Logic+Emotion

Election 2016: When “Data” In Isolation Steers Us Wrong

Instincts vs. Insights
Like many of you, I was wrong about who I thought would win the US election. But it wasn’t always that way — I had changed my opinion based on the “data” I was seeing and that’s where many of us are scratching our heads. My first gut instinct was formed around the time of both party conventions. Having followed both, sensing the momentum and enthusiasm of the unconventional GOP convention, I remember thinking to myself, Trump really has a chance — he’s going to tap millions of people displaced by a global economy. He’s speaking directly to the working class disenfranchised — people holding down multiple jobs in some cases and feeling like they can never get ahead. He’s giving a voice to those who feel like they have been ignored or are underrepresented. And above it all, I was picking up something in the air that felt like a change agent was wanted, even if that agent was more rough around the edges than many would have preferred…

I grew up in working class Long Island. I intuitively grasped how he could win and I was hesitant to rush to judgement over how or why millions of Americans were supporting him. Over the course of weeks and months, being the news addict that I am, I began to change my outlook on Trump’s chances.

Why? Because the polling data and news media sentiment.

The Limitations of Polling & Media Influence
Day after day, I would pour over polls and read headlines that would point to trends making the case that while both candidates were unpopular, Hillary seemed to always come out on top. The media painted a picture of a Trump campaign in disarray and the tone of the majority of the coverage I could see from multiple media outlets was largely negative. Polls while far from perfect are data points. Media sentiment is also a set of data points. When you pour over this information, it begins to inform your opinions. And that’s what happened to me. My informed view shifted from Trump has a chance to Hillary is a definite win.

And I think there’s an important lesson in all of this. Was the data bad? I don’t think it’s that simple. Like some analysts have stated, it’s likely that the polling data was incomplete. Which means this data cannot be fully trusted. If a significant portion of voters didn’t feel comfortable polling but instead voiced their opinions with their votes, then the data is meaningless.

Sampling is an art that becomes harder and harder to deliver well against. All research methodologies for polling have inherent biases and it becomes clear that relying on a sample of people willing to speak to an interviewer or take a survey online is becoming more difficult to pull off accurately. Political polling is disrupted and old models don’t work. But they are still very valuable if cross analyzed through other intelligence methodologies that focus on “harder data”.

The lesson reminds me of similar learnings I’ve seen in marketing focus groups. People aren’t always honest or clearly articulate their beliefs and/or needs.

Reading Between The Lines
You have to read between the lines. This is something that ethnographers often do. They immerse themselves in the lives of the people they seek to derive insights from. They go deep in place of skimming vast quantities of data points both quantitative and qualitative. They go heavy on empathy but also possess the right amount of analytical rigor to translate observations into insights.

And what about the media sentiment? Did I misread it? No, I read it accurately but like many others, I underestimated the impact that media sentiment would have on potential Trump supporters. In retrospect the negative media sentiment for Trump likely mobilized his base and even some who were on the fence. Edelman (my employer) has been producing data for years which shows that trust in media is on the decline and urging us to pay close attention to social signals when forming opinions and strategies.

Search & Social Signals Provide Additional Clues
And let’s not forget about search. As far as data goes — Google may have presented a more accurate representation of how voters were inclined to act. Trump related searches showed dominance over Hillary inquiries in the final days of the election and higher volume in states such as Pennsylvania where polls projected Clinton to win. The search volume from Google presented signals that were largely missed by both pundits and the media — yet they aligned with voter behavior.

Insights, Instinct AND Data — But Never In Isolation

This political season more than ever demonstrated the shortcomings of looking at data and information sources in isolation, such as polling. A lesson that I’ll take away is to not only have more faith in my instincts but also to be a better student of the impact the media has on public sentiment and how that sentiment is reflected online in the forms of social and search data. For those of us who work in marketing and communications, we’re going to need a better appreciation for the balance between instinct and insights, gut and analysis, and how deep we need to go to accurately interpret signals and multiple data points so we can better inform our thoughts and actions.

 

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The Death of Content Marketing: Why Brands Must Become Cultural Currency

Before there was social media—before there was mobile and the video revolution, there was blogging. Once heralded as a revolution in communications and to a degree, marketing—self expression and direct publishing of the written word became an influential force to be dealt with.

Blogging, in written word form of has been a commodity for some time.

Even as I write this on the reality is less people are taking in the written word, opting instead for “junk food” media which comes in highly shareable and snackable bits of sticky, mobile optimized content.

Today however, it is content itself that has and will continue to become the commodity. Content in all forms—even mobile optimized and snackable content. There’s simply too much of it. Most of it is not very good and even if it is—the amount of effort it takes to make sure that content will travel far and wide makes for considerable effort. Many will do this well but more will fail.

So what is value in today’s connected marketing and media landscape?

Culture

The ability to create it, influence it, co-create it and integrate a brand so seamlessly in culture and relevant sub cultures. This is the next frontier of marketing and communications and while it has much to do with things like social, mobile and content—it is the cultural aspect that must lead while everything else follows. A very excellent article in Harvard Business Review reflects some of this shift, labeling it within the context of something Douglas Holt calls “Crowdculture”:

“While companies have put their faith in branded content for the past decade, brute empirical evidence is now forcing them to reconsider. In YouTube or Instagram rankings of channels by number of subscribers, corporate brands barely appear. Only three have cracked the YouTube Top 500. Instead you’ll find entertainers you’ve never heard of, appearing as if from nowhere.

