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Defining and measuring influence: Radian6 jan2011 book
- 1. COMMUNITY EBOOK / JANUARY 2011 / www.radian6.com 1 888 6radian
Written by CHUCK HEMANN, LAUREN VARG
and TERESA BASICH
AS
Copyright © 2011 - Radian6
- 2. COMMUNITY EBOOK / JANUARY 2011
DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
or the influence we have in our day-to-day
offline lives.
CHAPTER 1:
Brian Solis, principal of FutureWorks, a
DEFINING SOCIAL
digital and social media communications
agency based in the Silicon Valley, has defined
MEDIA INFLUENCE
In the business sector of social influence as:
media, agencies, vendors, and
successful enterprises rail en
…The ability to cause desirable and
masse about the benefits of
measurable actions and outcomes.
That definition feels almost a bit calculating,
building relationships with brand
doesn’t it? But when you really think about it,
this is a fantastic definition of what influence
“influencers” to gain a strong encompasses. Whether the outcomes we
foothold on the social web. “Your want are inherently good or bad makes no
influencers are your best brand
difference – we want them, and to influence is
to encourage the actions that drive our desired
representatives, “ we say. “Those outcomes.
people have the highest ability to
impact the purchasing behavior of
What is online influence?
your greater brand community, “
On web-based social networks, influence is
no different than the definition stated above,
we preach. And that’s all true. although there are nuances of online influence
that organizations should consider as they
But what, exactly, do we mean when we talk strive to identify their “influencers” and create
about social media influence? How can you, their own influence strategies.
as a company, find the right group of people –
large or small – to make that desired impact • Influence moves much quicker through the
on your business? In this paper we’ll strive social web than it does in the offline world.
to clearly define influence as it pertains to Why? Because of the immediate and vast
the social web, identify why social influence exposure people and businesses can garner
matters to businesses, and identify some on the Internet.
strong metrics and approaches for selecting
• Stances and influencer status can change
and interacting with a group of brand
quickly because of a single person’s
influencers that make sense for your company.
experience and accompanying online
commentary. Influence is truly fluid; much
like trust, for businesses at least, influence
takes work to develop and can be easily lost.
What is Influence?
At the simplest level, influence is the ability to
impact a person or thing in ways that inspire
action. Influence is very much about cause and • The outcomes of online influence can be
effect, and that truth applies across the board, easier to identify than offline influence
whether we’re talking about online influence because we can easily access a larger pool of
reactions than we’d be able to offline.
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- 3. COMMUNITY EBOOK / JANUARY 2011
DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
The essence of influence is the same no matter Another example? Graco’s efforts to
where it’s employed or experienced. The
reactions to that influence, though, and the
connect and become involved with the
gap between the cause and effect of an act of In an effort to develop a strong relationship
influential online parenting community.
influence are the things that seem to be most with this community, Graco organized Graco
subject to nuance. Get-Together events in which they met
key influential bloggers to learn about the
community itself and slowly integrate their
brand into the mix. They then launched
Can online influence drive business?
The reason all this clarification is so important the GracoBaby blog to enable two-way
is that influence, when clearly understood and communication between the organization and
well applied, can be a great boon to businesses. community.
Empowering your loyal customers and fans
to share the experiences they’ve had with Although the Graco case study is a bit old,
your brand(s) and products with their social the fundamental pieces of it are still highly
networks is the foundation of word-of-mouth relevant to today’s influencer relations efforts.
marketing. It also builds trust around your And we’ll talk about those fundamental pieces
brand and bolsters your company reputation. next.
Influence is a two-way street, of course. There
are companies out there also taking the stance
So, what, exactly, makes up influence, and
of “influencee,” letting their customers and
how can we use it?
fans impact the direction of their products and Influence as a noun is made up of a few
services. different aspects, and openly demonstrating
these aspects on- and/or offline is key to
making strong connections with the people
you want to influence and, ultimately, impact.
For example…
TurboTax’s Inner Circle community. The
Inner Circle is a large community of TurboTax • Trust – Trust is the foundation of influence.
users who have been selected as product beta The only way people connect with each
testers. These folks provide feedback on the other is by trusting that they’ve been
product, rate and comment on new proposed accepted and will be treated fairly. Of course,
features, and ultimately contribute to the acceptance and fairness are relative, but
annual improvement of the TurboTax software we’re trying to break this into simple terms
suite. At the end of each year, TurboTax that we can all understand and use. Identify
incorporates 35 community-suggested how your community establishes trust and
features into its product to offer a consistently acceptance and work from there.
improved piece of software.
• Authority – If you know what you’re saying
Intuit, parent company of TurboTax, and doing, people will listen and take heed.
recognized the potential behind incorporating This isn’t about all expounding expertise,
attentive, engaged customers into the fold per se – although that’s a big part of it – it’s
of their business model, and has done so also about having and demonstrating strong
successfully with its Inner Circle community. beliefs that resonate within people and steer
them in directions they want to go.
