An article by Brian Solis. An ExactTarget and Co study reveals an important part of the social ecosystem that demonstrates why businesses need to consider not just a 360 approach, but a socialized approach. Of the consumers surveyed, 72% publish blog posts at least monthly, 70% comment on blogs, and 61% write at least one product review monthly. The social [...]

Global 360, KnowledgeLake and EndUserSharePoint.com release the names of the first set of influencers in The SharePoint50 Project. Here’s the way it works. Global 360 and KnowledgeLake hired a third party research firm to find the main influencers when people are looking at purchasing SharePoint in the United States. You can read more about the process in a previous article. [...]

A post on the blog of the Traackr influence measurement software. The author provides a  definition of online influence, and then explains the principles underlying the Traackr influence scoring system: “People influence people, Influence is always contextual, “influence becomes accurate when measured over time, No one size fits all when it comes to influence.” For more articles about a related [...]

For all the number-crunching – and subsequent debate – by various research firms to try to determine the dollar value of a fan or follower, these efforts do not fully take into account a fundamental fact about social networks: some fans or followers are worth more, or rather are more influential or valuable, than others. They are not valued for [...]

There is a great misunderstanding that just because someone is popular it makes them influential. This couldn’t be further from the truth on Twitter. When it comes down to making sure your message is heard and ensuring that it spreads amongst your target audience, you have to engage with the right people at the right time with the right message. [...]

Finding the influencers and offering free stuff (be it coupons, test drives or entertainment) is only the beginning. As Brian Solis puts it, “Recognition is a start. Reward is a gesture. Engagement and reciprocity is how we christen relationships.” For more articles about a related topic, see also The Problem with Influence and The Naked er: Traditional v. Contemporary Channels [...]

This post in ImSpike shows a way to identify niche influencers. Go to the homage page of the community hub, open Yahoo Site Explorer and plug in the URL, select to exclude inlinks from the domain itself, export the top results into an Excel file by clicking the TSV button. Open the file in Excel, use CTRL+F to search for [...]

-By Mike Shields . Ning has launched a set of tools to help publishers and social community leaders to identify their most popular users—and turn them into brand advocates. The company has introduced what it’s calling the Ning Engagement System. Individuals and groups that use Ning to host social communities on the Web can now track what content drives the [...]

Marshall Sponder reviews PeekYou, which allows you to check people out on the web. You can find influencers by topics and location, and see who are the most influential people in a company. You can run PeekYou on Google Search Results. Influence scores are given. PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including blogging, participation [...]

Maria Ogneva , from Attensity, in this post on the Customer Think blog, provides some pointers to identify influencers and measure their influence. Make sure that your monitoring platform has some kind of influencer identification tool. Use reports like “top sources” or “top authors.” Tools like Klout, a partner of Attensity, whose platform is integrated into Attensity360) assess a number of [...]

Klout has identified 16 classes of influencers: celebrities, taste makers, pundits, thought leaders, broadcasters, curators, feeders, syndicators, networkers, socializers, specialists, activists, conversationalists, dabblers, explorers, observers. For more articles about a related topic, see also Study: In the Battle for Trust Online, Facebook Trumps Twitter and Teen Social Media Influencers Wield Power Online and Offline To access the original material, click [...]

Steve Law in this post on Penn Olson’s blog, discusses the difference between popularity and influence, why popularity does not create influence, and why popularity leverages influence. To read the original article, click here

Marshall Sponder describes and tests a process to assess which of your Twitter followers are active to your message. For more articles about a related topic, see also What Part of “Social Linking Sites Are Rigged for Money” Is So Hard to Understand? Part 3 and Want to Build Influence? Be A Meaningful Specific To access the original material, click [...]

An article by Tom Foremski on ZE Net, about the findings of Dr. Bernardo Huberman, director of HP’s Social Computing Lab, and his team. The study found that most Twitter users are passive and do not re: there is a difference between popularity and influence. High number of followers does not equal influence because followers do not re-.  To become [...]

Matt Owen in this post in the Econsultancy blog, explains how influence is difference from popularity. He outlines the qualities that make an influencer, and looks at how to best position influencers in relation to targeted audiences. For more articles about a related topic, see also Powerful Endorsements: Celebrity Vs. Social Media and How Can You Measure Influence?. To access [...]