YouTube’s greatest success by far is PewDiePie, a Swede who posts barely edited films with snarky voice-over commentary on the video games he plays. By January 2016 he had racked up nearly 11 billion views, and his YouTube channel had more than 41 million subscribers.”

The challenge for brands is that they often times cannot create culture by themselves. Today’s culture creators often thrive in “sub cultures”—niche groups that exist under more mainstream areas whether it be food, sports, fashion—lest you think this only applies to “consumer brands” it does not.Subcultures exist in business as well and continue to diversify as business itself becomes more specialized and niche.

Brands and Organizations Must Become Collaborators and Co-Creators of Culture

Today and tomorrow’s challenge for brands and organizations is to tweak their marketing and communications infrastructure so they can effectively collaborate with influencers of culture across the spectrum. If brands cannot create culture from scratch—they can co-create it with the right partners across the paid, owned, earned and social spectrum. But to do this at scale, they must understand the ecosystem of influence and re-structure internally to connect that ecosystem and approach peer to peer influence from all sides.

The Influencer Ecosystem

Brands and organizations who wish to influence culture and become co-creators of it, must begin to coordinate how they approach working with those who wield influence, coming at it from different directions. For example, TIME magazine featured a cover telling us that we should “eat butter”. While earned in nature, the story and the journalists behind it are playing a key role in the resurgence of butter and how Americans are re-thinking fat. It’s an example of media influencing culture—in this particular example, this kind of influence cannot be bought—it must be earned, however, increasingly cultural influencers such as “YouTubers” require paid means to collaborate with. The influencer ecosystem can be broken down as such:

Cultural Influencers
These can be celebrities but increasingly, it is the influencers of subcultures—those who are building audiences via Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube etc. that are becoming today’s trusted voices. In 2015, Variety reported on a survey which displayed a trend where digital celebrities (YouTubers etc.) began eclipsing traditional celebrities in terms of popularity:

“Sehdev predicts that within five years, YouTube stars will consume the entire top-20 celebrity influencer list, and aging teens will grow into a sizable fanbase for online talent overall. But that will require YouTube stars to remain genuine and relatable as they gain in popularity.”

However despite this trend, there are significant implications for brands. As stated above, the digital stars must remain genuine and relatable which makes working with them a challenge as brands must learn to collaborate vs. dictate heavy handed marketing. Also, brands must develop repeatable ways they can work with all levels of these types of influencers. As it is an emerging space often requiring complex contracts, disclaimers and transparency—it brings new operational dynamics to the table.

Reputational Influencers
These can range from employees to thought leaders to analysts and experts and while they often influence consumers or customers who are highly informed and connected themselves. The challenge here for brands is that much of what they do in this space is often times disconnected from what they do with cultural influencers—but should be more integrated. Not long ago, Edelman (my employer) announced a strategic partnership with a start up called Dynamic Signal. One of the key benefits of their platform Voicestream is the ability to harness the networks of either cultural or reputational influencers acting as amplifiers of content that a brand places in front of them. Integration and accountability in terms of performance is now becoming possible, but brands must first connect efforts here.

Media Influencers 
As the TIME example illustrates—media in all its forms led by journalists and the media companies they work with can often influence culture and sub cultures also appealing to informed audiences who often share their content. But it isn’t just the “professionals”—while blogging itself has become much of a commodity there is still a role for blogger networks with niche audiences who have built audience and work with brands (often requiring a financial transaction) to incorporate their products and services into their content. But here again whether earned or paid—integration opportunity exists as what all three groups have in common is getting through to peer networks who then influence each other.

“Content Marketing” came after social media and mobile and it enjoyed a good run. But it’s not enough to create content in a complex media ecosystem that makes it extremely difficult to break though and earn attention. Brands will have to learn how to influence culture and sub cultures by collaborating with those who create it externally while coordinating their fractured functions internally. And they’ll have to do it in ways that can be repeated and scaled.

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FOMO, WOM, WTF and ELLO

I could be wrong.

In the early days of social media, when Facebook was still for college kids—Twitter seemed like an utterly useless fad to most people. But I was really intrigued by it and stuck with it and connected with others, ultimately building an audience and a real time stream I could dip in and out of whenever I wanted to. 

That was 2007. Fast forward to 2014 and it's not Twitter my network is talking about—it's "Ello", a social network built on the promise that it won't touch your data nor will it ever give in to advertising. Its manifesto is posted in plain sight on the network. 

"Your social network is owned by advertisers.

Every post you share, every friend you make, and every link you follow is tracked, recorded, and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.

We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity, and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.

We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate — but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life.

You are not a product."

Having spent a portion of my morning on the network—I am not convinced. Where Ello seems to be missing the point is that they may not have included enough value as part of their "value exchange" for participants to stay committed to it. Privacy is not enough—for a network to break through today you've got to make it cool, useful, usable and desirable (and "ello"—mobile). 