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
• Value – Again, value is relative here, but Here’s the short of it:
it’s an essential piece of influence. To have
any impact on a person you need to provide Popularity: Being widely known.
some sort of value to them. By providing
value you create a positive benefit for Influence: Being able to inspire action with or
people. That’s it, really. without a large following.
• Connection – People are willing to act on Yes, these definitions are a bit oversimplified,
behalf of others if they feel the benefit of but they’re quick and useful takes on
doing so outweighs the cost. While trust, popularity and influence. One is inherently
authority, and value are all important pieces about inspiring action, while the other is not.
of influence, a mutual connectivity or bond For the sake of education and eye opening,
between the influencer and influencee is the though, let’s get a little grittier with the
glue that binds. differences.
To influence anyone, you must build trust, People who are popular are known by name
establish authority, deliver value, and form a and possibly reputation, but not necessarily
mutual connection with them. Those who have by their connections with individuals. In the
become influential within specific networks online world, these people’s networks are
have fostered all these things with all those comprised largely of weak ties rather than
networks, and all of it is tailored to each close relationships. Those who perceive
network. this popularity think the popular folk are
entertaining, the life of the party, and their
Note that, as a business, you will have to attention is often caught by what these people
develop these things with your selected list of say and do.
influencers to get them on your side. You must
work to connect with them on these levels to When it comes to moving others to act on their
gain their cooperation. And before you do any behalf for a specific cause or purpose, though,
of that, you must identify who the right people the power of the popular folk diminishes.
are for your business to connect with, what These popular people, while amusing, haven’t
principles and beliefs resonate with them, and built a mutual trust, proved their authority in
how they define value. For the purposes of any subject, or provided substantial value to
this paper, we’ll be focusing on that first major their network. Most importantly, they haven’t
piece – identifying your influencers. But before developed a mutual bond with those who
we do that, let’s address this tricky thing called make up their social graph.
popularity.
Capturing the attention of your network isn’t
the same as moving them to do something.
Influential folks, however, can inspire action.
What about popularity? Does it matter?
Originally, we were going to dedicate an entire
We should note here that influence is powerful
chapter to the difference between influence
and popularity, but, after doing some research
According to an HP Labs study on influence and
and some thinking, we realized the discussion
no matter the size of someone’s network.
passivity in social media, the size of a person’s
around this particular facet of the topic of
influence doesn’t need to be nearly as long.
ability to cause an effect. So it makes no
social graph is weakly linked to this person’s
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- 5. COMMUNITY EBOOK / JANUARY 2011
DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
difference if a person has 100 friends or 1,000 traffic to your website, the role these metrics
friends linked to them via social networks; play in defining your business’ performance is
if they have done those things that connect under some question.
people to them in meaningful, moving ways,
they will influence the behavior of their Within this argument, there’s a camp of
network. people who believe true ROI is really the only
performance metric companies care about.
Both popularity and influence are useful tools In a widely viewed presentation, brand and
for business, but to make the most of them, you marketing management consultant Olivier
must be clear on what each tool impacts and Blanchard outlined several truths about
what general sorts of results each will deliver. social media ROI, his primary argument being
that these softer metrics are not ROI and that
ROI is purely a financial calculation.
Popularity begets awareness, but influence
begets action.
Now that we’ve shared the theoretical side Blanchard is not wrong, but neither is the
of influence, let’s get into the fast and hard camp of people utilizing softer metrics to
conversation of measuring influence. What measure impact. Recently, Amber Naslund,
are the metrics best suited for identifying VP of Social Strategy at Radian6, outlined the
influence? Is there a hard metric that “13 Truths About Social Media,” arguing that
applies across the board in every influencer there is more to social media measurement
identification program? Is influence even and success than ROI.
measurable in numeric form? Well, we’re
getting to that. Whether you are using hard metrics, like
a pure ROI calculation, or are willing to
subscribe to softer metrics for measuring
success, the reality is that we’re far from
solving this riddle. In fact, some of the
issues that have plagued traditional media
CHAPTER 2:
THE BATTLE measurement are now starting to show their
faces in social media marketing. However,
BETWEEN SOFT that’s the subject of another eBook.
AND HARD METRICS We believe the answer to the soft and hard
metrics question lands somewhere in the
The debate about whether or middle of these two extremes. We’re guessing
not we should be using hard or that your mother probably taught you the
soft metrics is one of the hottest
principle of “everything in moderation,” right?
