There’s a New Sheriff in Town

 He goes by the name Media, Social Media.

November 5, 2017 By: Deric Kennedy

Opinion Leaders

"For some of us they are merely our parents, teachers or mentors who tend to play a prominent role in the establishment or the formation of our views. For the others, the opinion leaders are great people such as Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi. But today, with the changing contemporary scenario’s, there is someone else who has taken on the role of opinion leaders, and that is Social Media."- McCollin's Media

Hey, welcome back to The SCEM VIEW, with Deric. By now, you know, I’m pursuing a master’s degree in Strategic Communication at Troy University. My blog (which I like to pretend is a popular prime time talk show where strategic communication and popular culture fuse) was originally created to explore and discuss various topics and content in a previous class, Strategic Communication & Emerging Media (SCEM), but I have since completed that course and am now taking COM 6610 Leadership. I decided to hold on to the name “The SCEM View” because it's catchy and you guys already know it…so why not! And so, here we are. Let's keep riding this thing out.

Last week, during week two of COM 6610, we discussed/explored Interpersonal Influence, Opinion Leadership and Diffusion of Innovations.  We took a look at the importance of interpersonal influence, opinion leadership and diffusion of innovations-once more but spent the bulk of our time discussing a TED video I recently watched entitled, How Great Leaders Inspire Action. I say again, if your interests involve leadership and/or inspiration, or if you simply would like to watch an awesome video, click the link below to watch the full video by Sinek! It’s all about how great leaders inspire action! You can thank me later. http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

This week, week three of COM 6610 term 2, our class explored Social Media and Opinion Leadership. The readings included: Why Video’s Go Viral, Engineering a Viral Video, The Journal of Business Strategy, Overcoming negative media coverage: Does Government Communication Matter, What's Your Personal Social Media Strategy and How to Leverage Social Media for Public Relations Success. In short, the readings this week explored the new world facing strategic communication professionals- things that communication leaders and people developing media strategies need to be concerned about.

So, just so we are all clear, how about we define some things? What is an Opinion Leader anyways? An opinion leader is a well-known individual or organization that has the ability to influence public opinion on the subject matter for which the opinion leader is known. They can be politicians, business leaders, community leaders, journalists, educators, celebrities, and sports stars. I would define social media but by now, I’m confident we all are sharp in that understanding.

I found a cool blog posting from 2011 that ties this week’s topic together and I figured I would share a little of what I found. It’s entitled How is Social Media Playing the Role of an Opinion Leader Today. It basically explains how social media has taken on the role of an opinion leader.

Here were the 3 main points/topics.

1.     Opinion Leaders and Social Media- Early Adopters

2.     Opinion Leaders and Social Media-Bring About Behavioral changes

3.     Opinion Leaders and Social Media-Directives of Believable Messages

 Number one mentions opinion leaders are early adopters...Opinion leaders prove themselves to be early adopters, by passing information on new products, to a large number of people.  the example given was, Zhuping Hodge, the famous tea taster, has proved herself to be an opinion leader as far as the information on good tea is concerned.

Number two goes into how opinion leaders and social media bring about behavioral changes. It goes on to say how it basically communicate messages to a primary group, influencing the attitudes and behavior change of their followers, and in the same way, the various channels of social media( especially YouTube), also tends to influence the attitudes as well as behaviors and changes their outlook towards certain concrete beliefs. I took note of this and pondered for a while...so much of what we learn in this course affirms much of what I previously questioned and considered. It all makes sense, to say the very least.  

And number three shares how opinion leaders and social Media are directives of believable messages. It goes on to explain how in certain marketing instances, the marketers believe it to be advantageous to direct the communications to the opinion leader, who are also famous people, alone, to speed the acceptance of an advertising message. An example given was Omega watches. Zhang Ziyi was made a brand ambassador for their constellation collection so naturally, the people who are ardent fans of Zhang, would most likely believe all that she has to say about Omega watches. And a result, the watches were accepted by the primary audience "quicker". 

So, what does all of this mean to me?Although social media channels have not yet become the primary way that the public at large accesses news, entertainment, information etc., many recent reports and studies confirm that there has been a new sheriff in town for quiet a few years now and the better we understanding it and learn of its might, the better we might be able to benefit from it and maneuver through it. It also says to me there is power in social media and in the way we communicate, power that many still have yet to acknowledge and/or accept. 50 years ago, opinion leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King influenced millions and did so without the use of mass communication as we know it today. Just imagine how much further his reach would've been had his opinion leadership had the luxury of bringing its platform over to social media. Arguably, Dr. King, like many other opinion leaders from that era, could have done even more and participation would have been even greater. Thus, even bigger and greater change could have taken place! Just ponder on that for a moment. And on that note, we will end there. I hope you have enjoyed this weeks show (post) and I hope to see you right back here for week four of The SCEM View, with Deric!

See ya next time.