Influence

What We’re Reading, July 29th: The Too Damn Hot Edition

July 29, 2011 by Kari Rippetoe

It’s hot…damn hot. And while you may not be able to avoid going outside, at least we can provide you with some insightful posts to keep you inside and in the A/C a little longer. Hey, if you keep reading you might even get some free JELL-O Pudding out of it!

Research: 2/3 of CMOs Prefer Working With Smaller Firms from PRNewser: If you’re shopping for a marketing firm, take note of this research – it illustrates the value that smaller shops can bring in the form of client service and intimate partnerships.
The 9 Creative Uses for Google+ Hangouts You Didn’t Think Of from Business Insider: We haven’t tried Hangouts yet, but thanks to this article we can definitely see the potential!
Google+ Tips: Where to Begin and How to Share Content Quickly While Mobile from HuffPost Tech: For those just getting started with Google+, our friend Chris Rauschnot shares his tips for success – both at your desk and on the go.
How to Incorporate Influencers Into Content Marketing from Content Marketing Institute: Outreach is just one part of influencer marketing. This post from Amanda Maksymiw of Openview Venture Partners provides some tips for integrating influencer and content marketing to build your content program.
What Klout is Really Good For… from Never Stop Marketing: Speaking of influencers, the takeaway here is that community trumps influence.
HOW TO: Utilize Social Data More Effectively from Mashable: If you’re only using the data mined from social media to measure the success of your efforts, you’re not leveraging it in the best way. This post from Nate Elliot of Forrester Research talks about why.

And now, some fun stuff (as if social media wasn’t enough fun):

JELL-O Offers Free Pudding to World’s Saddest Tweeters from SocialTimes: With all the economic woe in the world right now, it’s easy to get a little depressed. But JELL-O wants to help turn those frowns upside-down by giving free pudding to people tweeting with frowny emoticons ( 🙁 ). Now if only the U.S. government could pay its debt in pudding…
Alex Trebek Chases Suspected Burglar, Inspiring Awful ‘Jeopardy!’ Jokes from NYTimes.com: IBM’s Watson may have beat the Jeopardy Grand Champion, but let’s see it do this.

And remember how hot we said it was? Here in DC, it was actually hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk:

How Klout Should be Measuring Social Media Influence

June 22, 2011 by Kari Rippetoe

Something that I’ve noticed and kept tabs on in recent months is the preoccupation with influence in social media, specifically how to measure it. Since we’re in the business of locating influencers and running campaigns to build relationships with them on behalf of our clients, I’ve keeping a close eye on emerging tools for identifying said influencers and determining, well, just how influential they are (BTW, here’s a really great infographic that maps out influencer ecosystems and roles).

One of those first tools out of the gate that so many in the social media world have been chattering about lately is Klout. Klout started out as a tool that measured a person’s influence based on Twitter only, which caused a bit of a stir from those who rightly thought that influence should not be determined by tweets alone. So, they added Facebook and, most recently, LinkedIn to the mix of profiles that help calculate a person’s Klout score. They also added the ability for others to give you Klout (or +K) in a certain topic – which is certainly a step in the right direction in terms of how influential others think you are. Klout is now starting to emerge as the tool for measuring social influence.

Well, almost.

When we think of social media, straight away we think of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, right? But when we talk about social media influence (or, better yet, social influence), we’re talking about an animal of different stripes. Social influence isn’t just gauged by the “Big 3” social networking sites, it’s gauged by your entire social sphere and how your network is engaging with you. Influence in a certain topic shouldn’t necessarily be determined by how often you tweet about that topic, either (case in point – Klout has determined that our own Mitch Arnowitz is influential about ice cream and I’m influential about cars) – it should take into consideration other sources of content you’ve posted about the topic.

In terms of how they should be measuring influence, here’s what I hope to see from Klout in the near future:

Blogs

Ability to add your blog to your Klout profile to help determine score and influence in certain topics based on readers’ level of engagement with your blog (i.e. shares of posts, comments, Facebook Likes).
Ability for your blog readers to +K your blog posts for certain topics (imagine a +K button you can add to your blog).
Consideration of the comments you leave on other blogs (determined by services like Disqus).

Consideration of posts in LinkedIn groups and how many people Like or comment on those posts.
Consideration of Answers you’ve provided on LinkedIn and how many were chosen as “Best” to determine topic influence.
Ability for companies to add their company pages.

Facebook

Ability for companies to add their Facebook pages.

Other social networks

Ability to add your Quora profile so Klout can analyze your answers to questions to help determine topic influence.
Ability to add your profiles from location-based services like Foursquare or Gowalla to factor in friends, tips (and how many people have “done” the things your tips mention), mayorships, badges. This might help to determine local influence. Update July 14: Klout has added Foursquare as one of the services affecting scores. No details on what kind of activity affects it (natch), but apparently they’re still trying to figure that out.

How do you think Klout should measure social influence and what should they be taking into consideration?

Building the Bridge Between Outreach and Social Media Communities (Infographic)

January 11, 2011 by Kari Rippetoe

2011 is shaping up to be an exciting and productive year for Tuvel, and this is something I created as part of some big plans we have in the works.

This bridge infographic demonstrates how outreach and social media marketing/community-building go hand in hand – creating brand evangelists in the process. We believe that the two elements, while effective on their own, are much more effective and successful when working together at the same time to build community and buzz around a brand, product, event or cause.

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