Well, much of that holds true for social media
within social media marketing marketing. The best approaches are looking
circles. You’ve likely seen plenty of
at ways to truly capture ROI while using softer
metrics to outline behavioral changes.
skepticism around the role of soft metrics in
measuring the impact of social media. Whether Unsurprisingly, there are also questions
we’re talking about the change in share of about using one or the other type of metric
voice/conversation, a rise in the number of exclusively to define influence. Do quantitative
searches about your brand, or an increase in
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- 6. COMMUNITY EBOOK / JANUARY 2011
DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
metrics even matter? Do qualitative metrics This is an important thing for brands to keep
introduce unnecessary bias? Does the in mind: One metric or even one group of
introduction of qualitative metrics make metrics cannot tell you the entire influence
influencer analysis inherently NOT scientific? story. Numbers themselves cannot be viewed
Is a scientific analysis of influencers within a in isolation. The example we gave above is a
topical area important for brands? What’s the perfect case study. It isn’t enough to look at a
ideal balance between automation and human blog’s inbound links and consider that blogger
intervention? influential. In addition to inbound links, we
should be thinking about total visitors, unique
Let’s take a second to try and answer these visitors, inbound links, number of comments
questions. per post, number of retweets per post, and
that’s just naming a few metrics. You can
quickly fall down the metrics rabbit hole if
care is not paid to what metrics matter most to
Using strictly quantitative metrics to
you and your brand. This is where qualitative
define influence
How much of a person’s online influence factors must come into play.
can we determine based entirely by their
numbers? Does a person who has 10,000
followers have greater influence than someone
who has 5,000? What about a person who
The role of automation
How much or little an influencer identification
writes a blog and has 20,000 inbound links program should be automated is another hotly
versus someone else who has 10,000? What debated question. There are a number of tools
if we built an algorithm that looks at these that help you automate the process including
strictly quantitative factors for a person’s Klout, Tweet Level, Twitter Grader and
online presence? Would anyone buy the final Technorati. These applications give you the
output? numbers you need, and then you can input
them into a document to track which people
In all honesty, numbers have been critical you deem influential.
since long before we were even talking about
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and the The “scores” these sites present are well
rest of the online universe. Establishing how reasoned in their own right, but they present
many people you could potentially reach with brands with three specific challenges:
a certain action (more on reach coming up)
is something the traditional public relations/ • The scores aren’t truly “online” influence
communications world has struggled with measures – Most of these online solutions
from the beginning. However, just because are providing a score based on one or only
you have 10,000 followers on Twitter and I a couple of online channels. A person’s
only have 5,000 doesn’t mean you are more online influence is much more than his or
influential than I am. In a broader context her influence on Twitter. What if I have a
than just Twitter, just because you have the YouTube channel, as well? Or a blog? Or
opportunity to reach more people online what if I actively participate within an
doesn’t make you more influential. Its how open LinkedIn community? Shouldn’t I get
those numbers come together that explains credit for my entire online presence? The
how influential a person could or couldn’t be answer is clearly yes, but, until one of these
to a brand. tools develops a score that incorporates a
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
person’s entire online presence, the scores technology right up until the point when you
must be considered only for the channel in are trying to nail down your final influencer
which they are measuring. list. Until an online tool incorporates the
above, use those sites as more of an “FYI” than
• Relevance – More on this in a second, but anything else and develop your own list of
these online tools are not determining metrics.
whether or not a persons’ Twitter presence
is relevant for a particular brand. Take social
media marketing expert Chris Brogan’s
The role of qualitative analysis
Klout score for example. He has a score This discussion could very easily be called “The
of 84 on Klout. If you spend only a little role of the analyst in influencer identification.”
time there you’d realize that’s a very high Where does a human come into play when you
score. Yes, Chris is probably influential on are defining who is influential for your brand?
Twitter, but ask yourself this very important The answer, quite simply, is everywhere. It’s
question – has Chris written anything about why a successfully developed approach to
your brand or about a related topic area that influencer identification that combines human
you care about? If the answer is no, then intervention with quantitative metrics will
should he be included on your influencer always win over something that appears to be
list? totally automated or strictly quantitative.
• No insight into the “black box” – There So where does the analyst, or brand manager,
are many influencer “algorithms” out there. or anyone trying to develop an influencer
Putting aside whether they are good or bad list come into play? There are three very
for a second, we tend to have very little important roles of the analyst:
insight into what goes into the final output.
Now, nobody is asking these companies or • Normalizing the data – We mentioned
firms to disclose the “secret sauce,” but we above that there is not one single metric,
should be able to piece together how you regardless of channel, that can be used to
came up with the score you did. If we can’t, define influence. We cannot look at just
the number has to be taken with a grain of total visits and consider a blog influential.
salt. Similarly with Twitter followers. After a
person or team gathers the appropriate
Whether or not you can use one of these tools metrics, a process of normalizing the data
to determine influencers for your brand is a must occur, otherwise comparing inbound
separate discussion than the one detailing links to, say, number of comments on a blog
if the process of pulling metrics for your post would not make sense. The scales are
influencer identification program should be wildly different. Similarly, for your brand,
automated or not. The answer to that question it might make more sense to place more
is clearly yes, and as much as you can automate weight on total visits than inbound links.
you should. The best influencer algorithms That’s a call only a human can make.
combine lots of metrics across lots of different
platforms, and pulling those all by hand is • Determining relevance – We’ll be spending
labor intensive. It’s been done, but that process more time talking about relevance in the
is inefficient and it leaves a lot of opportunity influencer equation later on, but this is
for human error. We recommend using likely the most critical part of influencer
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
identification. Technorati publishes a list of overly simplistic, getting started with social
the Top 100 blogs based on the Technorati media is hard.