I'm not sure Ello is delivering any at this point. It doesn't come off as particularly elegant—I found it hard to even figure out how to post and there wasn't enough value for me to overcome this. I get better content by exploring current networks vs. what I've seen so far on Ello. 

So what does Ello have?

It's got FOMO in spades (Fear Of Missing Out). For a short time and for reasons only they know—it's got enough of the right people talking about it and asking for invitations (like I did). 

So what doesn't Ello have yet?

It's got media coverage building some hype—but I've already seen negative word of mouth, (WOM) even when I asked for an invite. Perhaps you can count this post as negative word of mouth as well though I will suspend complete judgement...however, at this time—I'm not seeing the value or it just might not be for me. 

But it did get me thinking about what causes people to take action. FOMO is powerful—I was able to secure an invite, create a profile and kick some tires. WOM is pretty powerful too—I have yet to see peers telling me they love it. Right now there's a collective "WTF?" as many try to make sense of it. 

I also learned a lesson from my early days on Twitter—sometimes something great is not immediately recognizable in the world of social media. But sometimes you just have to go with your gut as well, and my gut says that value exchange trumps privacy and commercialism. Right now Ello is light on providing enough value to make it a serious ad free alternative to anything. 

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Native Advertising Isn't The Enemy—We Are

"We have met the enemy and he is us"
~Pogo

You should stop what you are doing and read this piece on Native Advertising by Andrew Sullivan, in which he asserts "journalism has surrendered" on the topic of native advertising. Specifically the form that seamlessly blends marketing with editorial in a publication. Aside from it being a wonderful and brutally honest assessment of native advertising and its influence on media, Andrew is both right and wrong in the piece when he says this:

"At one point, the reputation of that journalism is going to tarnished by the fact that you’re not sure if it’s done out of a commercial interest. I have to say I don’t think it’s sustainable. It will collapse when the readers figure it out. It should have been front-page news that Time magazine reporters were to begin reporting to the business side."

What Andrew gets right (maybe) is that the reputation of journalism is going to get tarnished. But we have to ask ourselves for who will it really matter? It will matter to the highly informed—the one percent of media consumers you could say. To the others, we must get a reality check and really digest what's happening in the world of media consumption for the average person. There are a few forces at play:

Time: There's a finite amount of time we have and it's increasingly being chipped away by technology and a surplus of media stimulus. We simply don't have enough of it. 

Attention: Sorry, but most of us can now be clinically diagnosed with ADD. Maybe we weren't born with it—but again, technology has taken its toll. We have so much information coming at us, it's increasingly difficult to focus. Watching a two minute video on YouTube now seems like a massive commitment. 

Relevancy: Blame social media. We are all so consumed in our own worlds that if media/news doesn't seem relevant to us—we ignore it. 

Currency: I've said it a million times. Content is currency. Ignore this sociological reality at your own peril—people now use content as a way to build their reputations and credibility with peers. 

Status: It's what comes after currency. Share the best content that your peers and friends value—see your social status rise.

Mobility: If your content can't be consumed or shared via mobile—don't even bother. Our context for media consumption is now "on the go". 

Snackability: We've been trained to "snack" on media all day long. It's becoming harder to carve out time for media meals which can't be consumed quickly. Do you have teens? Watch their media consumption behaviors. 

In short, we are the reason native advertising exists. We're the reason cat videos on YouTube are popular. We're the reason that in depth journalism is becoming an endangered species. On that note—I'll end here before I hit 500 words. Because you won't read more. 

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When It's OK To Put Your Klout Score On Your Resume and Other Matters of "Influence"

It was bound to happen. I opened up the attachment from e-mail and there it was, impossible to miss: at the top of every page of the individual's resume was their Klout score. I have to admit, my first reaction was to be slightly turned off, however the more I thought about it, the more I looked at it objectively. After all, I had identified "the cult of influence" as a significant social media trend for 2012 so it only made sense that Klout scores or other indicators of one's social graph prowess be documented in their professional credentials. If you're wondering, the individual's score was in the low fifties which is fairly respectable, though that's besides the point. The real point is there's a time and place to reference your "digital influence". Here's what I recommend:

When To Invoke Your Social Graph

Organizations do occasionally hire individuals who have cultivated significant social graphs and the expectation is that they will use their skills and the "influence" associated by their online (and offline) reputations for the job. There are probably few better examples of this than Robert Scoble (Klout Score 84) who in the past was hired by Fast Company and is presently employed by Rackspace as an evangelist and content machine. iJustine is another example though she's more of a gun for hire and has worked with a number of brands who desire to associate themselves with her online audience. But it's not always the social superstars who have equity attached to their impressive social networking prowess but also community managers or individuals hired to connect with a specific group and have the chops to connect meaningfully with them. In both scenarios I might be interested in checking out Klout scores, follower ratios and all other indicators of an individual's ability to cultivate a following because I'd be hiring them to do just that. 

When To Leave Your Social Graph at The Door

It's probably more common that for most jobs, even in the social business industry that a social graph on steroids won't matter that much. If I'm looking to hire a strategist then the most crucial skills are critical thinking and the ability to analyze intelligently. For project managers it's a proven track record of launching things on time and on budget. For the people who "create" things, it's the things itself that matter whether it was developed, written, shot etc. For those who manage accounts it's their book of business and their role in growing it (or not). In short, unless your job is to be an online personality (or part of your job) the net worth of your social graph becomes less relevant.

