The Rabbit Feed - The Influence edition(Updated October 2011)

The Rabbit Feed on measuring influenceNobody gives a damn about your Klout

score wrote Alexia Tsotsis in Techcrunch.  Alexia was writing about the changes in

Klout's scoring system that led to an outcry

when some users found their scores drop by

up to 20 points.

Who gives a damn?  Leaving aside ego

considerations, quite a lot of people.  

Your perceived social media influence score

can now govern your ability to get an

upgrade, it can determine how fast a

customer service query is dealt with - in

extreme cases it can even determine the

chances of you getting a job.

This edition of the Rabbit Feed is dedicated

to the main influence measurement

systems - Klout, Empire Avenue, PeerIndex,

and the most recent entrant, Kred.

1 - Introduction

2 - Influence is not the same as reach

3 - The different systems -

- Klout

- Empire Avenue

- PeerIndex

- Kred

4 - Mentionmap and Postrank

5 - Conclusion and take-outs

1 - Introduction

The social media age has led to individuals, some with tens of thousands of followers, becoming a form of broadcast media in their own right.   That has led to the era of the so-called influencer.  Someone whose endorsement will be valuable to brands 

But the social media age also coincides with the age of data and of measurement.   And so brands want to know - prove to me that influencer a counts more than influencer b.  Enter scoring systems that give you a grade between 1-100

These systems don't base that score on a crude follower number.  Rather they each have a formula to work out whether what you say has any resonance.

2 - Influence is not the same as reach

The starting point behind the various systems is that influence and reach are not one and the same.  

Last year Canadian measurement and research company Sysomos found that 'celebrities' might have (in some cases) millions of followers on Twitter. But those followers in turn have low levels of social media influence.

It stands to reason - a lot of accounts that follow celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher or Lady Gaga were created purely for that purpose.   Or they are some of the many dormant or low volume twitter accounts where you follow an A List celebrity almost by default.

3 - The different systems - Klout, Empire Avenue, Kred and PeerIndex

Klout

Klout positions itself as the default influence measurement system.   It is the oldest (2008) and the one with arguably the most critical mass.

For example, Klout scores are built into both Hootsuite and cotweet.  These are the main social media management systems employed by major brands.

As a result, if you call out (say) airlines easyJet or British Airways, whoever is monitoring their feeds at that time will see your score beside your profile, giving an indication of how influential Klout thinks you are.

Hotels have been using Klout to decide on upgrades and in some cases Klout is even factoring in job performance and University grades.

Klout covers more than just Twitter and Facebook.   Instead you can link a wide range of social networks to Klout, including micro-blogging platform Tumblr and photo sharing network Instagram.

Klout Perks

Klout Perks - one of Klout's biggest innovations has been Klout Perks.   Essentially this is a way for companies to funnel freebies to influencers in the hope that they will talk about them.    

Participants in the US include Virgin America (free flights to promote new routes), Chevrolet Volt (try out the new electric car at the weekend) and Microsoft (windows phones for free).

Despite being a success story, two issues have dogged Klout both around scoring and accuracy.

First of all, last year London agency RAAK managed to create a fake twitter account which achieved a high Klout score by sending out a large volume of tweets over regular intervals.  The message was that it is possible to game Klout.

It's unclear whether the RAAk test would still stand given the latest Klout updates, which claim to no longer reward noise.

However those updates have led to a huge drop in scores among some users and the reaction among sections of the social media community has not surprisingly been hostile with occupyklout and kloutopalypse hash tags doing the rounds on Twitter

Does Klout measure anything meaningful?

Opinion is still divided on whether Klout tells you anything meaningful.   In a USA Today piece a number of experts weighed in.  

Morad Benyoucef of the University of Ottawa accused Klout of adopting a 'simplistic' view of influence that doesn't properly look at context or people's relationship to each other.

Kevin Curran of the University of Ulster however calls Klout a revolution, giving us a way of measuring power on the Internet.   He also calls Klout Perks a "potential game changer" for the way it matches suitable influencers with brands.

Maybe so but there is at least anecdotal evidence that the topics of influence ascribed to users are sometimes wrong to the point of being bizarre - for example, according to Klout Rabbit Jim is an  authority on the North American ice hockey team the Pittsburgh Penguins!

