The importance of influencer scores

Paper The importance of influencer scores !

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 influence, but its potential influence. 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 organization’s offline and online presence in social networks and communities. The term, derived from Pierre Bourdieu’s theory, has to do with increasing a person’s sense of community, of granting access to information and knowledge, helping to form a person’s identity, and providing status and recognition.

Bourdieu’s 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 influence value. And yet it’s 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 ‘influence 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 identified as being influential. 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, let’s 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:

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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 ‘influential’, based on the content shared by others.

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Kred is a similar score comprising two categories: influence and outreach. Influence 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 brand’s 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 Influence Score from 1 to 1000. The higher the score, the more influence 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 else’s content. These factors are determined for each brand or individual and when added up, provide the ‘outreach level score’. However, in contrast with influence, this score has no range and no limits.

Information collected based on the different 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 specifically 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 influential you are in social channels. Kred measures the same factors as Klout but uses two types of measurement; the only noticeable difference is the transparency afforded by Kred. A more transparent score identifies specific 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 Kred’s system, you can find ways to improve individual scores in the most efficient way without it actually improving influence upon others. Because you are not capable of analyzing specific parameters in Klout, it is more difficult 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 influence of people based on the influence of their followers. Up until early last year, only a select group of people were able to try out the beta version. The primary difference about PeerReach, as compared to Klout, is the transparency of PeerReach’s calculations. The scoring mechanism is actually quite simple; it’s 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 different 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 influence.

Last week saw the first 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 first 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 Bull’s content? Should Tesco give their social media managers a bonus because they are so far ahead of Sainsbury’s or should they be worried that their customers are possibly complaining about them? After all, don’t 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 aren’t 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 didn’t 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 official Twitter account. So what can this list of brands actually tell us? For some, it’s 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 influencers who could create business benefits for your brand? Then you’re going to want to know how you’re performing. After all, you check the performance of your website or app, don’t 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 influence 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 influence in the offline world and this success will, in turn, be reflected in the influence scores.

Since their arrival, Klout and other influence-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 McDonald’s, ESPN, Orange and other international brands. Individual Klout scores have recently been integrated in the search results of Microsoft’s search engine, Bing.

It’s time to start viewing Klout scores and other influential indicators of its kind within the internet ecosystem as legitimate indicators – in the right context. Influence 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 wasn’t built in a day.

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DDMCA and Performance & Investment Management (PIM) are currently working together to refine 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

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