Thursday, February 5, 2009

Dynamics of Personal Influence

Nicholas A. Christakis' post about the Dynamics of Personal Influence offers this:

You may have noticed how fashions in clothes or music spread through social networks. It turns out that all kinds of conditions and behaviors – including obesity, smoking, altruism, voting, and happiness – can flow through them as well.
What does all this mean for businesses? groups of customers might be strategically targeted so as to take advantage of their influence on one another.

You may only have a few customers coming through your doors, however those people influence a lot of others. Think about personal influence as a cost effective method of acquiring new customers.