Much has been written in recent times about the so-called wisdom of crowds.  This is the theory that aggregating the information in groups from individuals will result in decisions that are better than would have been arrived at by any individual member of that group.  Some claim that such decisions will also be better than those from experts or expert committees.

The difficulty with all of these theories is priming.

The information that is imparted to extract the view of the crowd has the capacity to influence the outcome.  If this ‘prime’ information is wrong the ‘wise crowd’ won’t correct this bias.

It’s one thing when the answer being solicited is basic and straightforward: for example, “How much does this ox weigh?”

It’s quite another when the question is more subjective and complex: “Is this the right political party to reverse the country’s economic troubles?”

In the case of more complex issues it’s very hard to have a pure basis of information from which a decision can be formed.  The dominance of a particular issue in the press at the time, the balance of reporting, the resonance of a speech, the physical appearance of a speaker, can all influence how someone thinks.

Whether we are conscious of doing so or not, we’re constantly filtering and evaluating information around us and deciding what should be believed.

In part, the number of people who appear to believe something, “social proof”, drives this process.  But as photographs of people from the 1970s wearing flairs and the popularity of slavery in the 18th Century illustrate, popular isn’t always definitively right.

It is interesting to consider how crowds decide what to regard as important.  A study just released by the Georgia Institute of Technology shines a light on one aspect of how this process works.

Researchers investigated the way in which Twitter broke the story of Osama Bin Laden’s death.  They traced the first mention of the news, analysed the degree of certainty in the retweeted references to the event, and tracked the speed at which the news spread.  This approach meant that they weren’t just looking at the spreading of a rumour, but the spreading of a belief.

Within minutes of the first post, by an aide to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 50% of tweets were certain.  By the time the news had been confirmed by journalists on television, 80% were certain that the story was true.

An analysis of which tweets were propagated shows that authoritative sources were crucial.  This showed that 100 twitter users were driving the story: almost 20% of all tweets on the topic mentioned one of them: initially media outlets led the way.

Once the news was official, it was celebrities whose tweets fuelled the continuing interest and discussion.

A number of things are interesting about this study.  It shows the crucial role of authoritative sources for information in society.  And it also shows the attraction of celebrity as a focal point for determining what’s interesting and, I suspect, for helping to influence the direction of opinions.

Marketers looking to influence large audiences, such as with news of new products, would do well to learn from this study and seek to emulate the way in which awareness is spread through social media.

Source: Georgia Institute of Technology. “How Twitter broke its biggest story, ‘WeGotBinLaden’.” ScienceDaily, 26 Apr. 2012. Web. 3 May 2012.

Image courtesy: Piero Fissore