Influence Scores: A Gateway Drug

Recently I participated in a Google Hangout with Gini Dietrich (Arment-Dietrich PR, SpinSucks and Inside PR podcast), Andrew Grill (CEO of Kred) and Zena Weist (Expion) moderated Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. In it we had a spirited debate on the state of digital influence, what it means and how it gets measured. I stressed the value of outcomes when we evaluate the meaning of digital influence because in order to claim to be influential, there has to be an outcome associated with it. Maybe that's when you should put your Klout score and other digital metrics on your resume--if you're expected to leverage your digital influence as part of your job and have the outcomes to back it up, then the value of your social graph is in play.

Enjoy the discussion below: we had fun recording it.

Who Influenced Blogworld?

Last week I spoke at Blogworld in LA and today came across this post done by Radian 6 who leverged their platform to provide some analysis of the conversations generated by the event. The graph above reflects the following accoring to Radian 6:

"The top influencers driving conversations Saturday are shown in the graph below. With the exception of the BlogWorld handles, these were conversations that were driven by reactions to the presenters and their panels."

Now, I'm flattered that I somehow ended in good standing here, but it's worth noting that what we're looking at is volume of digital conversation and not digital influence, though one could say that volume of conversation is an indicator of digital influence when it comes to measurement. Metrics aside, I thought I'd offer some insights as to what put me in this spot since I was involved.

Attendees Were Hyper Connected & Hyper Engaged
I didn't have the largest session at the event, but looking at the crowd who attended—I noticed that many of them were practitioners in the industry with high quality followings even if they were not the size of a Robert Scoble or Chris Brogan type network. Also, the attendees of my session were hyper-engaged and they displayed this by tweeting up a storm.

Soundbites & Mental Models Stick
My presentation was full of short, sticky phrases and frameworks—designed for tweets and social note taking. This is no accident—I would not be worth my weight as a communicator if I were not able to break down communications into memorable bits worth sharing.

Style & Substance = Conversation
Being the event was a blogger heavy conference, I felt that I had to entertain a bit in addition to providing enough detail and meat to make it worth the time, attention and digital conversation of the attendees. I started off the presentation with a few provoking and even humorous slides, played a mini inflatable guitar and then dove into a series of detailed concepts followed by examples and case studies.

For whatever reason, I had the right mix of content, audience, timing and most importantly—people who were more than willing to talk about whatever it was that I was talking about. It's worth noting that as much as I would have liked to leverage my own social networks of 70+ thousand friends and followers that I couldn't because I was up there talking. In short, driving conversation online takes two things: something worth talking about and a distribution network. In an event crammed with many great speakers, I was fortunate to have both that day.

Google+ Ripples Visualizes Social Sharing

Back in 2006, I attempted to visualize how digital influence spread through the blogoshpere using a metaphor of "ripples". Fast forward 5 years and there's a really cool new feature you can play with on Google Plus called "Ripples". See below:


I really love what Google is doing with this visualization. Here's how it works as best I can tell. In this visualization you can see the source of the share indicated by large type. In this case, Jeanette Halgreen was the first in this particular digital influence ecosystem to start the sharing. You can follow the ripples which spill out in multiple directions. Ripples shows larger spheres where there is a lot of sharing happening and it shows you who is sharing from who and displays direct shares and total number of re-shares.

You can even play back Ripples to watch the spread of a particular post which tracks the movement of the media over a timeframe and visualizes it allowing you to see who, and where reverberation was generated.

So what's in it for business? For starters it gives media professionals a test area to see how media spreads, who is spreading it—what makes something sharable and how connections work. Of course it's only a small sample (Google Plus) but it's a nice little tool to use if you're interested in media and network effects. Nice work Google.

Digital Influence: We're All Somebody

Photo by Ric Dragon

Recently I had the privilege of hosting a stimulating panel at Pivot 2011 with Joe Fernandez, founder of Klout, Larry Levy, co-founder of Appinions and Elisa Camahort, co-founder of BlogHer. The idea of digital influence or how influence works within the social-digital space is on the mind of not only marketers, but policy makers and anyone in the business of communications and or influencing stakeholders to achieve desirable outcomes. While measuring digital influence and doing something with it is still in its infancy, I believe strongly that there is a large opportunity in understanding the dynamics of networks and how ideas, opinions, stories and narratives spread. For an example of this, take a look at the NYT cascade pilot which visualizes how a story spreads on Twitter. 

Visualizations aside, our panel covered some interesting ground. Here are a few highlights:

Digital Influence & Real-World Influence, Related But Not The Same
I asked Joe Fernadez of Klout if he thought there was a difference between digital influence and real-world influence and he mentioned something he called "the Warren Buffet problem" referring to an individual who is clearly influential (and whose influence extends into the digital world) though is not personally active when it comes to their own "social graph'. From my perspective we can measure Warren's influence online via mentions, sentiment, coverage, volume of conversation etc. But where we have to get better at is understanding the "nobodies" who help spread Warren's message. These are individuals (and there are a lot of them) who nobody ever heard of but are critical in spreading ideas. To use Edelman's language—Warren Buffet is an idea starter and there are thousands of individuals, properties and media outlets on the social web who act as his amplifiers. Some of them have more digital influence than others—but it all adds up.