Authority score. The search conducted to
find that site took literally one minute to Anyone who tells you it’s easy to create a blog,
complete. You could do that also, but take Twitter, or YouTube presence is misleading
a look at the list of sites. If you are a brand you. Creating the site or account is easy, yes,
manager working for a midsize business- but drawing in and engaging with the right
to-business brand in Topeka, Kansas, or people is very hard. Heck listening to, let alone
someone representing said brand, does engaging in, the right conversations is hard
Gizmodo really matter to you? Probably not. enough. A strong influencer identification
Now, if you were a large technology brand program helps partially solve the “boil
then Gizmodo would matter a great deal. the ocean” conundrum of social media
We haven’t yet encountered a computer engagement.
smart enough to determine brand relevancy
completely. A human must be involved to Compete estimates that there were
evaluate a site’s influence. approximately 175 million people who visited
Twitter.com in November. Taking a number
• Segmenting your influencer list – Here is like 175 million and turning it into 50 easily
what most consultants won’t tell you – not allows a brand to get its head around who
everyone on your influencer list would be could be a potential outreach target and who’d
categorized as an “outreach” target. You make it onto the “Listen to These Folks” list.
could work in an industry that’s heavily
dominated by forum conversations. Anyone So, let’s get back to the question at hand:
who’s tried to reach forum participants Do brands want something that’s totally
before can tell you that it is very difficult automated? Our answer to this question would
to even enter the forum as a brand. have to be no. Brands are comforted by the
However, just because you can’t engage role of a human in the analysis. They generally
with them, doesn’t mean you can’t listen to trust that a person understands the brand and
conversations. Use a tool like Radian6 to the brand’s goals more so than a computer
monitor conversations in that forum. You’d ever could. Not only that, but an influencer
be surprised at the market intelligence list only becomes useful when it’s relevant
you’ll acquire by just listening. No amount and properly segmented to meet brand goals.
of automation is going to segment the list These are two things that a computer cannot
for you. readily achieve. Will we reach a stage where
the Klouts of the world are more a trusted
resource for brands? Absolutely, but we aren’t
there yet.
Do brands want totally automated
influencer identification?
Do brands want targeted influencer lists?
The answer is absolutely yes! Do they want
Bringing qualitative and quantitative
something that’s purely automated? Our
metrics together
experience to date has been absolutely You’ve no doubt already figured out that
not. This gets to the root of the influencer our approach to influencer identification
identification question – why do brands try incorporates both quantitative and qualitative
and do it in the first place? At the risk of being analysis. We want to develop our list of
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- 9. COMMUNITY EBOOK / JANUARY 2011
DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
metrics, outline our goals for the list, create to help you explain someone’s total online
the list, segment by relevance, and then footprint.
segment by potential use (e.g., listening only,
engagement, outreach, etc.). We want to The approach to mapping and defining online
automate everything we can automate then influence must take into account metrics
use a human to ferret out the final list. that can be bucketed under the following
categories: reach, relevance, and syndication.
If your methodology is sound and the person It’s important to note here that we aren’t
conducting the analysis for you has enough just talking about the reach, relevance, and
brand knowledge, then the final list will be syndication of the outlet. Rather, our focus is
a true representation of who is influential on those three buckets as applied to the outlet
for your brand online. If not, the list created and the individual doing the talking. That’s
could bear fruit, but will it create “buzz” in the ultimately what we care most about, right?
markets that care most about your product?
Well, maybe. But do you want to create a list Social media marketing is about engaging
of influencers, reach out to them, and have with people, is it not? We’re not going to be
little to show for it? In other words, what’s the engaging with The Huffington Post, or New York
ROI of your influencer identification program? Times, or USA Today, right? We’re going to be
Create the rigor, develop the list, use the list, engaging with bloggers or reporters at those
and drive ROI. That’s what everybody should outlets, first and foremost. We’ll be talking at
be striving to do. length in this section about the characteristics
of each of these buckets and how you bring
them together.
CHAPTER 3: Reach
It’s likely easiest to start here because this
is where most of our focus tends to be. We
THE INTERPLAY
want to know how many eyeballs a channel
could potentially reach. We tend to focus our
BETWEEN BRAND
RELEVANCE, REACH, attention on the New York Times because its
online presence is very large – 65 million
AND SYNDICATION total visits in November according to
Compete. It’s a similar story with USA Today, or
Of everything we’re talking about The Huffington Post, or Washington Post. They
in this paper, we hope you take reach a lot of people.
away the fact that influence in However, if we’re living by the theory that
social media is comprised of more we’re focused on reaching an individual at one
than just reach. Similarly, influence
of these outlets, how does taking into account
only that site’s Web traffic really help us? The
is mapped out by using more than just one answer is, it doesn’t. It’s important to take that
metric. Or even five metrics. Or even 10 into account, yes, but we also need to know
metrics. Ideally, that map is constructed by how much traffic for that site can be attributed
bringing together the best set of metrics to a single author. This is where everybody’s
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
favorite subject, math, comes into play. viewed (or has the potential to be viewed) by
Obviously there is more to the reach part of many people is even better. But, how widely
the equation than total visits, so what are some dispersed that content is could be considered
other metrics you could consider? the Holy Grail.
