Sunday, August 3, 2014

Influencer Marketing 101. Operate Your Influencer Network. Rule 3

Rule 3. Do not rely too much on stats and indicators to measure your own and your top influencers' level of impact

First of all, you as an individual and not a corp don't  need sophisticated expensive tools to make an in-depth analysis of your outreach. You only need basic indicators like those the Facebook pages or Blogger tools offer - numbers of pageviews/hits on your blog/site, number of people talking about you, number of likes. Also, Twitter will send you weekly reports on your stats - views, numbers of new followers, and what Tweets got people talking about you.

Metatag Hag: We discussed before the uncertain nature of likes/favorites' importance for the spreading of your network, but let me reiterate my opinion again: every like/favorite matters, especially if it's by a Level 2 influencer. It means attention, it means a chance to be remembered.

HootSuite is connected to a certain indicator - The Klout Score. If you're a social media nerd, you probably say a prayer to the Klout gods every night, but if you're my target rookie, you'll probably be interested.

It measures an influencer's importance on a scale from 0 to 100. But it is not an absolute truth. Some followers/followees who will come into your field of vision will have a zero score even if their name or occupation means something to you; some will have a high score even if you never heard about him/her.

My advice is to pay attention to this number, but not to worship it religiously. First, not everyone is registered on Klout. There are many great personalities to watch with just a "--" in the place where their Klout score should be. And even if he/she has a low Klout score, but is a peer, like a fellow screen writer or freelance game developer, with their own influencer network and fan base, I recommend following them and including them in your influencer relations.

Also, in later chapters we will discuss in more detail the tweet-to-follower ratio with real-life case studies.

Let me give a brief explanation here. In time, a very high number of followers can give you a very high Klout score, even if you do not have mountain top sitter ambitions and are living happily ever after avec family, job, cat/dog and hobby. You just happen to be an interesting and successful person - and no wonder; there are no other persons today. The XXIst century belongs to 7 billion interesting, unusual, outstanding people.

So, here's an example: in 3 years, 270K Tweets brought you 170K followers, while you yourself follow 167K. You state in your presentation line that you have enough success for two lifetimes obtained with talent, hard work and luck. This is a very good slogan for a life, although I went as far as to Google search results page 3 and found nothing. Only numerous social network accounts and no info re: what exactly made you successful. You also have a witty mind, an eye for hot news, and self-deprecatory humor that made The Metatag Hag chuckle, and that's saying something! Your name is Ku Veo. Your Klout Score? 67.

This is a classic example of a person who made herself a social media star - ranked 13,670th most followed in the world by Twitaholic. Out of three billion - the estimated number of Internet users by late 2014? Huge. She only needed a bunch of free accounts, a cute GIF for a profile photo, and interesting things to say and repost. The things that indicates Ku Veo is a consumer, not a creator, is a) the lack of information on what she does, of course, and b) her follower-to-followee ratio approaches 1.

In the follower-to-followee ratio case, the closer you are to 0, the more of a big deal you are. Compare: Katy Perry, ranked No.1 on Twittaholic, is followed by 54.7M, but follows only 150 people. Ms. Perry's Klout score? 89.

Metatag Hag: Conclusion - see? These ratings and scores are not the Gospel. According to the Klout, Ms. Veo's influencer footprint is almost as serious as Ms. Perry's. Yet if we arrange them by Levels, Ms. Perry is over there on top, while Ms. Veo is... well, if you follow each other on Twitter, she is firmly between level 2 and 3 and a potential shouter-outer. If you found out about her from me... well, still befriend her for her sheer followers base.

As for scores and indicators, a high-ranking nerd resource put it very well: Klout doesn't know Tolkien, and why care you should?

As I was researching the matter, I came across a very interesting site owned by @MeredithSoleau, who wrote in one of her blog entries that Klout was bulls**t . Evidently, Ms. Soleau does not really believe what she said, because in her Hire Me section, she states that her own Klout score is 13 points higher than Matt Damon's and that she's very proud of that fact. Of course, Ms. Soleau and Mr. Damon can both exert influence, but with their respective resonances... and on their respective levels of that upturned pyramid you remember from Building Your Influencer Network Part 1. We will discuss horizontal influence and vertical influence later.

Metatag Hag: I've just found out about Meredith Soleau today. She is a worthy example, of course, and I am glad I found her site. But Warren Buffett, my own model of billionaires with human faces - him I've admired since I was an international business undergrad, and two years ago, his Klout score was... 31. Of course, this fact caused a massive wave of brick defecation (glorified urban slang for "violent reaction"), things were urgently brought up to date, and now Mr. Buffett has a well-deserved 89. This only proves my point. Pay attention, but don't join the Klout worshipers. It's a sect. Just kidding.

To be continued...

Thank you!

Anastasia Stratu and The Metatag Hag

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