Topical, Temporal & Identity Based Influence: Find Your A-list At That Moment
Larry Levy of Appinions chimed in to state that they are working hard on the Warren Buffet problem by looking at the data. Topical influence means you start analyzing networks for influential data based on WHAT and not WHO (you can eventually end up with several WHO's and not just individuals. Temporal influence can indicate what person or digital property is influential in either a topic or related topic at that moment in time. These kinds of data sets through a wrench in the thinking that influencers can simply be "listed" and ranked. Elisa of BlogHer threw in a third consideration which is influence based on "identity" meaning if you can identify with the values and lifestyle of the person or media outlet you are exposed to that you are more likely to be influenced by what they tell you. An "A-list" of those who wield influence may be for a period of time or associated with specific topics and conversations—it may not always be the usual suspects.



Automation Desirable But Not Fully Realistic Yet
As Larry noted, sentiment and things like language differences can be addressed by software and extracting data, but it takes people to look at the data and extract insights from it. And this is where I think the digital influence game is heading. Understanding what influences individuals or activates certain "nodes" on networks is really what this business will be about. It will also be about data. Accessible databases of not only who, but what and where (for example, being able to store and serve up high quality conversational data in a dashboard). Understanding who has influence when and how they use it will be critical to tapping a virtual army of advocates or on the flip-side having deep knowledge of "badvocates" or those who mobilize against you. Right now, no tool does this with great precision—but platforms such as Appinions, Sysomos, Radian 6, Peer Index, and many others are all vying to produce the most actionable data when it comes to understanding and acting upon digital influence. (Edelman also has Tweetlevel and Bloglevel tools which play in this space).

With platforms like Klout evolving their Perks program, digital influence will only rise in popularity due to the fact that social is shaping up to be the other side of the coin of search—and the two will influence each other. Since Google's Panda changes to the algorithm—it's not only number of outbound links that matter but the quality of those link sources. Influential entities often drive high quality links as well as volume, and this is why we're all going to be so focused on who is influencing digital conversations, when, where, how and why. On the social Web, active participants are all "somebodies" with some degree of influence—but understanding how to harness the right data and act upon it will likely take some time.

(Disclaimers: BlackBerry is an Edelman Digital client. I've recently joined advisory board of Appinions)

Klout, Kred and the Ugly Truth About Social Influence Measurement

The following is a guest post from Jennifer Leggio, a Forbes social media blogger and raconteur. Find more about Jennifer here: http://about.me/mediaphyter

I'll be the first to admit that I once called out social influence measurement to be, as they scientifically say, a bunch of hooey. After the deluge of self-proclaimed social media "gurus" in 2007-2008, I couldn't help but be skeptical. These influence measurement tools started as simple lists of users by network size and eventually grew to services like HubSpot's fun yet vapid TweetGrader. So, it's not surprising that when Klout was first introduced, I met it with the same eye-rolling skepticism that I gave to the others. "This is likely fun," I said to myself. "But probably not much more."

I feared what a lot of other cynics feared - yet another "popularity" tool for the social media “guru” squads to tout their own awesomeness. Over several months I watched people take advantage of the perks and post about their scores until curiosity got the best of me. Sure, I'll admit that it was fun to go in and see how my score would shift based on how often (or not) I used a social network. And, I did enjoy my mockery of Klout's ill-fitted influence topics (for example, Klout currently believes I am influential about oatmeal. I'm awaiting an offer from Quaker any day now, but I digress…). However, that does not mean that influence measurement tools are without merit, especially in today’s booming social business landscape. So, the question becomes: Was I wrong to be cynical or was I right to want them to do more? The answer is an ambiguous “yes.”

Remember the whole ROI and social media debacle? Sure you do, it’s still going. Companies were clamoring for proof of ROI for their social business investment, while the same merry band of social media “gurus” screamed, "What? Can't hear you! Social media is intangible!" 

What does this have to do with influence measurement? Just hang in a bit longer. The foundation underneath both the influence and ROI debates is fear. In the ROI debate, people who truly didn't understand social business were trying to justify their existences. A common thread might be, "You can't measure this, but look at how many LIKES we got today?" and then, immediately cue the knees knocking and the teeth chattering. With influence measurement, you have the same fear. A common thread here might be, "You can't measure influence. Klout says my score is only 30, but really, I am way more popular because I go to tweet-ups." Narcissism notwithstanding, remove the fear and we can shine a spotlight on an activity that's not only growing in popularity because people can get free stuff, but because companies are starting to demand it, much like they started to demand social media ROI.

Because so many companies want to see results for their output and the right kind of influenced action, social media marketers who ignore influence measurement will do so at their own peril. The days of “we got 100 random retweets!” as a milestone are, thankfully, gone. Don’t agree? I liken this to a good public relations strategy. In the olden days of PR, any news coverage could be considered helpful. If Bob’s News Magazine Weekly Times Post ran a direct duplicate of a press release, some PR folks might’ve cheered. PR agencies would pack clip books full of these types of posts. The days of “we got 100 random stories!” are gone. Companies want targeted, meaningful, third party discussions of their wares in the media. The same goes for social. And unlike publications where circulation and readership (though sometimes debatable metrics in their own right) dictate reach, influencers don’t come with their own numbers. Services like Klout and Sulia and others exist to help make sense of all of the madness.

