klout

Measuring Social Influence – Klout, PeerIndex, SocialIQ and Kred

April 26, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Nowadays, when a business wants to gauge how the general public feels about their brands, products or services, they are using tools for measuring their social influence on the web. In many cases, some even use them to take a measurement of their competitors. Staying on top of important industry trends, changes in algorithms, and social influence measurement tools can keep you and your business afloat on the web and learning how to make those trends, changes and tools work for you can assist your business in increasing growth, brand visibility, and even your business’s social media ‘voice.’

If you need a reminder of how important those things can be to your social media campaigns, take a look back to the blog, 4 important lessons on brand marketing via Twitter, where we shared the successes that JetBlue, Hilton and more were having from the social media voices they created for themselves. We covered the spread of social influence tools in another past blog titled Klout vs PeerIndex vs SocialIQ at the end of last summer, but how are those tools developing now?

Klout

Klout is still as powerful a force in social influence as ever. Recent updates include some fairly impressive leaps ahead in keeping up with business technology and its impact in the realm of social influence. Just this month Klout announced they would be offering dedicated pages for brands where Klout users will be able to see lists of top influencers for each brand as well as observe social media conversations, monitor brand developments and even earn access to some special perks. This new update, codenamed “Brand Squad” is launched in a partner venture with Red Bull.

For some more information on where Klout may be headed, don’t forget to check out the video from #SMWSMAC where we had a full panel including Michelle Ross of Klout to explain where we can expect social influence measurement tools to take us in the coming year. Klout still has its naysayers as well. However, it has also begun to be an item of reference now asked for in some job interviews as well. For those working in the social media industry, it may soon become a vital tool on your own list of portfolio and reference links.

PeerIndex

PeerIndex has found itself in continual growth since we delved into it last August. Reebok has just offered the top 100 most influential PeerIndex users, as identified by their own PeerPerks service, a free pair of Reebox’s RealFlex trainers. In promoting their own, “The Sport of Fitness Has Arrived” marketing campaign. The PeerPerks system, hosted on its own microsite, allows users to sign in just as they do on PeerIndex, by using their Facebook or Twitter accounts. Although this particular marketing campaign will focus on those who have influence in fitness, athletics or sports, it seems that a few more brand offers from big names like Reebok may push PeerIndex and their competitive reward system into more growth for their social media influencer user base.

SocialIQ

SocialIQ was just breaking out of the start-up phase when we last covered them. Since then they too have grown into an impressively notable competitor on the social influence circuit. Early on, they had enacted their own series of perks for those who were influential in a variety of industries and the developers at SocialIQ are still continually looking to improve and perfect their relationship with users. Just this past Tuesday they met with a customer service special interest group at Intuit to ask for some feedback on the SocialIQ experience design.

SocialIQ has an aesthetically pleasing and easy to manage user interface in their one click social media network integration with Twitter and Facebook. Developed by Soovox, the algorithm SocialIQ uses seems to be working and measures influence based on the same idea as the others. However, I have noticed that SocialIQ has done some pretty impressive improvements on their site’s look as well as their feedback to users complete with an influence level analysis that tells you which brands you may have the closest affinity with.

Kred

A month ago we covered Kred and what it had to offer as a newer social influence measurement tool on the net in Monitoring Your Social Reputation with Kred. Just this month Kred has added Facebook to their options for users wanting to measure their social influence scores. Everything seems to be working well so far and with Kred making a major showing at SXSW this year, the company is slowly starting to gain more ground. Kred scores do break down a bit differently as users actually receive points for interactions, tweets, mentions and more, so I would definitely encourage those who have not tried it to do so. It may offer the last piece to the puzzle of your business’s social influence analytics.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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Monitoring Your Social Reputation with Kred

March 1, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Social influence is gaining notice as more advertisers, marketers, consumers, and affiliates use it as a method of gauging the knowledge, credibility, and reliability of prospective new clients or business contacts. There are other systems of influence measurement, such TwentyFeet, Klout, and Peer Index. Between them all there is a whopping level of social influence analysis to be found. So which should you be using? From someone who has experimented and experienced a little of what each has to offer, I’d have to say, use each of them for the best option they offer for social influence measurement.

