Top Influence Marketing News – The Future of Influencer Analytics

August 24, 2012

Back on the saddle again with our bi-weekly roundup of news from the wide world of influence marketing.

This week’s roundup post is chock full of goodness – starting with a debate on the effects of a CEO tweeting and circling back to a post where 13 different experts offer their take on Klout’s latest algorithm updates.

The Fight for the Future of Influencer Analytics

Jay Baer gets the post rolling with his own insights on the recent updates to Klout’s platform. But in classic Baer fashion, Jay quickly shifts the debate by offering this:

But as I think about the future of influence, I wonder if maybe the future is in specific influence scores, not general ones?

Jay pushes further down the rabbit hole when he states that influence is channel specific, and no one has evenly distributed influence across multiple channels (Twitter, FB, etc.). He reiterates his previous stance on businesses needing focusing their energy on how effective an influencer is at driving action among the people they are connected to (i.e. it’s action that matters, not awareness)

Jay also provides his thoughts on range of segments and tools within influence analytics, including measuring channels like Twitter and Pinterest, blog influence and more. All in all, it’s another compelling take on the world of influence from someone not afraid to challenge common assumption.

Read the full article from Jay Baer – The Fight for the Future of Influencer Analytics

3 Levels of Mind Changing Social Influence

What makes social media truly powerful?

According to classical definitions, there are three general levels of social influence – compliance, identification and internalization.

Christopher Penn offers his take on how these three levels of social influence act on a prospect who doesn’t necessarily like your brand, and how social media (done well) can build that proverbial bridge from compliance to internalization.

In Chris’ own words:

“Think carefully about what makes social media powerful. It isn’t just people with high Klout scores. It’s the cumulative effect of many people, some of whom are influential broadly, but many who are influential specifically to you, and the sum of their experiences that weigh upon your mind.”

Read the full article from Chris Penn - 3 Levels of Mind Changing Social Influence

7 Ways to Find Powerful Influencers

Over at Jeff Bullas’ blog, guest author Belinda Stinson offers up some practical tips for finding influential people to engage with as part of your influence marketing strategy. Instead of looking at scores, Belinda offers up some common places where you can identify influencers.

And then, she serves up a step-by-step guide on how to build relationships with the influencers. This is an excellent primer for anyone who’s getting started with influence marketing.

Read the full article at Jeff Bullas’ blog - 7 Ways to Find Powerful Influencers

Earned, Owned, Paid, Shared: Horsemen of the Apocalypse or Best Opportunity?

In the age of “convergence” and “integration,” multiple channels and connectivity points means brands and marketers have to step up our game to fulfill the consumption demand. In other words, where there is opportunity, there is also challenge, so it’s sink or swim for all of us producing online media.

Managing and optimizing this “360 degree experience” will stretch the limits of what we can/should do as marketers, and organizations that hone and refine their strategy for effectively integrating earned, owned, paid and share media will have a big competitive advantage.

Lee Odden offers his definition of each of these media labels with the idea that a deeper understanding of what we are trying to integrate is ground zero for successfully managing all of these components in our marketing efforts.

Read the full article at ClickZ – Earned, Owned, Paid, Shared: Horsemen of the Apocalypse or Best Opportunity?

13 Experts Chime In on Klout’s New Algorithm to Determine Social Influence

Last week, Klout rolled out an update to their scoring algorithm to both fanfare and criticism. Neal Schaffer at Windmill Networking pulled together an excellent cross-section of experts in the PR and marketing sphere to talk about the Klout changes – and influence measurement in general.

There are some real gems in this piece. Here are some of our favorites:

“Klout’s new changes show continued maturity in tracking influence, but the savvy user knows that relative influence by specific topic is more accurate than any single number.” – Jeremiah Owyang

“Can you really uncover certain characteristics such as trust, passion and motivation that cause people to react or behave a certain way? Influence is about action and behavior; it’s different for everyone and it comes all shapes and sizes. We have to remember that Klout is a number and one score (even if it’s made up of more signals) can only tell so much about someone’s ability to steer behavior in a desired direction.” - Deirdre Breakenridge

“Like with any measurement tool for social media, there are no absolutes. Just because someone has a high Klout score doesn’t mean they’re necessarily engaged or influential. Klout is just another tool in the toolbox and can be used to build relationships but should not be used as the only measure of one’s influence.” – Kathryn Rose

Read the rest of the comments at Windmill Networking – 13 Experts Chime in on Klout’s New Algorithm to Determine Social influence

What were your favorite articles on influence marketing from this week? Feel free to share in the comment section!

Image credit: Sam Grover

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