All of this said, there are some critical considerations:  

1) Topical Influence – There is no “general” influencer. While measurement is helpful to companies, not any ol’ influencer will do. If Quaker is going to push a new flavor of oatmeal then, according to Klout, I am their gal. While my overall score might be decent and I am influential on breakfast choices, this doesn’t mean that I should be targeted for holiday gift guides (pet peeve alert). Just as you would with a reporter, target the ones who have the audience that give a hoot about what you’re selling.

2) Immature Market – The influence measurement market is still bouncing around in its jumper swing. Much like any market in its infancy, it needs time to grow and improve. Klout and Sulia are moving quickly toward more accurate topical influence but they aren’t there yet. And, that doesn’t mean they can’t be undone by a newcomer with a better, or even simply better marketed, offering (case-in-point: Groupon). For example, Kred has recently popped up, and they tout the ability to determine where you fit into a range of communities (aka topical influence). The challenge here is that they base a lot of this on Twitter bios (mine says hockey, but I am not influential there) and they also share how scores were determined, so the bumbling group of social media “gurus” could try to game it. Is Kred the company to knock Klout from its pedestal? I have no idea. However, we need to give Klout, Kred, Sulia and others time to mature this market the way that we gave social networks time to grow into business vehicles.

3. Influencers Are a Rascally Bunch - They vary by industry and preference. It’s important to note that an influencer doesn’t need to be the most popular kid at camp. He or she only needs to be influential to a focused audience (aka topical influencers). And, right or wrong, influencers can be bought. Algorithms can’t always determine what is, for example, a sponsored tweet versus a heartfelt one. These can work in certain situations, but this is a critical consideration when weighing influence targets for promotions or outreach.

4. Size is Not Everything - It’s been debunked over and over, but I’ll say it again. A network size does not always indicate the right level of influence. Influence inspires a new type of action, and that action is harder to measure beyond the initial click. Relationships are much more critical to influence measurement than actual network size. Influence measurement needs become more dynamic and contextual to truly help us get past this “more followers equals more amazing!” mindset. Again, it’s a young market, and in time size will become less relevant, and context will become more critical.

Here’s where I tell you in a few sentences what I just rambled about above: influence measurement, in all of its grand imperfection, is not going anywhere. It will improve, it will become more critical, and your clients or executives are soon going to demand it. Rather than laughing it off or denying it based on fear, start playing around with it, determine the good pieces and how you can take those bits and feed them into a true social business strategy. If not, the merry band of social media “gurus” awaits, and I hear that their membership requirements aren’t discerning at all. 

Topical Storms Brewing Around Influence

On the heels of our influence panel at Mesh 2011, Klout has introduced a new feature they call "+K". A simple way to think of it is a like button for influence which connects someone to a topic which you choose. The move by Klout to add this feature signifies a broader effort which impacts conversations on the subject matter of digital influence—that influence is meaningless unless you have context such as what subject(s) people and organizations are credible in. As I said in a recent piece on a related issue, topical influence is what counts.

Is Klout Smart Enough?

Klout's move into this area depends on how quickly it's algorithm learns from both what you say (post) and what others think you are influential in. Above is a sample of three areas Klout thinks I MAY be "influential" in. They are far removed from the types of things I discuss but for some reason, the algorithm picks these in addition to others.

These topics (above) appear to be more relevant to some of the topics I do discuss. What makes the +K approach interesting is that topics do not remain static but change over time, presumably as a result of your activity and the way the algorithm is designed. In the screen capture below, you'll notice that the +K I gave to a connection has a shelf life of 43 hours. This is likely designed to address the reality that people can become influential in a specific topic for a short period of time (think about how individuals have leveraged their networks for causes).

Klout's biggest weakness here remains the fact that you have to be on the platform and that +K activity, while it has the potential to act as a sort of social currency is limited (right now) to being shared on Klout itself.

Topical Storms Brewing
Klout isn't the only player in this space looking to tweak activity either by category, subject matter or relevancy. Sulia (below) uses Twitter lists and organizes them by category, listing profiles which have been most listed in a specific topic from the order of most listed to least (curating along the way). While the service is limited to Twitter only as opposed to others such as Peer Index, Klout and SocMetrics to name a few it provides a useful funciton which is to aggregate and organize profiles by categories which can quickly be scanned. Because Twitter lists are created by users (manually) and less likely to be gamed like follower counts, they serve as a significant indicator in regards to how an individual or organization is perceived.

 

Online Influence Measurement Remains In Its Infancy
As I mentioned in my panel at Mesh, we are at the very early stages of not only understanding, but harnessing and scaling efforts around digital influence. Most conversations are focused on scores and social graph analysis with a fixation on identifying "influencers". Identification is only the first of several steps—the more critical ones are engagement and management of an ecosystem which consists not only of stakeholders which hold various degrees of influence, but also the information or media itself which has its own potential to influence opinions, behaviors and actions. I also believe that a missing "indicator" is a simple metric borrowed from traditional digital marketing. Clicks. Simply put, we need to be able to analyze the percentage of clicks an "influencer" gets based on the total inventory of links they share in social streams. Clicking on links is a light action—but it is a measurable one. There will be much more activity in the influence space both on the external and internal operations of business. Be sure to watch the space closely as it matures. 