Not to continue on too long with Chris Brogan
but his blog is a good gauge for demonstrating
On the outlet side: On the author side:
this idea of syndication. His blog receives
hundreds of thousands of views according to
Total visits Total posts authored
Compete, and his site has been linked more
(or tweets, blog posts,
than 400,000 times according to Yahoo! Site
articles)
Explorer. Those are amazing numbers, but
Unique visits
they’re only one part of the equation. Take
Inbound links Inbound links to the
a look at how often his content is shared on
author’s posts
Twitter. If you look at his recent posts, they’ve
been retweeted a significant number of times.
Inbound links Unique people reached
Those hundreds of thousands of views just
Organic keywords Total people reached
grew exponentially simply by someone picking
Now, it’s important to note two things when
up his content and syndicating it.
you’re evaluating which reach metrics you
want to use: So, what other metrics can you use to define
syndication? Again, this is similar to reach
• The relative weight of each metric will
in that we’re focused on outlet and author
change for each brand. There’s a lot of
syndication.
science that can be applied to the online
influencer process, but nothing can replace
a human looking at the data and thinking
about what matters most for the brand.
On the outlet side: On the author side:
How you weight each of these things will
Google results for the Average number of
change based on those goals.
outlet name times a headline is
retweeted/headline
• How much weight you give to the author
Google blog results for indexed, etc…
metrics versus the outlet metrics will also
the outlet name Largest number of
change. There’s no secret sauce here. This is
times a headline is
another place where your analyst will come
Google news results for retweeted/headline
in handy. How much weight you give to the
the outlet name indexed, etc…
author versus the outlet is obviously critical
Number of times the
to the final output. As a general rule of
author’s name
thumb, remember that we’re most focused
appears in Google
on reaching individuals, not outlets.
Number of times the
author’s name
appears in Google plus
the outlet
Syndication
In the spirit of reaching as many people as
Number of times the
we can, syndication plays a critical role in
author’s name appears
the online influencer equation. Creating
in Google plus the brand
content is great, but creating it on a site that is
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This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list but a together. Skip relevancy and you’ll have come
place where you can get started. We’re sure up with an interesting list that may or may not
you can come up with your own syndication be actionable for your brand.
metrics. You may realize that only a couple of
these are relevant for your brand. Whichever
method you choose, the same key points
Bringing this all together
we mentioned above for reach apply here: You don’t need to spend much time reading
The relative weight of each metric and how this to understand that there are a significant
much weight you put on the author’s score amount of data points here. With a large
versus the outlet’s score will vary. That’s not number of data points comes a lot of data
something we can provide you. Know, however, capture, and with a lot of data capture comes
that everybody has their individual methods the need for additional resources to gather,
for bringing these things together. crunch, and then develop the output. This is
further evidence that a dedicated analyst or
team of analysts is critical to completing an
influencer identification program. So what are
Relevance
This is probably the most important factor some other things you need to keep in mind?
in the online influence equation. As we
discussed in the previous section, knowing • Date range for analysis – This should
reach and syndication metrics are nice but if go without saying, but capturing the
a person is not creating relevant content for appropriate amount of data across these
the brand, how could he or she be considered data points (or others you might discover/
an influencer? Honestly, he or she just can’t create) is critical. You don’t want to grab
be. Without relevance what you likely have is only the last month’s worth of content,
the same kind of traditional media list you’ve because that introduces a few different
been working from for years. We think we can issues including whether or not one event
safely say that everyone would like to come up is unduly influencing the final output. The
with something more targeted, right? As with ideal scenario has you capturing 12 months’
the other metrics we outlined, with relevance worth of data and extending your range
we’re also focused on author and outlet from there. Whatever your date range may
relevance. What are some metrics you could be, it is important to be consistent. Don’t
use? grab six months worth of data for Twitter
and then only 3 months for blogs.
• This is just a snapshot in time – Even
On the outlet side: On the author side:
though you’ve captured a critical mass
of data (ideally 12 months of it), the final
Total mentions of a topic Total mentions of a topic
output still is a snapshot in time. Whatever
Percentage of posts that Percentage of posts that
list you develop will need to be consistently
mention a topic mention a topic
refreshed. The online space changes in a
Continuing on the broken record theme, it’s blink, and today’s number 10 influencer
important to note that the relative weights of may be number 50 three months from now.
these metrics and the outlet-versus-author Decide how often you want to refresh your
side will vary by brand. Relevancy, however, list when you are coming up with your plan
is the key component of how this all comes of action for the project.
