproportionately not
because of the power of the medium, but because we keep score in public. Every
legitimate social media consultant will tell you that it’s not about how many
Twitter followers or Facebook Likes you have, it’s what you do with them. And
in terms of driving measurable behavior, conversions, revenue, loyalty, and
advocacy, they are of course correct. Number of Twitter followers doesn’t mean
a thing, right? Wrong. The reality is that social media measurement is a very
public competition, and we buy it hook, line, and sinker. Why would politicians
not only (allegedly) pay to build a following that dwarfs the other candidates, but
then have the audacity/stupidity to brag about the advantage? Because it matters
in the court of public perception.

“We may not like it. We may not even choose to admit it. But it’s
disingenuous to suggest that number of Twitter followers has no impact on how
you or your organizations are viewed by the vox populi. It’s not a key
performance indicator, it’s a key popularity indicator.”

It’s unsettling to think that the local blogger with the fake Twitter followers
or a blog site with manufactured social proof may very well accrue benefits of
influence in an unequal measure to the actual skills and talents of their creators.
Scarcity of time and the pressures of daily life make people default to interacting
with those few who matter—or at least who appear to matter—and reciprocate
their attention. The implication is that a possible marker of authority like Likes
and followers can make an impact on people and contribute to the perception of