INFLUENCING – IS IT A QUESTION OF EMOTIONAL AGILITY OR LEADERSHIP?

Each of us has the power to influence in the environment in which we live, work and relate.

The term “influencer” is today certainly one of the trends of the last years, associated with an exclusively modern concept.

The channels have certainly changed, the tone of voice, the ability to reach, thanks to the network, an incredible vastness of users, to create community, interaction and then engagement. Physical and temporal barriers have been removed, and seems that the ability to influence is now only available with a click on a device. History, however, teaches us that men and women, even when the web was not even imagined in the most visionary fantasies, (leaders, emperors, popes, designers, scientists, leaders, CEO’s of companies) have nevertheless influenced peoples and systems. They were visionary, creative, charismatic people who won over the logic of time.

What in the 90s was only in the hands of well-known personalities, the testimonials, who by virtue of the trust inspired by the audience exercised their influence on purchases, today gives way to those ordinary people who have earned their audience simply by telling if you are on Web. The good old word of mouth method is never finished. It has only evolved precisely in the "Click to Click": the word of mouth has become 2.0.

But why this need to "influence" on Web?

Today the various social networks have led us to decree this as the era of protagonist, where everyone share their purchases, their decisions, their feelings. Storytelling is the art of sharing experience, used as a strategy of persuasive communication, which also makes use of what is visual storytelling, thanks to the power of images and exciting videos, universal and intelligible contents for everyone.

For many this has become a business, there are names that have become Brand Ambassadors or even themselves a Brand.  Many companies have ridden this new phenomenon, which has then become a real business, treating consumers as prosumers, as very proactive and in interaction with the brand.

The ability to influence, in my opinion, is not only connected to the impressions, the visibility, the unique visitors, the conversion rate, reducing it to the metrics of Web Analytics would be reductive. We all have a power of influence and, depending on the type of specific weight we have, positive or negative, and the way we use it; we can generate significant "domino effects" within the place or platform in which we interface.

The ability to influence arises therefore from something deeper such as charisma and empathy; Internet is just an instrument that serves to convey, but it is not the genesis of this potential.

It is what makes it possible to direct the interlocutors towards the pre-established objectives, to know how to manage their emotions, monitor the group's climate, spread the motivation, overcome the fear of change.

It is emotional agility, emotional intelligence and leadership.

It can be found in schools, in offices, in hospitals, in companies ... it is everywhere, if we are looking, around US.