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
• Ranking only matters so much – To the relevance. Without one of these pieces of
point of this data being a snapshot in time, the equation, you run the risk of creating an
just because someone is a top influencer influencer list that’s not necessarily reflective
now doesn’t mean they will be three months of your brand or the topic area at large.
from now. Similarly, just because someone
is number 10 today doesn’t mean they can’t
become number one three months from
now. Remember, after you’ve completed
your list you’ll want to segment it by how
CHAPTER 4:
you’re going to “use” that person. Are INFLUENCE BY
they “listening only?” Are they “direct
engagement?” Are they “outreach in the
CHANNEL VS.
form of a release?” The more you reach out
to a person, the greater the likelihood that
INFLUENCE ACROSS
their influencer “score” will change over a
period of time.
THE SOCIAL WEB
• A person can show up in multiple Television isn’t the same as
categories – It’s critical to take into account radio, which isn’t the same as the
newspaper. So, why would you
a person’s entire online footprint. Capturing
a person’s blog is great, but what about their
Twitter footprint? What if they are blogging think social media channels should
in multiple places with relevant content?
be treated any differently? Twitter
is not the same as Facebook, which
What if they are participating in a forum?
You see the point here. A person can have
scores across multiple channels, and that is not the same as YouTube. Each
should impact their overall online influence social media channel has its own identity,
in your list. community, content, and influencers. And
there are countless social media channels
• Relative weight of reach, syndication, and
outside the big three (Twitter, Facebook and
relevance will vary – In this eBook we talk
YouTube). In fact, in this age, every person
about how each metric could possibly be
could be viewed as his or her own network.
weighed. The reality, though, is that how
Just like in traditional media, there will
you weight each of the broader buckets
always be some crossover of channels, but it’s
will change by brand. If you’re running a
dangerous to treat each community and set of
campaign centered mostly on traditional
influencers the same.
media, then maybe reach is most important
to you. Either way, you’ll need to determine
that after you’ve gathered all of the relevant
(there’s that word again) data.
Building trust (and influence) with knowledge
According to a 2010 report by Forrester
analysts Augie Ray and Josh Bernoff, some
Like we mentioned at the beginning of this 500 billion impressions about products and
chapter, we want you to understand that services are created in social media each year.
measuring and ranking influence online is This is a massive pool of conversations over
done by a combining reach, syndication, and a multitude of social channels for people to
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
derive influence. According to Ray and Bernoff,
these impressions are split into two types
Content consumption and chatter varies
of influence: (1) influence from people within
by channel
social networks, and (2) influence created by According to a study from online advertising
posts across blogs, forums, and review sites. network, Chitka, users’ interests and
From this data, Ray and Bernoff concluded that platform they’re using. The insights gleaned
expectations vary sharply depending on the
the online impressions people make on each from over 287,000 impressions depict nearly
other regarding product and services are about half (47%) of the traffic Twitter generates
one fourth of the online advertising impression, goes to news sites and that the only genre
and that a small percentage of people generate appearing in all five sites studied was celebrity
80% of the impressions. We encourage you and entertainment.
to download the Forrester report if you’re
interested in learning more about the Forrester
method of influencer analysis.
All this research is to say that influence, no
matter how you look at it, is built on credibility
of knowledge. The Edelman Trust Barometer
2010 found “informed publics place the most
trust in expert spokespeople and information
sources.” This past year has been one of
economic uncertainty, and, while we’re still
influenced by average folks like us, this type of
influence has lost ground. Influence runs much
deeper than how many followers a person or
company may have, and lives in the knowledge
transferred and received.
There’s no doubt we’re in the middle of a
Social Media Revolution, but the data is
changing rapidly as new channels appear,
disappear, unite, and reshape, as is the way
people are consuming media. It’s easy to be
overwhelmed by the amount of social media
statistics floating around. It’s important
that you look beyond the masses of data to
discover where your community is consuming
content and engaging in conversations that
are relevant to your organization’s goals and
objectives. Be your own case study. Monitor
and discover valuable insights from your
primary data to start building relationships in
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
channels that will help you build and identify Share of Conversation is a combination of a
trust through shared knowledge. few metrics that we happen to think give you
some strong insight into how your online
activities are directly impacting your goals and
objectives. This metric helps you understand
Share of Conversation
When folks start to dive into social media they not just the volume of buzz about you, but how
tend to put all their effort into those channels
with the potential for a lot of eyeballs. The
present and recognized you are among the
problem with this tactic is that just gathering with. In other words, how much you’re in front
conversations you want to be associated
lots of eyeballs isn’t what actually matters, but of the right eyeballs. In the case of this metric,
rather gathering the right eyeballs and then the hypothesis is that if you’re mentioned in
driving them to perform a desired action. relevant conversations, you’ll gain mindshare
and therefore increase the likelihood of
When you talk in these terms be aware that
someone choosing you over a competitor in
you’re looking at potential reach, not actual
the same market.
reach, unless you can ensure that all of your
friends or followers are logged in and viewing Radian6’s CEO, Marcel Lebrun, blogged in
your content on a given day (which is nearly heavy detail the methodology for establishing
impossible). There are some loose ideas about your Share of Conversation metric, but the
peak usage times and percentages for varying high-level process looks like this:
social networks, but getting actual reach
numbers is going to be tough. • Set up a monitoring post for a topic, subject,
or market within which you want to be
For example, 50% of active users log on to talked about. For example, if you’re a non-
Facebook on any given day, meaning only profit working in diabetes research, you
half your fans are even likely to see your might want to look at conversations around
status updates, and that among the rest of the “diabetes research,” “diabetes support,”
posts they view. So, you might only be able to or any number of subjects you’d like to be
account for a 20%-30% view rate from your known/found for.
total following.
