Two-step flow and your communication strategy

According to the two-step flow the direct influence of the media is limited. The effect that media has on the public, flows via interpersonal communication. The interpersonal communication takes place between opinion leaders and followers. In these conversations the opinion leaders influence the followers. The opinion leaders are capable of distributing the announcements of the mass media to the "normal" public. The two-step flow basically presumes that the influence of the mass media goes in two steps. First, the media influences the opinion leaders. Second, the opinion leaders influence the followers.

Who are those opinion leaders? Opinion leaders are people in our society that are capable of having more influence than others on the opinions of people in their surroundings. Personality, competenties and knowledge, and the position of someone in a social network are the three most important dimensions that determine if someone is a opinion leader or not. Besides this, they have their own area of expertise.

The media landscape is changing and opinion leaders have more power to influence others nowadays because of social media. It is easier to reach a lot of people. If we look for example at opinion and review websites such as Zoover, Cheqqer and TripAdvisor, we can see that it is relatively easy to find the opinion of others about their experience with a destination/hotel/touroperator, etc. Research showed that people value the opinion of others on the internet more than the information that touroperators, hotels and travel agency's are giving to them. One opinion leader can easily spread the word. Organizations should be aware of this change and adapt their media strategy on that. It can go both ways; opinion leaders can make your company and give your communication strategy a boost if they believe in your message, because of the coverage social media has, but it can also break communication strategy by ensuring it will have no effect at all.

(De Boer, C. & Brenneke, S. (2006). Media en Publiek)