I is for Influencers

I is for Influencers: In a networked world, the soft power of social connection matters a great deal, whether you're selling music, celebrity, or socks. One school of thought says that it's "influencers" who matter online: identify them and you've got it made. The other says what matters are the influenced-- we need to understand when and why people copy others. Both rely on the notion of "influence" as a vector of transmission, the luminiferous aether of the online world, a medium everyone knows must be there and nobody can quite measure yet.


Read the entire article on Pitchfork, but this is the best definition of the elusive influencer and why they are critical.