[slideshare id=9465635&doc=kredslidedeckv15-110928212859-phpapp02]

What Does Kred Offer?

Kred offers many of the same options as the others. A collaborative algorithm will allow you to enter your social network accounts to gather an overall score listing the highlights of your personal topics, and circles of influence. However, Kred does offer a few things that the others do not, or lack a particular focus on.

Analytics

Kred seems to have an analytics platform that is a bit more detailed than the others. Using a system known as PeopleBrowser, Kred has based their analytics system around the notion that they believe social analytics can depict accurately, how human behavior and influence can provide data to help businesses increase productivity, community, and growth.

Community

An important element to any brand is the ability to find the right community that cares about your services or product offerings. When you include the chance to pinpoint top influencers in your industry or topics, a brand marketer’s job gets a lot easier.

Transparency

Kred is unusually upfront about how scores are handed down, down to every mention, retweet, follow, like, and so on.

See what Scott Milener of PeopleBrowser has to say about their platform.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKTEXlGuxgM]

Influencer Reality

True influencer reality is not going to come from Lady Gaga, or a Kardashian. Although any company would be delighted to have one of those famous influencers tweet or share their brand, the true consumer is unlikely to run out and purchase relentlessly just because Gaga or Kim said they should. However, the true consumers, those that may buy your product or services, and then relate their wonderful experience with you to all of their friends, is the epitome of influencer reality. Klout and Kred both seem to have a good realization of what it means to base an algorithm and platform on the real consumers companies are clamoring for attention from.

Kred vs Klout – Fun Fact

If you think that the competition between Kred and Klout when it comes to providing the best tool for social influence, it may also be important to note that these two companies also share the same city and office space, not just the same views on social influence. However, as much as each company seeks to shed light on the same platform of social influence, they also appear to have different viewpoints on the true sources of online influence.

If you want to learn more about the basics of Kred, check out this helpful PDF.

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Did you try? A Look at the data from #SMWsmac [InfoGraphic]

February 29, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

What can you do in 16 days? Try!

With just under a month before Social Media Week 2012, it came to our attention that NYC did not have a daylong event that was tailored to teach the small business owners and professionals how Social Media is and can be used. On Feb 1st, 2012 dbmei authors decided to launch Social Media Action Camp! The event which a few days later became an official part of Social Media Week was set for Feb 16th 2012 at the Roger Smith Hotel in NYC.

Data provided by Synthesio , and a few other sources .

The event tag #smwsmac generated over 1,000 tweets! Which represents about 5% of the social media activity in New York City. The Social Influencers reached over 116,000 followers and generated tweets in 15 countries globally!

In addition to the info from Synthesio, we also know that:

102 people attended throughout the day
128 viewers at one time on LiveStream
976 views on the Live Stream Channel
1484 tweets to date #smwsmac
71 check-ins on foursquare to the Roger Smith Hotel

The Official Social Media Week event page hosted on SocialMediaWeek.org generated 177 Facebook “Likes”, 250 “shares” on LinkedIn and 834 tweets that did not feature #smwsmac as a tag. Making the event the most socially shared event for ALL Social Media Week 2012 globally!

The Social@Olgivy Movers & Shakers platform supported by Kred featured organizer @BasilPuglisi as the top influencer for Feb 16th and both @BasilPuglisi and @dbmei as the top 5 influencers for the following day Feb 17th 2012.

The event was a mix of speakers featuring some of the digital names like Google, Klout, Synthesio, StumbleUpon, EmpireAvenue & Constant Contact. The event featured digital media professionals like David Meerman Scott, Amy Vernon, Mardy Sitzer, and Lujure’s Nathan Latka. Lisa A Burns, representing Corning Inc., spoke about the wonder of how a Fortune 500 Company used YouTube to capture more than 17 million views. Then the dbmei authors Bill Corbett Jr., Jeff Ogden, Craig Yaris and Basil C. Puglisi contributed their take on using social media to generate action!

The real success resulted from the response that the attendees reported. The mix of content and style presented, generated useful information in many areas with actionable advice and solutions.

