Social Media Influencers

An interesting article on social media influencers discusses what are the forces that drive businesses and decision-making . A team of Economists and Scientific researchers carried out a clinical study on what factors influence people’s behavior in the decision making process. They reached the conclusion that though people understand the vagaries of their nature, they are unable to predict what motivates them to take a decision.
The article further elaborates on what constitutes common sense and how it helps people in making practical day-to-day decisions. It however does not help them in dealing with complex situations. For instance, they can’t design a marketing campaign on plain common sense.
Another interesting point made in the article concerns, what kind of people influence social media and consumer decision. An earlier hypothesis claimed that extraordinary people with great social connections and clout, are the ones who influence mass behavior. The writer of the article however begs to differ. He says what influences people today is not that easy to gauge. What makes ideas go viral and what makes people accept your suggestion, often relates to how receptive your target audience is.
The study offered an interesting conclusion; though social media influencers do impact their network, what really influences a group is-- people who influence, are networking with those who are easily influenced, and are working with them too. In other words, if you want to influence people, you have to nurture your network.
A case study of Twitter users also offered an interesting suggestion. While, well-connected people who have massive fan following, do get retweeted; the maximum retweets were based on the subject, the timing and topic of the tweet.
Are you active on social media? Do you consider yourself as an influencer in your network and what according to you makes people repost your status updates or retweet your tweets?