Influencing people and affecting viewpoints

Influence in itself is nothing more than exertion of power to change the mindset and behavior of others. It is the power of persuasion, plain and simple. And in order to be better at influencing people, you need to be able to understand what makes people tick in the first place. If you are to influence the way people think, it is important that you have some kind of leverage and and understanding of their motivation is certainly one kind of leverage. But there is a very basic problem with that assumption; you won't get to know everyone you ever come across. There is a certain amount of time that is taken in understanding people's likes and dislikes and sometimes it's a luxury we can't afford.

And this is particularly true of the online world. People are like ghosts, statistics that are recorded and played back later but how do you get to know these people that visit your website? Who are these digital ghosts? Why are they visiting your site? You need to understand this if you are to be effective at influencing people. Here's the thing though; people will always have general patterns of behavior and thought that you can point out and work with. And by working with that, you have the perfect tools you need to influence them. It always helps to know someone personally, but you don't have to know someone personally to understand what they love or hate.


Simply put, our online behavior is a mix of conscious and unconscious thought and behavioral patterns. For instance, some people just like community based review and recommendation systems, and this could be either a conscious or an unconscious preference. Perhaps your visitors just like creating an online persona, so allow them to key in their details and get recommendations and results tailored to that. Like this, there are many techniques that you can use to improve your website either as a marketer or as a blogger. Explore all of them and you will be able to make visiting your site a more fulfilling, happier experience for everyone that knowingly or unknowingly visits your online presence.