Latest Social Media News

"We can create influence through our content if it moves through the network and creates a reaction".

 

Creating or curating and sharing content is inextricably linked with social influence.

 

It is one of 3 essential steps to improving social influence that Mark Schaefer identifies in his new book, Return on Influence.

 

I highly recommend the book, especially for those who are undecided or skeptical about whether influence measures such as Klout really matter. You'll end the book agreeing that they do.

 

You can get a flavour of the book from this short interview we did at Paper.li.  

Via Liz Wilson

By Kent LEWIS

 

There are a host of issues created by meaningless metrics, which include but are not limited to: wasting time, wasting money, and making bad decisions based on inaccurate, incomplete, or incomprehensible data.

 

More depressing than being easily gamed by humans is the fact that Klout scores have been vulnerable to manipulation by robots and related tools. As such, it's dangerous when companies use it to make decisions, from hiring to assessing the "influence" of fans and rewarding (or ignoring) them accordingly.

 

The fix: Take Klout with grain of salt and a shot of tequila. To get the most value from Klout, focus on trending your score and benchmarking against competitors.

 

Read more, a MUST:

http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=33132

 

Via Gust MEES

This piece was written by Geoff Livingston.  In today's online world social scoring systems like the new Klout matter, unfortunately. For example, some jobs are tied to scores now

 

 What's The real truth?  

When real researchers parse influence: they found true influence comes from those who are closest to us in our on and offline social networks, our peers".

 

As the old adage goes, "You are who you hang out with".

 

**Peer pressure influences us more than a person with a high Klout score. It's when peers start discussing an idean en masse that they feel safe in discussion that often leads to action.

 

What about the influencer, the big time blogger you ask?

 

**they may be communication channel for ideas, and their take on those ideas can sway loyalisst fans who serve as peers.

 

**Generally, their writings serve as a credibility point for readers, just like Consumer Reports and nothing more

 

**True meaningful interactions beyond social platitudes don't scale after a certain point.

 

**Dunbar's theory which states that an individual can only sustain stable social relationships with a community of approximately 150 people.

 

**Applied, it’s not that a person can’t have more friends than 150, but the more relationships someone maintains they become increasingly superficial.

 

We choose to be Influenced

 

**By choosing our friends, we're also choosing to be influenced by their ideas, beliefs and behavior systems. Often their ideals are close to or similar to ours before we spend time together

 

Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Curation, Social Business and Beyond"

 

Read article and see video here: [http://bit.ly/NW7OMt]

 

Image by Eyesplash

Via janlgordon

This piece and infographic is from Adam Vincenzini on his blog.

 

I selected this article because it's another way for you to find key influencers and these tools will help to narrow your search

 

Here are some highlights:

 

Instead of focusing on the subjectivity of this process (and how this insight is deployed) Here's how you can use a combination of free tools to narrow your search.

 

Where do online influencers operate?

**They are active everywhere:

 

     Most popular are:

     blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Online

     communities, discussion boards

 

Assumptions:

 

**Influencers are active on Twitter

**Influencers operate some for of blogging hub

 

Focus on the intelligence you can glean from Twitter initially then verify this initial sweep with blog (or relevant hub) data

 

The initial steps involve:

 

1. Search by keyword

2. Search by location

 

3 tools useful in the process: The first two you can also search by location:

 

**followerwonk.com - then run this through another influencer tool -   

     tweetlevel to give it even more relevance (this isn't fool proof)

**locafollow.com

**twingulate.com

 

There are more suggestions in this piece having said that:

 

**No matter how hard we try, a 100% fool proof influence rating is near on impossible because influence is not a science, it can't be.

 

** this can help narrow things down, significantly

 

Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Content Curation, Social Business and Beyond"

 

Read full article here: [http://tinyurl.com/7humubp]

Via janlgordon, Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com

This piece and report was done by Brian Solis .  Brian has done an outstanding job of helping us to understand the rocky road of social media/business and this is no exception. Happy anniversary Brian! It's unbelievable it's already a year that you've been Principal Analyst of Altimeter Group, great job.

 

Those of us who are involved with social networks are already aware of Klout, Kred, PeerIndex and many others that are yet to come down the pike. Some people don't pay attention, others wish these services would be more transparent about how they measure our standing in the social community. No matter where you stand on this issue, it's not going away but becoming more important than ever. In this piece, Brian gives us some valuable insights and takeaways (slideshare) that is very important for your business now and in the future.

 

 

Here's what caught my attention:

 

Whether we know it or not, our social activity now contributes to our stature within each network.

 

**New services such as Klout, PeerIndex among many others not only measure who you know, what you say, and what you do, they attempt to score or rank your ability to influence those to whom you’re connected.

 

**As a result, social network users are now starting to rethink how they connect and communicate to improve their stature within each network. 

 

**At the same time, brands are starting to take notice of those services also help organizations identify individuals who are both connected and relevant to help expand reach into new media and markets.

 

Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Content Curation, Social Business and Beyond"

 

Read full article here: [http://www.briansolis.com/]

Via janlgordon