Here’s a question without an immediately obvious answer – what do Kim Kardashian and Stephen Fry have in common? The ability to make others look stupid? Um, no. Heaving breasts? Nope. A sex tape? Let’s hope not. Do you give up? The answer my friends is social media influence. Yep, that old (completely obvious) chestnut.
According to business journal Fast Company, who enlisted social media guru Dan Zarrella to measure celebrity influence via Twitter click through rates, Fry is the meat in a Kardashian sandwich of internet influence.
Says Fast Company: By studying click-through rates–the amount of clicks a tweeted link receives–Zarrella was able to graph celebs’ influence on their followers. Furthermore, as with sexual performance and the work of Axl Rose, digital influence is all about quality over quantity: “influence online had nothing to do with sheer numbers–especially on Twitter–but how much users could be swayed from the passive to the active.” It’s also interesting to note how and why some celebrities wield more influence than others. The Kardashians for example, owe their exorbitantly high click through rates to titillating personal photos. Fry on the other hand, is an authoritative and trusted source for information and referrals. Boobs and brains, pretty much the same shit these days anyway.
Check out the graph below…