Finally the fact that everyone has a Klout score (if you have a public social media presence) whether you want one or not, has raised a number of privacy concerns.  

As a number of bloggers have pointed out, Klout is in fact creating profiles for minors, those profiles include information on who they in turn are influenced by.

Empire Avenue

Empire Avenue is social gaming meets influence measurement.   Everyone on Empire Avenue is a stock to be traded.   And the value of that stock depends on your

supposed influence.  Think fantasy football or celebdaq meets social media.

Unlike the other systems Empire Avenue's gamification mechanics mean other users have a role to play - you essentially decide whether someone is worth investing in.

Despite an initial flurry of interest, the effort Empire Avenue takes to be an active participant means that there are still questions about the extent to which it will take off (there is also the point that you are essentially buying 'shares' in your peers) and at Rabbit it is not something we would use as an influencer measurement system for now.

PeerIndex

London based PeerIndex is in many ways the UK version of Klout. 

PeerIndex is open how it's score is calculated.   Essentially it is a mix between how many followers you have, how often you communicate with them, and whether they respond to what you are telling them.  

It is a simple, common sense system that doesn't over complicate things.   Note that someone's Klout and PeerIndex scores can often be very different.

PeerIndex doesn't support as many networks as Klout, but apparently that is changing.

Earlier in the year, PeerIndex received a lot of attention due to its ability to create lists - now replicated in Klout - and communities.  

The marketing and social media communities aren't the only ones to create 'top influencer' lists, industries as diverse as construction and property have jumped on the bandwagon, creating their own top 100.

Finally PeerIndex also now has its own version of Klout Perks and claims to help businesses identify and reach out to influencers.

Kred

One of the newest players in this space is Kred. Though not fully launched yet, Kred has a few points of difference to other systems.

First of all, you have two scores - influence an outreach.   Influence is like the PeerIndex or Klout scores (though it is out of 1000, not 100).   Outreach apparently measures how 'generous' you are in sharing content.  

Uniquely however, Kred recognises that influence works on and offline and so users can add anything (according to one review) from frequent flyer miles to academic achievements to the profiles

The second noteworthy feature about Kred is that it gives you an overall outreach and influence score...and one for every community in which you operate.   

That makes sense - an average Klout or PeerIndex score could mask the fact that someone is actually very influential in a certain area.   That aspect should make Kred instantly of Interest for brands.

Finally unlike the 'secret sauce' approach taken by Klout, Kred claims transparency and says you will immediately be able to see how certain twitter replies and retweets changed your score.

4 - Mentionmap and Postrank

Finally, two more influencer systems worth mentioning are postrank and mentionmap.

Mentionmap is a fun application that shows you who anyone on twitter is talking to the most.   If you want to reach influencers, one way of doing so is obviously to look at who influences them.

Postrank, now owned by Google, assigns site content scores based on engagement.    It has previously been used to see which posts in blogs are getting the most traction.  Postrank is built into a number of scoring systems, including AdAge's list of the 1000 top marketing blogs on the English speaking world.

5 - Conclusion and take-outs

Klout may not be perfect but it is the one system approaching wider adoption and so can't be ignored.   Kred however has an interesting model, which deserves a look once properly launched.

Here are five recommended next steps:

1 - Take the time to acquaint yourself with your Klout profile, others are.    Remember, if you have a social media footprint, you will have a score.  That goes for brands as well as individuals 

2 - Though Klout's scoring systems have come under scrutiny, it is worth tracking how much your score changes up or down over time, ditto your competitors

3 - Create lists in PeerIndex and Klout.   Those lists could be competitors, internal team members, industry figures - whatever you like. And you can choose to make them public or private.   They will give you a snapshot of who has the highest social media profile in your sector

4 - Keep an eye out for Kred and request a beta invite.   Depending on its accuracy, the communities scores could be very valuable to you

5 - Finally - don't become obsessed with these scores.   As many find out the hard way, someone with a low or average score can still make your life difficult if they choose

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As a social media ideas agency, we look at the different ways in which online social tools can be integrated into organisations.

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