Recently I was working on a social media research project for a large healthcare company.  The task was simple: take a look across a variety of social media platforms and identify the most active blogs, Twitter personalities, Facebook groups, etc…and then determine why people were flocking to these sites and what information they were seeking.

Easy enough.

This wasn’t a unique assignment; I’ve seen dozens of similar requests.  These types of reports tend to focus on platforms—what is the most prominent group on Facebook?  But as I worked through my research it became abundantly clear that focusing on platforms is the wrong approach.  Instead of focusing on Facebook and Twitter, we should be focusing our efforts on identifying influencers.

This is a better approach for a few reasons.  For starters, social media is about 1:1 interactions.  Focusing on influencers rather than platforms puts the attention on building relationships and not on the social network of the day.  In addition, most of the key influencers in a given space have a significant presence across platforms.  It’s rare that you will find a well-respected, vocal presence on Twitter that doesn’t have a blog.  Influencers are highly regarded because of what they have to say, not where they say it.

Beyond focusing on building relationships, focusing on influencers rather than platforms shifts the focus away from the mentality that social media is about the tools.  Instead, social media is about the individuals, how they communicate and what they have to share.  Once you identify an influencer, you can then begin to understand how they reached that position and what content you can offer that would be valuable to that person.

Focusing on influencer relations demands an integrated approach to social media.  Rather than formulating a strategy for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you are forced to develop an umbrella strategy to form relationships with influencers.  Of course, this demands mircrostrategies on how to engage with each influencer (and you wonder why social media takes so much time and effort?).  By taking the focus off platforms, you remove some of the temptation to blindly chase after tools simply because it’s the hot social network of the day—maybe Facebook is not the right place for your business.

Social media platforms are important.  They are where the masses congregate and share information.  But as a company in the early stages of drafting a social media strategy, start off by thinking about influencers and you will find your way to the right platform.

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