It has been a busy few weeks for big brands and platforms who have been measuring popularity for “influencers” online.
Whilst some are using Klout, others have enough of their own data to not have to rely on third party websites like LinkedIn or Twitter. Klout is a tool in both desktop and mobile format that uses your social media analytics to rank a user based on their social influence online which is called a “Klout Score”. Klout will measure a user’s popularity based on their size of social media database and how they interact with other users on a scale of 1 to 100 (100 being the highest). If you are scoring over 60, you are in the top 3% online, which I am very happy to be amongst at 67!
The last couple of weeks have been especially rewarding for me, firstly being given the title of the 15th most influential marketeer in the UK from Brand Republic.
Brand Republic reached out to Klout (social media analytics ranking software) to get the numbers on social media influencers in the UK’s advertising and marketing industry. Klout, during this analysis, looked at the activity on social accounts and focused on 15 different expertise including; advertising, branding, communications, content marketing, digital marketing, email marketing, social marketing and social media.
The list included Lilac Bullock, Bryony Thomas, Jim Connolly, Robert Tyson, Doug Kessler and at the number one spot; Dave Chaffey (editor and co-founder of Smart Insights).
I received an email over the weekend sharing more good news; I had been chosen as the 4th online “power” user out of 100 influential leaders and experts by The Digital Marketing Show. The Digital Marketing Show used Twitter and Klout to bring together their list of 100 experts, which is something they do every week to recognise those who inspire and are worth following online. You can see the full list here, also featuring some of the above names from the Brand Republic list.
And finally, LinkedIn’s new social selling index. LinkedIn measures your social selling efforts and ranks you based on how established you are, how engaging you are with insights, how well you build relationships and whether you find the right people to connect with. As you can see below, my score is 82/100.
To increase this, I know that I need to identify better prospects in less time and share more conversation-worthy updates. All in all, 82/100 isn’t something I am going to worry about!
Over the past week, I have been listening and engaging in conversations with online influencers to really understand what value it can give to a business. Here are my 3 take-aways from this.
- Be Grateful
I work extremely hard to build a strong online presence that gives value and encourages trust so I am always thankful for being acknowledged for this, and being on the lists mentioned in this blog.
- Do Your Research
The metrics used to measure the above, are only indicators. If you are looking for an expert, business partner, new client or thought leader, use the lists as a reference point, but always do your due diligence around the person before signing on the dotted line.
- Cashflow
A business can not succeed unless it has paying customers and happy ones at that. Never stop bringing potential clients/customer into your marketing funnel to the point of them naturally flowing into your sales process.
What are your thoughts on the “new” online influencers?