With the recent addition of $8.5M to Klout’s coffers, influence has become a prized commodity in social media engagement and monitoring. As we talk to our clients, there’s a real disconnect between the idealized form of harnessing the power of influence and a practical approach to disseminate marketing messages and affect the overall discussions occurring across the web. How can an organization discover influencers when influence for an individual brand or industry is not just about followers, tweets or reposts?

During the fall of 2010, HP Labs conducted a study that analyzed the factors which determine influence on Twitter. It’s a pretty interesting read, and one of the conclusions that jumps out is that the correlation between influence and popularity is relatively weak. Dr. Huberman and the HP team also note that influence depends on both the size of the influenced audience and its passivity.

In short, an individual must have a large audience as well as a following that actively passes along messages to be influential. The HP study also noted that an average Twitter user retweets 1 in 318 URLs. That means that posts are either being read passively or they are simply disappearing into the vast noise of social media chatter. To be honest, it is probably a little bit of both.

As social media goes from being a buzz word to a requirement in marketing, our clients are looking for individuals or domains who are already influential and can help spread messages. Brian Solis and Vocus conducted a study (September 2010) in which they polled about 700 business leaders about social media influence. Among the many nuggets of data, it is interesting that 57% of individuals polled were willing to pay an influencer to drive actions. Of these individuals willing to pay for influence, C-level executives made up the majority. This may help to explain a growing need in the market for better influence data as well as the growing success of startups like Klout and PeerIndex.

So how do we recommend that our clients find influential individuals across the social web?

1. Monitor for Volume – While many would tell you that volume is a poor judge of influence (or even popularity), we find that monitoring across keywords specific to your company, competitors and industry will help lead to those individuals who have the potential for being influential. You have to start somewhere, so rather than pontificate on what influence really means, go find the people who are talking a lot about the topics that matter to your organization.

2. Listen to Potential Influencers - Once you have a set of 30 or 40 influencers, take the time to understand who they are, what they typically write about, and what they are trying accomplish with their online persona. Figure out quickly which individuals are useless to what you and your business are trying to accomplish, and try to not to waste time on them.

3. Cross Reference Influencers - This is when sites like Klout can become helpful. You have paired down your list of 30 to 40 influencers to people and domains that could affect your brand in a substantial way. Now take the individuals and cross reference them with their online rating. In addition to seeing the number of followers, these ratings can give a more holistic view of an individual’s online presence.

Influence is a hard thing to gauge in both the physical and the online world, but it is getting a little easier by the day. Determining the activity (or lack thereof) of an individual’s audience is another thing all together. But when certain individuals propagate more relevant conversations than others, it is a good sign that they are potentially a valuable influencer. As additional money is invested into making the tools and technology more accurate, we will continue to have better insight into an individual’s overall online influence.

If there’s one thing that I learned working summers in resorts/hospitality, it’s that every customer is special.  Providing a unique and fulfilling experience to each and every customer can turn brand ambassadors out of a lot of people.  And that can result in repeat customers, great word of mouth reviews and overall success in your business.  With so many companies turning to Social Media (especially micro-blogs like Twitter) to monitor consumer sentiment and customer service issues, it’s important to think of this channel in the same way that Disney engages off-line in their parks and how Zappos engages online with shoe shoppers.

Employees need to be empowered to help frustrated or unhappy customers at the first point of contact.  This is a pretty scary thing to do, because there are so many points where the system can be gamed.  But ultimately, despite the inevitable gaming by a few, most of the brands that we respect and consider to be the most customer oriented offer immediate support.  I’ve now talked to a number of marketing directors who have taken this approach to Twitter, and I think it’s a great thing to do.  Granted that you may be rewarding some consumers for bad behavior, overall, most people complain on Social Media because they actually have a problem.  If you can help resolve their problem quickly and efficiently, that’s a lot of great PR and good faith value that you can take advantage of.

People love companies who listen, and I think this is the time to really put together a strategy for what type of empowerment you want to give your employees in the online world.  The reason that there has been so much talk about Zappos these days is that they have really made empowerment and customer service a part of their core cultural values.  And they have done it in an online forum.

So here it is.  Don’t say that you are going to respond to customer complaints on Social Media and leave it at that.  Think about how much empowerment you will give your front line to act upon issues that they see coming through the pipe.  Will it be a dollar value?  Will it be a level of service?  Will it be a phone call or email?  Spell these things out, put it on paper, and then your people can work to make your customers happier.

Like walking through a modern art museum, one has to make choices when reading a book about something as new and radical as micro-blogging, especially in the context of corporate communications. Deborah Micek and Warren Whitlock have taken a great first step towards illustrating how and why micro-blogging should be embraced as well as some basic tips to get started in the right direction in their recent book: Twitter Revolution (2008). There are lots of smart insights throughout, but below I have listed the key takeaways from the book that I see affecting corporations as they take on micro-blogging.

Whether it be in the form of Twitter or another type of social media, two-way communication between the customer and the company is here to stay, and corporations should take the leap of faith that this is the manner in which PR efforts will look like in the future. By taking the next steps to engage, persuade and connect with the customer, organizations can formulate the core strategies of how they will provide value to their customers.

 Social Media in General

• IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CONVERSATION
• Speed, people, participation, persuasion and conversation
• We’re moving to conversations; no longer lectures, press releases, etc.
• Connect with your clients/customers immediately (cell phone, etc.)
• It’s not about marketing; it’s about being persuasive, seductive and influential

10 Reasons to Tweet

1. Communication

2. Brand Recognition – Top of Mind Awareness

3. Reputation Management – Andrew Beal – Radically Transparent

4. Networking

5. Get New Clients – Seth Godin – Tribes

6. Find and Connect with Influencers

7. SEO

8. Trend Spotting – Tweetscan.com

9. Focus Groups/Feedback

10. Engage the Conference Experience

Things to Remember

• Jason Jenning – it’s no longer: BIG eat small, but rather FAST eat slow
• Make an impact with every Tweet
• Most products today are BOUGHT not SOLD. Interesting distinction.
• If you want to be listen, you should listen and interact
• People do business with people
• Business is now always personal – Don’t pitch, be personal
• “Contests are the new advertising” – Think Zappos
• Simon Leung – GOOG views social media as a high authority site > static web
• Nancy Marmdejo – PR people know that great leads come from relationship building not press releases

Twitter Tips

• Share a tip a day
• Leave open-ended questions on Twitter
• Try not to use avatars in your Twitter account
• Get higher click through by captivating the reader and influential language
• Have multiple accounts based on your needs – Think about it from a branding perspective
• Polarized tweeters are buyers
• Controversy sells, repels and attracts
• Sometimes ignore critics; you will attract and connect by providing value and benefit

Recommended Books

Smart Mobs – The next social revolution – Howard Rheingold

Radically Transparent – Andrew Beal

Naked Conversations – Robert Scoble

Tribes – Seth Godin