• Within that topic, track and count the posts
The web simply cannot be condensed to a that mention the topic(s) you’re interested
single mass strategy, so it’s best to identify during a specific time period. 30 days is
relevant conversations to ensure you are generally a good window.
participating in those channels with the right (Metric 1: Total Conversation Posts per 30
eyeballs (you should be able to get started days.)
with that process after reviewing the previous
chapter). • Then, track the posts that mention that
topic and mention you together during that
Now, this topic might seem better suited for same timeframe. (Metric 2: Total Brand/
the measurement-focused sections of this Conversation Posts per 30 days.)
eBook, but trust us that Share of Conversation
and overall influence on the social web go • Divide Metric 1 by Metric 2. The resulting
hand in hand. One directly represents the percentage is your Share of Conversation.
other, actually, and we’ll show you how.
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
Take a look at Marcel’s post for more
information about why this measurement
CHAPTER 4:
really matters and has deeper value than just
“how many people are talking about us”.
HUMAN
Figuring out where you should be engaging
INTERVENTION
starts with looking at where your audience
currently exists. Your community will appear
VS. TOTALLY
in a few places to start, or perhaps many if
your organization is inherently social. You’ll be
AUTOMATED TOOLS
able to identify exactly where that audience is The age-old debate of man versus
machine is becoming more
through your listening strategy.
Keep in mind that you shouldn’t put effort prevalent as the science fiction of
yesterday becomes today’s reality.
Maybe the Artificial Intelligence
or resources into interacting on big social
happens to be. Software companies, for
networks if that’s not where your audience
we’re talking about now is
example, are often mentioned on support
forums or communities, thus showing a much
larger portion of customer activity than, say, not what we expected, but it’s
Facebook. Just because certain social channels
are more popular than others – or even more
definitely what we are working
popular than other types of media – that with and towards.
doesn’t mean your market is there. Do your
research before you commit to engaging on a It’s unwise to think in extremes because
particular network. there’s no clear winner, or in this case, magic
button or algorithm. While social channels
We know engagement can be a stick subject, have brought to light conversations that
especially when it comes to scaling those brands just can’t afford to overlook, the
efforts. How do you converse with hundreds expectations of sustainable listening and
or even thousands of folks on a regular basis engagement have become a serious issue for
and make sure the conversations you’re having organizations to tackle and solve. It’s essential
are relevant and useful to your business? Can that organizations carefully think through
any of that interaction be automated? And how their plans for automation when creating
does this all play into interacting with your social media outreach strategies, especially
influencers? That’s the next piece of the puzzle. when approaching influencer outreach.
Interaction/automation as a mindset
Influence is really quite personal, right?
And we can all agree that influence is based
in finding a connection that permeates the
surface of general awareness and engagement.
The intent to develop deeper relationships
between organizations and communities is at
the heart of today’s business shift.
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
Social media is now the conduit for valuable
conversations that were once limited to private
out which relationships to concentrate our
group discussion or shared through siloed
limited resources on. But our focus should
feedback mechanisms. To establish what
always be on people, not technology. This
aspects of their social media interactions can
has never been more evident than at times
be automated, organizations must first craft an
like these.”
influencer identification program and define The processes and tools supporting our
what is considered influential content within interaction should remain where they
their marketplace. belong, in the background. In the case of the
Haiti tragedy, the function of donation and
The goal of automation is not to fully replace information gathering was not in the limelight,
people with a computerized system, e.g., it was the global response that shined. The
an unpaid employee, but allow people to human connection came first and remains the
have more time engaging in relevant and foundation on which organizations need to
meaningful conversations rather than sift build their automated efforts.
through endless channels, mountains of data,
and noise. Automated processes help remove
those inefficient and redundant functions and
Interaction/automation as a mechanism
allow us to do what we do best: be human. There is no all-encompassing mechanism or
Influence should be built and guarded with method to identify influence, influencers, or
care, and it can only be created by humans, not easily map your organization’s interactions
computer algorithms. with these people and communities. When you
start exploring that need to automate parts of
Take, for example, the earthquake in Haiti your organization’s social strategy, it’s best to
in January 2010. Automation allowed first identify the most time-consuming, non-
governments, non-profits, and ordinary interaction-oriented tasks and separate them
citizens to band together and streamline their from those requiring real human interaction.