“The diverse group of presenters offered extremely valuable best practices and actionable advice. It was also nice attending a social media event that didn’t cater to newbie’s or skeptics” said David Gise

The event exemplified the point that “you don’t know till you try”, and while we have a long list of things we can do to make the next event even better, it’s an important point for dbmei as well as the individuals involved to say not only did we try, but we succeeded. If you take nothing else away from the article, we hope that when a opportunity presents itself, you be so bold as to try and make it happen.

What Klout is Doing with User Data and #SocialCommerce

February 13, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Over the last few years, we have all observed as friends and followers found themselves virtually up-in-arms about privacy issues on just about every social network. Each one seems to have gone through its own growing pains when it comes to sometimes questionable sources declaring user’s information is being utilized in a variety of suspicious manners. However, most have come to terms with the fact that data is not so often sold as it is aggregated and measured for many marketing purposes, includes those that benefit the user.

Now that we are using so many social networks simultaneously, we have not one profile, but a fine, long, and continuously growing, list of them.

Facebook
Twitter
Google +
Foursquare
Flickr
Yelp

As each of our most favored networks have grown, they have also steadily increased their focuses on the type of user data that is cultivated, and how it is shared.

Klout

Klout has been a terrific way to integrate our profiles, and then run them through an algorithm that will display the various details of your own social media influence. Klout currently supports 12 different networks and as their developers continue to add more, your social influence can continue to climb.

Using Klout can have more benefits than simply the benefit of having the most Klout. Users are treated to a wide variety of Perks that can be anything from several months of free trial on a notable website or service, to a free sample of the latest and greatest body wash. Sometimes a user can sign up for selected Perks, and just as often, Klout will extend exclusive offers to users based on their social influence rating and common topics.

12+ Networks and Growing – Where is my data being used?

Recently, a representative from Business Insider visited with Tim Mahlman, the Chief Revenue Officer for Klout. He wanted to share exactly what Klout does do and does not do with their user’s personal data.

Klout is not selling your data. Even though Klout does have a rather complete picture of you and your personal choices and preferences, this information is never sold to advertisers or brands.
Klout does leave the virtual door open to trying out new revenue models, they also plan to ‘keep their users first according to Mahlman.
There is only one element of Klout that any brands have access to and that is a user’s Klout score. Klout is the gatekeeper between their users and any influential brands.
Pinterest is one new network that Klout is highly interested in.

Since Klout already has 12 current networks and a list of networks that are in development, they are always in on the market for a new fast growing network to add to their social influence algorithms.

Author:

Sources:

Is Klout Crossing the Line When it Comes to Privacy?

What is Klout Doing with User Data?

Klout and Big Data

Social Commerce Summit 2012 [Event]

January 31, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

It’s time again for the Social Commerce Summit and for the pros and experts that come together during this yearly conference. On Tuesday, February 7th, the events will swing into action once again for 2012.

All About the Social Commerce Summit

Since the immersion of social media into digital commerce, incredible opportunities and options have opened for business owners. Socially marketing your products and services can come with its own challenges though, so the Social Commerce Summit, or SCS, has a focus on presenting some incredible tips and tricks along with the best practices common to businesses successful in this form of marketing.

The SCS will provide the platform for experts in their industries to share their own best practices and ideas that have been built upon cutting edge trends and technologies and are the products of incredibly successful Fortune 500 campaigns and strategies.

The Agenda

The conference’s format is designed to encourage short presentations with short discussions following. This encourages speakers to get to the heart of the matter quickly so that additional points can be discussed and engaged as the conference rolls on.

Everything from product creation or discovery to social advertising deals are discussed to help educate those new to the business as well as those brushing up on current trends. There is also plenty of time to connect with colleagues and create new networking relationships for your business.

The Speakers

You can expect to hear from a wide variety of speakers who hail from a vast number of different types of industries with everything from BusinessInsiders own Nicholas Carlson, @nichcarlson, to Tim Mahlman, @tmahlman, at Klout. Speakers will include marketing, branding, and developmental executives as well as innovators and strategist with leading information on how to expand a business’s ROI. A few speakers include:

Margot Savell – @margotsavell
Margo is the digital measurement strategist at Weber Shandwick
Jason Ross – @JasonPRoss
The Founder of Jackthreads.com
Paul Lee – @ipaullee
The head of PLayboy Digital Ventures and an admitted Foodie
Chantel Waterbury – @chantelchloe
The Founder and CEO of Chloe and Isabel

In addition there are also reps from several major brands such as Martha Stewert Living Omnimedia and Battery Ventures.