Seven Indicators of Twitter Influence

Originally posted at Social Fresh

The NY Times recently reported what regular users of Twitter already know. Follower counts are an indicator of influence but not a very good one. And yes, followers can be and are gamed frequently with the assistance of shady web services. Here are a few more critical Twitter influence indicators:

1. Lists
Being included on lists gives us two clues. One: Being included on thousands or more signals that you are visible. Two: The categories people use to classify you tells you something about the topics you have influence in: This is known as “topical influence” and it’s really what counts in influence.

2. Retweets
These tell you something about how willing people are to amplify your messages and help them spread. A retweet essentially says “this is something I want my network to see”. It’s Twitter’s version of viral loops.

3. @Replies
These signal how much others want to talk to you or intentionally tag you, and also serves as an indicator for how willing you are to engage and tag others. Less replies signals less social interactions and more broadcast.

4. Follower Ratio
Generally, if a user on Twitter follows a disproportionate amount of users than follow them, it signals their desire to accumulate followers. Not always, but often. A 50/50 ratio translates to someone following back anyone who follows them, which includes spammers. Twitter users who follow significantly less than are followed indicate some selection process.

5. Tweet volume
This simply indicates how prolific a user is. Those with high volumes who retain high levels of engagement, list counts, retweets, and a healthy ratio are likely providing some type of value. High volume Twitter accounts with suspect ratios, low engagement, etc may have a high noise to signal ratio

6. Favorites
Getting favorited frequently does mean something, though because Twitter users leverage Favorites so differently, it’s nearly impossible to discern exactly what, other than you triggered a behavior (the action to Favorite) for some reason.

7. Quality of connections
The most difficult to quantify and probably THE most important indicator is the quality and RELEVANCE of who follows you on Twitter and who you follow back. Targeting the right audience and earning their attention (and Trust) is ultimately the best (and softest metric). Follower counts (and ratios) are an indicator, but only one of several and one of the easiest to game.

Earning Trust In Streams = Attention + Influence

Several months ago I did some thinking around the notion of "paid and earned media". I wanted to continue that vein of thinking a bit, perhaps broaden it and provide some new context. Let's put marketing aside for a moment. Let's even put the social web aside. Before our obsession with "social media"  existed, we had e-mail, which as imperfect as it is has become very relevant when we think about things such as attention, action and even influence. Not unlike Digg, Twitter, Salesforce, or even RSS feeds to name a few—e-mail acted as our original streams. We receive messages, communications, responses etc. from friends, co-workers, relatives, brands, companies—you name it. We've all developed systems to filter the signal from the noise and prioritize our interactions using e-mail software or even cloud based services such as G-mail. But here's the secret to e-mail that everyone knows. Half the battle is getting "in the stream" meaning that marketers will do most anything to get in there. Some force their way in. This of course is called "SPAM". The other half of the secret is earning the trust of the individual who controls their e-mail ecosystem. This of course can be just as difficult if not more so than merely getting "in the stream".

Let's say you are a brand that someone trusts. You may be rewarded by getting permission to be "in the stream". Violate that trust and you are just as easily removed. Or in some cases demoted—you've gone from being "always trusted" to "rarely trusted".  And who enjoys premiere status in this ecosystem? Those you do trust—or have high frequency interactions with. Friends, co-workers, family, etc. This isn't a secret—surveys from sources such as Forrester back this up, not like we need that validation, it's common sense.

Managing Multiple Streams
Now let's fast forward beyond e-mail (without excluding it). Many of us have supplemented our digital diet of websites and e-mail with a healthy dosage of search activity, social networks of all shapes and sizes and Web services that allow us to produce and share content and connect with peers, communities and other businesses. What many of these have in common is that they exhibit "stream" like functionality. Facebook for example has pushed their experience even further in this direction to mimic the stream dependent interface on Twitter. Mobile versions of both platforms enhance this even further. Search results on Google are dependent on a pagination model, but the stream metaphor is applicable here as well. Advertising happens mostly "outside the stream"—but there are battles waged to get "in the stream". This of course is called "search engine optimization". Of course it's also common knowledge that the best search optimization is great content. Great content typically leads to what's called favorable "organic search results" meaning the more popular the content, the higher it surfaces in the stream.

Getting Access To Our Streams
There are all kinds of ways people are trying to gain access to your "streams". In feed readers, ads can be placed directly inside the stream in between posts. In more direct models like Pandora, ads show up directly in the stream (the service is arguably valuable enough to make this tolerable). Bloggers can write about your products and services and marketing is inserted directly inside the stream often times indistinguishable from the advertising that may surround it. There are services which will automatically generate a "tweet" if you've performed some type of interaction with a brand. All of this can get content, messages and information about products, brands, services or even individuals inserted. In some cases, even in context. This is something that you can be sure many people are trying to figure out.

