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A recommendation system that filters out all the A listers or people with a gazillion followers (I reckon most of us are interested in quality not quantity) would be good.
A friend of mine recently quipped that (the majority of) marketers should get their own internet, or at least their own twitter! I'd love to see some social metrics that actually work for average users. My first test of the Mr. Tweet system just pointed me at mugshots of the same old, same old internet celebutantes.
http://twitter.com/Adgenius
So.. lets say I'm a musician and interested in music business stuff.. I could connect up to a lot of marketers.. and we could look at how influential a marketer is in the marketing community... but that person might have very little to say on the subject of music marketing.. So.. in terms of my interests then.. that person might have some value in my conceptualizing what I'm doing.. but you could have someone.. who is much less of an influencer in the larger marketing world.. but is focused on music marketing.. and then, for me.. the balance of who's going to be more influential to me.. is going to be weighted a certain way.
I don't know that you can build an automatic recommendation engine that would work for this.. Further.. there's a difference between who I'm connected with now, and who I might want to be connected to moving forward... Or maybe.. of all my followers.. there are certain people who would have more weight in my thinking about who I should maybe follow.
I think.. if you wanted to do something that went this far.. you'd need to allow me, when I go to the page.. to some how say "well, this is how I look at it." Further.. at some point, if you're successful enough.. people could put in some kind of information about how they would characterize them selves.. so that you could have the interaction of what they put in, with what I'm trying to pull in, with the conventional recommendation engine stuff.
Other wise.. I think there's a certain subtlety factor.. in how you things work.. that can very easily not be revealed.. I'm thinking?
1a) What is my influence on web analytics? This being equivalent to "what is my influence on those people who are looking at web analytics based things?"
1 b) What is my influence on this subsection of my audience (individuals or sets of followers)?
2) What would my influence be if calculated for X who is not currently a follower?
The latter would give you an idea whether there might be any benefit in trying to bring X into your sphere of influence, while the former might help you to refine your messages.
This assumes that the measure of influence does not require that the person you are measuring with respect to must be a follower already.
Rufus
We'd all like an accurate measurement of our personal influence on other's purchases of Pop-Tarts, Red Bull and online purchases, so I'm sure, the question of wether this can be done accurately with our Tweets will be determined by how effective the system will be in weeding out A-listers, bots, no activity followers and our personal tweets and re-tweets.
In short, reality dictates it will not be completely efficient and some Tweeters WILL attempt to skew the numbers to make their standings (and bragging rights) shine.
So like the ubiquitous Alexa ranking, the ranking on Mr. Tweet may just wind up being a guideline rather than a true reflection of how far reaching a member of Twitter can affect true change.
Remember: Obama was already a hot commodity and just brought that hotness to Twitter AFTER he announced in mainstream media that he was
using SMS to announce his VP.
His current influence is an outgrowth of his uniqueness in other media.
Me? Well, I want to influencer the Twitterverse in following up & coming entrepreneurs through my Blog Talk Radio show and soon myUSTreamTV.com live web show.
I want to find influencers of young entrepreneurs, women and second-career dads who, in this hyper-intensive economic mire, want to improve their lives and live free of the restraint of a job.
The idea : there are some bloggers who are not mainstram, have few followers, but whi are regularly red and commented... by popular bloggers with a huge audience. These ones are meta-influencers : they have an impact on the influencers, who might relay your ideas or posts.
@MattSearles Some very good points in here. In essence, you are saying to allow people to express more about themselves, like who they want to be contacted with, why and how?
@Rufus Very interesting set of analytics. I think that is the kind of analytics that a marketer will kill for! That said, Twitter needs to grow a lot bigger for most marketers to treat it seriously.
@ScottMcMurren True, but people who peddle their influence lose it fast. ;)
@blacksonville : Please DM us if you have any ideas, or if you heard anything worthy on this front.
@AnthonyWhyms Thanks for the great explanation. Besides a bio, what information would you like to provide such that you believe can help you reach your target audience?
@[Enikao] Very very true. I like the term "meta-influencer" It nicely encapsulates what we are trying to achieve here - which is highlight great people in niches who might not have 20,000 followers!
there are gross measures - e.g. how many followers do I have, how many of my followers have huge followings.