Who Attends Social Commerce Summit?

Everyone! Everyone from the speakers themselves to anyone who is selling or promoting their own products, services, and ideas. You can expect to find investors and entrepreneurs who are involved in forms of digital commerce at the SCS.

Make sure to follow @BI_Events to keep up to date on conference information.

Lastly, remember that DBMEI subscribers also receive 15% off of the ticket price to the Social Commerce Summit. Simply register on site and include the code, dbmei15, in the discount code box on the left to get your DBMEi subscriber discount.

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Klout has its users in a frenzy: Could Peer Index and Empire Ave gain ground? [OPINION]

October 26, 2011 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Klout @Users and @Brands, we screwed you all but we think we got it now!

Klout might have overestimated their own Klout just after a wonderful video was published less then 24hrs ago by the Wall Street Journal.

Today we’re releasing a new scoring model with insights to help you understand changes in your influence. This project represents the biggest step forward in accuracy, transparency and our technology in Klout’s history. Ash Rust

Klout which has been a leader in measurable social influence and impact had spent the better part of the last year promoting themselves and their scoring system as the leader in connecting brands with influencers. While Klout built its business partnering with some great companies and brands to reach influencers, it would seem that in one swoop they said you got screwed to both their clients and their users.

Klout’s position is that it has made changes to better reflect influence. In one comment, Klout compares itself to Google and the need to update algos for the purpose of producing better Page Ranking results. In the mean time, Klout finds itself in a rough spot having to explain to its big brand clients that they in fact might not have reached the right people.

I imagine the conversation goes like this. Sorry you paid for something and we were completely wrong, don’t count on us giving you your money back but we think we got it right this time…. @Klout

As you can imagine, Klout users have been upset by the change as well, both the comments section on the announcement page and over in #usguys (on twitter) users have been hammering at the disappointment in being lead down one road to only have their work and social influence styles tossed out because Klout mislead them on what they thought was important.

What’s worse it seems that Klout admits it is giving even weight to social networks meaning that those that have spread themselves out over many social sites may in fact be punished by using Klout and connecting it to more than just twitter.

Perhaps we have given Klout to much of a stake in how we as social users are evaluated, I suggest taking a look at other Sites like PeerIndex, EmpireAve and keeps your eyes peeled for SocialIQ by SooVox which all seem to provide a much more descriptive look at how and why you are measured in social influence instead of a number and a random chart or two.

One thing is for sure, Today Klout upset a lot of their top users and proponents while opening the door for others to enter their market with a statistical example of why they can do it better than Klout.

If your looking for a more positive outlook and what this means for the future of how you use it, take a look at this post by BundlePost.

Sources:

Klout: A More Accurate, Transparent Klout Score
Empire Avenue
Peer Index
Twitter Search #usguys
Wall Street Journal

Klout Influence in the Music Industry with Spotify

July 21, 2011 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Spotify, an award winning online music service that stormed Europe is now available to users in the United States. Partnering with Klout, a form of social media influence measurement, Spotify has offered limited invitations to their new US services.

Although the Spotify invites are rare, they are being extended to Klout users who have shown the most social media passion about music, entertainment, and relating technologies. Since these are the exact viewers that Spotify wanted to reach, this has certainly proved itself to be another great partnership for Klout, the Klout Perks program, and its users.

Users who receive a Spotify invite can expect to receive, based on interest and Klout ratings, access to free trials of the music service itself, as well as a free month of Spotify’s most premium service if the members of their own communities sign up for Spotify.

