Whenever I give a lecture, I conduct a simple experiment. First I ask the members of the audience to raise a hand if they follow the actor Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. Usually most people’s hands go up—no big surprise. For several years Kutcher has been aggressively amassing followers, even renting billboards urging people to follow “aplusk,” his Twitter handle. In 2009 he became the first user to acquire 10 million followers; by early 2013 the total was 13.7 million. Kutcher would seem the very definition of a social media “influencer.” But then I ask the audience another question: How many have ever done something because Kutcher suggested it? Most often nobody raises a hand. So I have to wonder: If Kutcher is the quintessential influencer but no one does what he suggests, in what way is he influential?
A version of this article appeared in the May 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review.