Influencers have a reputation built within their online networks. They have a loyal following. They maintain hugely informative blogs, speak regularly, lead industry events and publish books. From a marketing perspective, influencers are identified based on their power to move people towards or away from your brand. In other words they work hard at demonstrating to people that they know what they are talking about and share that knowledge openly. But how did this trust develop?

I’m closing in on my one-year anniversary with Radian6. When we arrive on the job here we are introduced to the blogs and books of many of the social media industries biggest influencers. Inspired by our latest ebook, Winning Over Your Influencers, I pulled the books that helped me understand the concept of social media influence and it’s place in business and society.

Trust Agents: Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

In every discipline there are a series of books that take on the role of becoming “foundational reading” and Trust Agents was certainly one of those books for me. It was the first book I read upon starting at Radian6 and it provided me with a sense of just how different social media marketing was from anything I had experienced to date. The idea of the Trust Agent – that individual who looks to share their best insights freely, be present, helpful, and human in every interaction, and genuinely wants to cultivate a human relationship with everyone they connect with to advance their brands objectives – is so essential to the social media industry. For me, it helped shift what had become an established paradigm in my mind that the Internet was largely anonymous and that true social interaction outside of your immediate social circle that had followed you to Facebook was impossible. Brogan and Smith turned that paradigm on its ear for me.

Here Comes Everybody: Clay Shirky

Shirky’s book is about the power of networks and their ability to harness and magnify individual influence into group action. Shirky borrows a term from another author – Eric Raymond – who describes the active ingredient in successful group movements as being inspired by a “plausible promise” – a goal that is “big enough to inspire interest, yet achievable enough to inspire confidence.” Shirky explores three pillars of influence – sharing with others, collaboration, and collective action – to explain the philosophical foundations of the social web and its power to influence society and the business world. Published in 2009, the lessons within Shirky’s book influence the social media marketing strategies being employed by businesses around the world today.

Tactical Transparency: Shel Holtz and John C. Havens

This book by Holtz and Havens takes many of the theoretical threads about social media and puts them into real world and business sense. By drilling into the issue of transparency, the book takes on a major obstacle for wide spread adoption of social media within the business structure: fear. Consumers have come to expect increasing levels of transparency from the businesses they interact with and Tactical Transparency addresses that issue and offers valuable insights as to how to implement transparency in the business world. Specifically, it discusses how to accumulate trust and manage the good will with brand advocates and influencers.

No Bullsh*t Social Media: Jason Falls

I was lucky enough to meet Jason Falls at his book launch in Los Angeles in November last year. No Bullsh*t Social Media is a conceptual book but one that drills down to a simple truth: People often do NOT believe advertising but they WILL believe the reviews of total strangers. This is a point the strikes at the very heart of social media influence and underscores the importance of finding out where your clients are talking about your brand and your products and identifying those that have the power to influence people positively and negatively.

This was just a small list of some of the books I’ve read this past year that have dealt with the idea of social media influence. Have your say now. What books have you read on the topic of influence that shaped how you think about the topic? If you’re interested in following me on Pinterest you can check out the other books I’m reading!

Tags: Brand, influencer, Marketing, PR