Influence, Trust And Authority
April 30, 2009 
Author 
In Trust is a gray area to measure using quantitative metrics. Measuring an idea as subjective and nuanced as trust is difficult because you can never escape the simple fact that trust is relative. Someone may have a personal blog with only 20 readers, but those 20 readers soak in every word and trust the author deeply, taking any calls to action suggested and studying each word carefully. That person may be more trusted by their small, but loyal following than far more popular bloggers with greater numbers.
In a previous post defining the real value of your network, I touched on the point that raw numbers are irrelevant, what matters is if your network is activated, connected and determined – all indications of strong trust.
Hopefully we’re all on board with the fact that popularity is not trust. This of course begs the question, is it possible to put trust into an objective measurement?
The web loves to measure popularity and influence, and does so via several number-driven methods and tools including (but not limited to):
- Google PageRank
- Technorati rank
- Alexa/Compete rank
- Niche-specific ranking lists, such as the AdAge Power 150 list (which pulls numbers from a variety of sources)
- Raw numbers of subscribers or followers
- Number of links to a specific page
- Emerging services that look at specific blog posts such as PostRank
- Pro measurement tools such as Radian 6
- Number of popular stories across social bookmarking sites
What these numbers measure is popularity and arguably authority, but not trust.
Steve Rubel wrote previously that PageRank is the ultimate measure of online influence. Steve is smart, you’ll note if you scan the page the word trust is not used a single time. He’s well aware influence is not trust, however what he does mention is authority.
We need some solid definitions if we’re going to move forward with this and talk semantics, which is worthwhile as all three of these words are thrown around frequently without much thought (I’m guilty of it too, which is why I’d like to draw a delineation between them). Disclaimer: these are my interpretations, yours may vary:
Influence is the power of someone to be a compelling force on the actions of others. Robert Scoble is an influential person in getting us to try out new web services because he gets so jazzed about them we just have to try them out.
Trust is reliance on the integrity in someone (essentially confidence). If you stop and think about it, we trust each other a great deal in the social web. Consider something as simple as all the shortened URLs you click each day, we trust our networks won’t send us a spam link.
Authority is power or right delegated, given or in the case of the web earned. Lawrence Lessig, a law professor who has written several books and works hard as an advocate of free culture on the web is an authority on copyright (amongst other things).
With these definitions in mind…
- My view of the three is that influence and authority are not necessarily personal, while trust is more abstract and difficult to measure because it is personal.
- We have trust with people on the social web and blogs we read because we form personal relationships with the people behind the content. It is something that has been leeched from traditional media, and illustrates the shift in influence - from brands to people.
- I previously wrote that attention + trust = influence. I’d also add attention + trust = authority. Trust is the shortcut to both of these, thus explaining the earlier example of why someone with just 20 readers can be as influential or authoritative if not more so than popular people, at least to their networks. In other words: people/blogs/sites/Twitter users with high level of trust don’t show up in the influencer lists.
- I’m not entirely convinced trust is measurable via automation with the tools we currently have – and while you could take several numbers, metrics or methods in tandem, it is difficult to gauge something so personal and always misses the less popular sites.
- A potential bridge to trust without interacting with someone or something directly is either a preceding reputation or word of mouth from someone else that is trusted. But whether trust is actually bestowed from this is questionable.
- Mich Joel makes a strong argument that trust is non-transferable. I’m inclined to agree.
And now to answer a quick reader question…
Katie Harris, director of qualitative research at Zebra Research recently asked:
How do you choose who to listen to/not listen to?
She asked this on Twitter, to which I replied I needed more space to define. Now that we’ve flushed out the background, I’m able to answer her question more succinctly: I listen to those who have earned my trust.
Do you feel the same?
Rob O. replied | Apr 30, 2009 (15 comments)
Whereas Google Page Rank does have some real-world significance, I maintain that Alexa & Technorati are largely self-propagating hoaxes – they’re really only a valid metric because Alexa & Technorati say so. And since so many gullible bloggers have bought into that notion, well then, it must be true.
Alexa, Technorati, et al, are kinda like infomercials that hawk “available for a limited time” collectible Nascar plates (with the 24-karat gold rim, of course) – that is, what makes them “collectible” is that someone declared them to be so.
Ultimately tho, you’re very right – bloggers who’re most infatuated with “hits” or “clicks” are often unconcerned about establishing authenticity or authority – and this attitude usually reveals itself readily in their content.