There are subcommunity measures - who follows me in web design or bus driving interest communities.
There is my bridging behaviour - do I cross subtopics or even larger topic communities.
There is the nature of my tweets - do I distribute others views by retweet, do I put links to multiple sites, do I put links to my own blogs along with others, do I only promote myself by exclusively linking to my own blogs, do I ever get retweeted, who retweets me, do I just talk about the weather and cool parties (still a social influence).
The guys at thenetworkthinker.com and networkweaving.com have done some really interesting work on determining groupings. My 8 Factors for Web 2.0 Business Success Article (follow my blog link) has the links to a couple of their articles in the text. They used Amazon Book buying data to determine the degree of political polarisation.
Metadata around books mentioned in tweets, links referred to in tweets (need to unpack tinyurl and is.gd) including keywords in title area, metadata associated with a tweeters profile link and the wording in the twitter bio, maybe analyse twitterer profile link to search for further metadata, presence of # tags and nature of tag, will all contribute to a cluster of first path category metadata. Participation with others will give you second level classification.
Then you have to work out what it means and give it a rating(s). Perhaps 1-10 for each factor to keep the numbers manageable. Tot2-Soc1-Loc7-BA5-WebS-2 would give me a comparative rating of total (the world - I make just above the bottom), Social (I am the Bottom), Location (pretty good for my one horse town), and then the specialist communities - a factor of 1 doesn't get listed because otherwise it would fill the page. So I would hypothetically have Business Analysis midrange and web Strategy just above the bottom.
Something like that would really be useful to both viewpoints. Me understanding my place, others assessing my role.
Why U might ask? Cuz I like taking the Road less Travelled, the Scenic Route if U swill*
;)) Peace*
To me that's the critical part of influence that needs to be measured, the "action" or outcome. Without that pure reach is not a measure of influence. I don't know if anyone measures their click through rates but I get about 2% on all the links I post which is pretty high.
@Adgenius I rather like your definition:
"Influence is the power to gather people around an idea, concept or person, who are willing to spread this idea regardless of external benefits."
Gather? Maybe Lead. And rather than them just being willing to "spread an idea", how about do potentially anything.
I once saw Zefrank on his video blog "The Show" influence people to make an Earth Sandwich, that is two people laid down two slices of bread on opposites sides of the earth at the same time. The right motivation and tools people will do anything.
@Scott McMurren Too true that what is the point of influence if you can't peddle it. I say, why can't we, I think we should all have rate cards and I want to select the companies that I would promote :-)
http://twitter.com/karllong
Someone else who is a small business owner could well be very interested in what I have to say, and my tweets could influence them greatly.
But on Twitter, they both have the same status - a follower of mine. I'm scratching my head trying to think of how you could assign a level of influence by monitoring the numbers of changes in the number of followers.
Perhaps monitoring the % of followers that follow a link that is inserted by a person could provide an indication of whether the tweets are being read - and therefore being acted on. (If Richard B.clicked on 100% of the links in my tweets, then he may well be influenced by what I write.)
Regards, Eric G.
The recommended influencers have helped me understand how I should reshape government policy. And for that, I thank you.
Influence occurs when one reads or hears a statement that "rings true". It causes an "aha' experience in the "hungry for knowledge" recipient. It excites the recipient because it supplies the next piece of the jigsaw for which they have been searching. That piece of the jigsaw is the bit they were looking for but they didnt really even know what it looked like, sounded like, felt like. As it occurs/ appears, there is a moment of exhilaration and excitement that acts like energy and the recipient usually feels the need to tell others or thank them. On twitter it's usually done publicly so that everyone has an opportunity to check it to see if its their next bit of the jigsaw.
So for example: it seems to me that although I have a follow(ers) count at around 150 to 200 there is only about six or seven users I @reply, DM or retweet or that do likewise for me. The total number of people with whom this has happened at least once is possibly higher but this metric of influence - notable reaction would be a most useful metric of how well I satisfy those that subscribe. I would say this is my level of influence and that it goes up and down based on how interesting I am at any given time.
Besides being a very healthy topic to have a open discussion around, having a more well-rounded understanding will also allow us to construct our engine better.
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