Trust = Attention
While "getting in the stream" may be doable from both technical if not clever means (PR firms know how to do this), trust is another story. Trust equals attention. It's that simple. And right now, everything comes down to attention. We're all overloaded by demands for our time and most of us can't invest in filtering activities 24-7, so we default to giving our attention to those we trust. And this is where it comes full circle back to the e-mail example. Trust has to be earned, and once earned it leads to attention. Trust can be broken and there are multiple levels of trust.

Affecting Both Ends Of The Social Business Spectrum
If you think of social business (a term I'll use for doing business in an age where the social web is becoming ubiquitous), think of a spectrum where on one end is a large enterprise and on another is the individual. There's a great deal of nuance in between (not to mention overlap). On the consumer side of things, as we manage our streams both from a professional and personal perspective, we prioritize our attention based on who we trust the most (individual or brand). On the enterprise side, it's not all that different, though the ecosystem may be. Let's say an organization is levering an assortment of Wikis, internal blogs, communities and forums. Who do you think will get the attention and influence adoption of new systems etc? Those who have earned trust within the organization. While anyone within a large corporation can gain access to a stream (just as in non-enterprise), those who earn trust will earn attention. They will influence. The bottom line in both enterprise and consumer scenarios is the trust + getting into the stream can be a very effective way to get someone's attention. Other methods will likely be met with skepticism, get ignored or be flat out annoying.

Anyway, just a few thoughts I've got rolling around in the noggin at the moment. What do you think?

Influence Ripples + Social Media Fragmentation

(click on image to enlarge)

By now most of us wouldn't argue that the media landscape has been fragmented.  In the old days if you wanted to communicate something—you had a few choices.  A marketing campaign fueled mostly by television, magazines and newspapers.  You had all the usual PR methods and of course the press.  Digital happened—eyeballs went to the Web and now you had to add a whole new mix of tactics.  Social Media picked up steam and now you've got another set of options to take seriously.

Social Media Fragmentation?
What I'm wondering about is if we're witnessing fragmentation within the fragmentation?  Meaning that within the realm of social media, you've got an increasing number of places where your content can be digested—if old media was about one big "push" then old social media was also about a similar "push", while the newer social media landscape involves content, community and conversation happening at multiple venues, times and with a varied degree of reach.

My original influence ripples POV focused mostly on the influence of bloggers—while I think the notion of the ripples and their reach/volume is still valid, it's become crystal clear to most of us that social media has accelerated so quickly that we need to look at the bigger picture.  That bigger picture involves multiple platforms and methods to distribute content.  Here's an easy way to look at this—if I really wanted to get the word out on something, I might do the following:

1. Send e-mails to co-workers and friends through several mail groups
2. Post announcement on several online communities such as Yahoo! groups
3. Post update on Facebook
4. Announce news on Linked In network
5. Communicate on Twitter
6. Blog about it
7. Update Website

Multiple Ripples, Conversations and Touch Points
This list can be even more extensive.  I'm just one individual.  Imagine all the ways brands who have committed to leveraging social media have to contend with.  That's a lot of conversations.   But they are all conversations worth having as the marketplace is proving one case study at a time.  As I write this, I'm looking at Dell.com/community.  It looks like they've created a launchpad where you can access all of the areas they are having a dialog with customers.  (Full disclosure, Dell is a Critical Mass client though to date, I have not worked on this account).   I have to applaud this concept though—having  all of these touchpoints accessible in one place seems like common sense.

But you don't have to be a mega brand to appreciate what's going on in this space. Take a look at what Jeremiah Owyang wrote recently after announcing his career move to go work with Forrester:

"When I announced my job change on Monday, I did it in Twitter, I left a series of messages explaining my intent, I saw the replies come back by the dozens. I answered any questions in real-time and the wave grew in energy. As their friends saw people saying “congrats @jowyang” (the “@” symbol notifies me someone is talking to me) it encourages others to click on my name and see what I said. It rippled across the Twitter lake. Finally, I dropped the URL to my blog, and then it spread to the swimmers, then surfers, boaters, and finally the fleet, like this news site (thanks Karl)."

Dropping Many Pebbles in the Pond
Jeremiah's experience perfectly illustrates what I'm saying with the updated Influence Ripples visual.  If we want to influence folks regarding our personal or corporate brands, we've got multiple ripples happening all at once not only in the digital space, but drilling down to the social aspect of it.  It's enough to make your head spin.  But here's the big takeaway from all of this.  Successful personal and corporate brands alike will be the ones who take a holistic view when creating, maintaining and amplifying their ripples.  This means avoiding the temptation to hyper fixate on one venue thinking it's a replacement for another.  If you have cultivated a successful blog experience—thinking Facebook will eliminate the need for a blog (or site) is foolish and/or short sighted.  Facebook is a members only "closed" community.  Blogs are "open" to the global public including the powerful search engines which make the long tail possible. 

Likewise ignoring effective networks even if they create "smaller" ripples is foolish.  Many small ripples can be just as effective as a few large ones.  At some point in the not-so-distant future, the dust will settle and there will be winners and losers (Quechup anyone?) when it comes to the networks most of us leverage.  But what's becoming increasingly clear to most of us—is that like the original media fragmentation, the social version of it will be no less challenging to initiate, maintain and nurture.  We're all going to have to get used to multiplicity—or simply having a few more pebbles in the pond.