Katie Harris replied | Apr 30, 2009 (1 comment)
Hi Adam
Great post. I like your thinking here.
But you misunderstood my question.
I was actually referring to your post “Stop Focus Groups – Connect With Real People”
http://thefuturebuzz.com/2009/04/28/connect-with-real-people/
What I meant was “How do we know who to listen to in a market research kind of way?”
Because unless your market is that community itself (which it may be, but then again, it may not), how can you weigh what you ‘hear’ to reflect the *actual* ‘market’?
It’s risky to base big business decisions on what may be a very skewed (with passionate brand advocates, or demographically different, because not everyone has an online voice yet) sample.
And beyond sample issues, the fact that you misinterpreted my question – very easy to misinterpret a 140 character tweet – is *exactly* why we need to be careful with using an online ‘community’, per se, as a focus group.
Can we be sure we’re getting a read on the intended sentiment/meaning vs what we guess it might be?
What kind of business decisions are we willing to make based on our (possibly mistaken) interpretation of the (possibly very skewed) data?
There are a definitely cases where going into ‘the wild’, to listen to/collaborate with online communities would be a perfectly appropriate methodology, eg beta testing apps, optimising online communities etc).
Moreover, this approach can have some notably positive brand benefits in terms of engaging customers, customer relations, public relations, etc.
But it most cases, there are just too many caveats to be able to use it, on its own, to make the kind of decisions that more robust (traditional?) ‘market research’ methodologies could handle.
I’m not for one second suggesting that we conduct research ‘behind closed doors, in controlled settings’ as per your post.
Actually, I just wrote about this on my blog;
http://zebrabites.com/2009/04/28/not-so-fast/#comment-398
I don’t know of any market research that *does* happen that way.
Can you give me some examples?
Adam Singer replied | Apr 30, 2009 (596 comments)
@Katie – thanks for the comment, as we see sometimes 140 characters is not enough to provide full context. There would definitely need to be a different approach for starting discussions vs. consumer research.
Alex Redmond replied | May 1, 2009 (2 comments)
I’m pretty new to blogging but it appears to me that there is an unhealthy fascination with link bait and general headline hogging articles. I don’t know, maybe I am naive but to me, shouldn’t a blog be about what you want to say rather than crafting it ONLY for the purposes of hits? Sure, every article needs to be user & search engine friendly but some blogs I have read recently are just about hitting the numbers (on every single post) and to me that doesn’t seem right.
Adam Singer replied | May 1, 2009 (596 comments)
@Alex – I agree with you, it is not just about hits – however I don’t think there’s anything wrong with crafting headlines that stand out.
Tom Gable replied | May 1, 2009 (3 comments)
I think influence is driven by a person’s expanse of knowledge (perspicacity, sagacity, wisdom) and willingness to share. I use different Twitter search tools to look for bright people posting in different areas we are interested in (crisis PR, social media, clean tech, renewable energy, venture capital, biotech, etc.). Then, I follow those who provide a steady stream of links to new knowledge and sort by category. This ties into your earlier post on “No Information Overload.” Looking for fonts of knowledge using Twitter can be incredibly rewarding.
Amy Lauren Young replied | May 1, 2009 (1 comment)
In response to your thoughts on how to measure Trust. I actually do. I have a patent-pending valuation methodology that values a company (be it multi-national to a blog) from a financial perspective, trust perspective (or brand equity, intangibles) and both. The methodology is being used for financial purposes and marketing purposes…especially if the Trust quality shows strength in environmental sensitivity or human rights, etc. My Internet start-up is Global Institute of Finance and Trust…check it out!
Miami Web Design replied | May 1, 2009 (2 comments)
Trust is not quantitative hence could not be measured but on internet it is treated equivalent the links .more the links to a source more trustworthy the source is
Stephen – Rat Race Trap replied | May 3, 2009 (7 comments)
A hundred people who really trust you are more valuable than 10,000 who hit your blog for 15 seconds. I think this post fired on all cylinders for me.
China Travel Blog replied | May 12, 2009 (1 comment)
I think the factors effects trust/authority and influence is different for the techsavvy people and normal people. I also think the number of the comments followed especially high quality comments also a sign of popularity and trust. When I see comments from highly popular blog owners I think this blog is worth reading.