activities, allowing one and all to focus on As we said earlier, automation is meant to
giving back to their fellow human beings. Brent improve efficiency by assisting with repetitive
Leary sums up how humans and machines functions, not replace all external interaction.
worked together in this instance for the
greater good: As the social media space evolves we’re all
crafting the necessary rules of etiquette
and adapting them to changing community
expectations and knowledge. Unfortunately,
“It’s important for us not to hide behind
even though we are adapting, there are several
technology, but use it to better understand
tasks people and organizations are automating
each other’s needs. It can be tempting
that need to be personalized instead.
to substitute technology for a personal
connection. Being human can be tough,
For instance, it’s best to avoid automating
and time consuming, and gut-wrenching,
tasks in channels where your community is
and taxing, and many other things. And
expecting direct and real human interaction
or you risk taking away from other areas
there are times and instances where we do
of successful human-to-human reciprocity.
need to utilize technology to make better
But if you can effectively mechanize some of
decisions, and to get things done quickly and
less expensively. We even need it to figure
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
those tasks you need completed, you’ll have you can do to build on those expectations.
more time and bandwidth to engage on a
more personal level in those spaces where • Manage Your Accounts: Not your
interaction is expected. relationships. There is a time and a place for
scheduling tweets and posts, like if you’re
Rather than focus on what not to automate, releasing breaking news or you’ve identified
let’s talk about the more productive uses for a need for an FAQ-type response. However,
automation when engaging with influencers online social networks don’t thrive on
and building your own influential content. one-off blasts of info but rather a two-way
dialogue. Participating in these channels
• Engage Actively: People won’t subscribe immediately sets up the expectation that
to your content or “listen” to what you have you are listening and engaging. Establish
to say if they believe the information or proper expectations with your community
conversation is being generated from the if you plan on automating your social media
faceless avatar of Artificial Intelligence. coverage.
There’s an expectation for real-time
engagement in the social sphere that just • Unify Your Communication Funnel:
can’t be ignored or falsified, so meet that Integrate social media interactions into your
expectation head-on and get actual people company’s existing communication and
within your company talking with your feedback platforms. Spread the word and
external community. keep track of those online conversations
from A-Z in one platform. These platforms
• Personalize Sharing: As we explored in already house a wealth of data from various
the previous chapter, people consume and channels. Harness the power of that
communicate differently across all social integrated data to discover insights and gain
media channels. There are many tools out an holistic view of your influencers and the
there that give you the ability to post your impact of your influence.
content once and have it be distributed
across multiple channels. While this kind of By nature, social media channels foster open
automation might increase efficiency and and authentic engagement. Influence is
productivity, it will come at the expense of subjective and built up through how others
being able to more personally connect with view your interactions with those in the same
your influencers, or even be considered circle. If you were to start automating your
influential within a specific community and/ responses, you’d lose credibility and work
or channel. directly against that widespread expectation
of real engagement. Artificial Intelligence will
• Know Your Brand: There’s enough “Enough never fully replicate a human reply or properly
about me, now let’s talk about me” noise address a need for human engagement, and, no
on social networks, and you don’t need to matter how well built, an algorithm just can’t
add to that. See, feel, and live your brand deliver an authentic and appropriate response
through the eyes of your community. Avoid to the various nuances of the human language.
using automation to unleash a barrage of
canned responses or self-promotion. Use
these channels to discover what others find
meaningful and influential and learn what
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DEFINING AND MEASURING INFLUENCE
What makes those people or brands so
influential to you? What turns you off of a
CHAPTER 6:
THE WRAP-UP person or company?
We realize there are a lot of
• Give us a shout if any of this doesn’t make
sense. No, really. Email us at community@
information and ideas in this radian6.com and we’ll make sure to answer
eBook to absorb, and we highly your questions as best as we can.
recommend you give yourself Influence is relative to your company and
the time and mental space to marketplace, but we hope what’s been
outlined here will help you get a firmer grip on
do so, because creating a truly how to approach using your ability to influence
valuable influencer program that and that of your biggest fans to create positive
includes the right metrics for your
results for your company. Please be in touch
and let us know what’s worked for you. We
efforts and the right outreach always appreciate the feedback.
tactics for your goals takes great
understanding of what influence Find us on the web:
is and how it works within your
immediate community and
http://www.radian6.com
Follow us on Twitter:
greater market.
http://www.twitter.com/radian6
Read the Blog:
Here are some tips to help make this all a bit http://www.radian6.com/blog
more digestible:
• Make sure that you read this eBook at least
once without clicking any of the links. Links
offer invaluable reference points, but they
will inevitably break your focus and train of
thought, making understanding all this a bit
tougher.
• Consider mapping and weighting your own
influencer metrics as you read through
Chapters 2 and 3. Just as practice. This
doesn’t have to be something you submit to
your team for review, but it’s worth getting
into the practice.
• Think about how you, as an individual,
influence and are influenced by the people
and brands you’ve brought into your life.
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