Paper

The importance of influencer scores

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Denis Doeland - 12 december 2013!

PAPER: THE IMPORTANCE OF INFLUENCER SCORES

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Introduction
Whether you like it or not, Klout, Kred, PeerIndex, PeerReach and other similar services are measuring the social capital (or social currency) of brands within the internet ecosystem not its direct inuence, but its potential inuence.! Social capital is a common term that can be explained as the total of the actual and potential capital arising from a company, brand or organizations o"ine and online presence in social networks and communities. The term, derived from Pierre Bourdieus theory, has to do with increasing a persons sense of community, of granting access to information and knowledge, helping to form a persons identity, and providing status and recognition. Bourdieus theory!can be applied to the data or big data that you can collect from your micro-ecosystem and the macro-ecosystem.#

Influence value
There is still a degree of skepticism surrounding inuence value. And yet its time to accept the fact that, as a brand (which includes your personal brand as an individual), you are being indexed by services such as Klout, PeerIndex, Kred and PeerReach, and that these scores are being included in lists such as Rankingz.com. So-called inuence scores are starting to play an increasingly important role. As soon as they reach the threshold of accuracy, you can count on the arrival of a slew of new services that reward, and provide better service to, those who are identied as being inuential. It is already the case that with a good Klout score you can gain access to exclusive airport lounges and receive discounts at restaurants there have even been people who have received a pay raise thanks to their good Klout score.# So, lets take a closer look at! Klout.! What does it actually do? Klout serves as an indicator for a number of things, by indicating the extent to which a brand is:# $ %$ $ %$ $ %$ capable of creating relevant content and establishing relationships on social media sites in a consistent manner;# capable of developing a relevant target audience that cares enough to share the content of the brand; and,# considered inuential, based on the content shared by others.#

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Kred! is a similar score comprising two categories: inuence and outreach. Inuence measures how often and how many people are interacting, which is directly related to the content of a brand on Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels. Kred focuses on how often a brands tweets are retweeted on Twitter, for example, and how often it is mentioned in other peoples tweets. The number of messages and number of times a brand is mentioned or liked on Facebook also plays an important role. These parameters are included in a points system, which counts their values and converts this information into a Kred Inuence Score from 1 to 1000. The higher the score, the more inuence you have as a brand.# The second category, which measures interaction with others on social media channels, is called outreach. On Twitter, points are assigned when you retweet, reply to or follow a new person. Facebook assigns points when you post a message, comment or refer to someone elses content. These factors are determined for each brand or individual and when added up, provide the outreach level score. However, in contrast with inuence, this score has no range and no limits.# Information collected based on the di&erent individual factors (i.e. retweets, messages, replies, etc.) is converted into points and a total score called the conversion score. This is a mathematical equation and graph that specically indicates how your points for each factor relate to the total score. Kred makes this information transparent, meaning that you are capable of viewing every point listed and how your points relate to the total score.# Klout and Kred both attempt to give brands a score that establishes how inuential you are in social channels. Kred measures the same factors as Klout but uses two types of measurement; the only noticeable di&erence is the transparency a&orded by Kred. A more transparent score identies specic areas of your social channels and competences that need improvement. Although this can be useful, it may also be disadvantageous due to the possibility of the system being manipulated. With the transparency of Kreds system, you can nd ways to improve individual scores in the most e'cient way without it actually improving inuence upon others. Because you are not capable of analyzing specic parameters in Klout, it is more di'cult to manipulate their system. Klout, therefore, appears much more trustworthy, despite the fact that Klout does little to help improve a score.# PeerReach! is a Dutch creation that measures the online inuence of people based on the inuence of their followers. Up until early last year, only a select group of people were able to try out the beta version. The primary di&erence about PeerReach, as compared to Klout, is the transparency of PeerReachs calculations. The scoring mechanism is actually quite simple; its based on the number of people from the Top 100 (the so-called peers) within a certain area that follow you. The more peers that follow and interact with you, the higher your score is in this area. #

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Furthermore, rather than receiving one score, you are compared in di&erent areas. The result is that everyone has multiple scores. Ultimately, you are linked to the area in which you have achieved the highest score and the most inuence.# Last week saw the rst! PeerIndex! Social Brand Report in the United Kingdom. In this analysis, PeerIndex looked at how often brands were discussed on Twitter in the United Kingdom. Who was king when it came to generating conversations about their brand? And what does that entail exactly? At rst glance, you can see from the list which brands are vying for the largest share of the Twitter landscape in the UK. In certain cases, this can tell us whose social media strategy is working well. More people are talking about Red Bull than Lucozade, for example does this attest to the innovative nature of Red Bulls content? Should Tesco give their social media managers a bonus because they are so far ahead of Sainsburys or should they be worried that their customers are possibly complaining about them? After all, dont people often post tweets complaining about supermarkets?# The posts appear to be an indication of brand awareness. But the list also tells us something else people arent only talking about brands, they are also talking about their lives. If we look at a couple of hashtags that PeerIndex has also listed, this becomes clearer. The storm that swept through the United Kingdom in October gave rise to a hashtag that was tweeted more in two days than all brands outside of the Top 10 were tweeted in a month. #Movember, a charity event that didnt even begin until November, came in at 26 on the list in October.# Facebook, BBC, Google and Sky are all at the top of the list; these are places where people in the UK tend to share what is happening in the world around them. Perhaps Apple is on the list because people were talking about the new iPhones and OSx. Apple is, incidentally, the only brand on the list without an o'cial Twitter account. So what can this list of brands actually tell us? For some, its time to stop worrying about what people say about them and start thinking about what they are talking about.#

Is an influencer score relevant?

What if you, as a brand, work really hard each day to consistently make better content in a legitimate way, to establish better relationships with fans or customers, and to forge active relationships with relevant inuencers who could create business benets for your brand? Then youre going to want to know how youre performing. After all, you check the performance of your website or app, dont you?#

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Brian Solis, an analyst at Altimeter Group, is of the opinion that instead of sending a barrage of tweets or status updates in the hope of increasing your inuence score with the previously mentioned services, you have to think about the short- and long-term objectives of internet and social media campaigns. Solis believes that services such as Klout should inspire you to think critically about how you should be using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media channels. In this way, you can increase your inuence in the o"ine world and this success will, in turn, be reected in the inuence scores.# Since their arrival, Klout and other inuence-indicating services have been the subject of doubt and discussion in social media circles but, somewhere along the way, such sites seem to be slowly gaining a wider acceptance. Last year, Klout received a capital investment from Microsoft and other leading investors, including investors from Japan. Klout has also established promotional partnerships with McDonalds, ESPN, Orange and other international brands. Individual Klout scores have recently been integrated in the search results of Microsofts search engine, Bing.# Its time to start viewing Klout scores and other inuential indicators of its kind within the internet ecosystem as legitimate indicators in the right context. Inuence scores, like those of Klout, Kred, PeerReach, PeerIndex and the like, have become good indicators for how brands are performing in the internet ecosystem that, in turn, produces the necessary big data. Whether you like it or not, these scores are here and, for the moment, you should be paying attention to them they could come in handy. Remember, Rome wasnt built in a day.#

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Note | Disclaimer | Copyright DDMCA and Performance & Investment Management (PIM) are currently working together to rene the valuation models based on data from social media channels. Questions how to value a brand, DJ, DJ or athlete? Feel free to contact denis.doeland@ddmca.com This article is issued under Dutch copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of DDMCA the owner of the issued content. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content without prior written permission. Need a nancial valuation report? An o!er for a full complete valuation report provided with a fairness opinion of a register valuator can be required via denis.doeland@ddmca.com Contact DDMCA Attn. Denis Doeland Keizersgracht 330-b 1016 EZ Amsterdam The Netherlands Mobile: +31 6 13520250 Web: ddmca.com Web: denisdoeland.com

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