Get Signed Up

If you want to have any shot at all of getting hooked up to this great new service, visiting the Spotify/Klout sign up is the first important move. Signing up is as easy as integrating your Twitter or Facebook accounts with one click on the sign up page. From there, if your account is rated as influential in industries relating to music, a free trial version of the music service may be offered. However, if new to any of the services, or if you have not previously made a habit of tweeting or sharing your passion in music, you may have to build your influence in those areas before you can expect an invite to be forthcoming.

Keep Trying

Spotify invites were so in demand in the first few hours after the release that Klout had to put a hold on passing out more invites for a while to be sure they did not cause their service, and servers, to be overwhelmed. In fact, Klout has actually had crash issues due to an overwhelming volume of users vying for this new Klout Perk. Spotify and Klout plan to continue handing out invites over the next few days.

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What Could Be Better Than a Weekend in Vegas? A Free Weekend in Vegas @Palms

July 13, 2011 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

How about a weekend in Vegas that you do not have to pay for? Usually I am a firm believer in ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it likely is,’ but not this time, not at Palms Casino and Resort in Las Vegas. In opposition of those many ideas that were in fact, too good to be true, Palms has determined that tapping out a Tweet or sharing Palms offers with your friends may make this a very legit opportunity to reap huge rewards for very little effort.

Of course, if Facebook sharing or Twitter usage is too much work for you, this may not be the ideal opportunity either, but if it sounds doable, continue on.

Easy Registration

Users simply visit the Palms Social Rewards site and enter their email address, along with a chosen password. The next page offers quick click integration with the users Twitter account, and they are off and running. Once signing into the social rewards page, users will then be able to see their current Klout scores, along with available points, and account profile options. On the right-hand side, there will be many offers and opportunities that can be Tweeted, re-Tweeted, or even Facebook shared.

While users get points for each offer they Tweet or share, they also receive the added benefit of bonus points if their Tweet or Share leads to a purchase of one of the advertised opportunities.

Rewards Vs Effort

Aside from the primitive reward of getting something spectacular for very little effort, are the rewards that Palms generously doles out to those who help spread their word on social media networking sites.

Free Deluxe Room
Free Fantasy Tower Room
2 Tickets to a Playboy Comedy
Palms VIP Passes
Dinner for Two at Simon – Little Buddha
Free Drinks

These are fairly hefty rewards considering that they entail everything you require for a fun weekend in Vegas, all the way down to your room and drinks. Meanwhile, users are building their Klout score which in the future may help them reap even further rewards once reaching the check-in desk at the Palms.

Maloof just gets it…

The Palms is a Maloof Company, and clearly they get it…

AdrienneMaloof seems to be the one carrying the Klout in the social aspect of the business, but with Klout adding LinkedIn and soon Foursquare, the Klout social influence may have a new look.

The Maloof Companies owns and operates hotels and casinos. It also engages in banking, food and beverage, and transportation businesses in New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada. In addition, the company operates gaming properties; owns interests in NBA basketball team Sacramento Kings and the WNBA basketball team Sacramento Monarchs, as well as ARCO Arena; and distributes beer and liquor in New Mexico. The company is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Disclosure: I recently was a guest at Palms Casino & Resort in Las Vegas, however I was not paid or compensated for this publication in any form. The research for this article came about as a follow up to a previous set of articles.

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LinkedIn and Klout join the Social Button Revolution

June 14, 2011 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

There does seem to be a button for just about anything digital these days. The Google +1 button provides a promotional value similar to Facebook’s “Like” button, and savvy blog readers will realize right off the bat if they have come upon an outdated blog if they arrive to one that doesn’t provide buttons to share their content on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and about 250 other social media websites and or aggregate sites.

Internet users have also grown increasingly fond of buttons that provide one-click sign up or register options that quickly and easily integrate existing social media accounts to a new sites registration process. Toolbar buttons also provide www users with endless options. Anything from quick-click website SEO buttons to buttons that can quickly send a user to their favorite email system pronto.

LinkedIn Launches Quick Job App Button

Professional and business social network, LinkedIn, also has plans for their own button. The LinkedIn button will allow their users to utilize a button on employer’s websites labeled, “Apply with LinkedIn.” This handy button will allow any LinkedIn user to quickly apply for employment by submitting their LinkedIn profile as a resume. In the immediate future web users should begin to find this button cropping up on LinkedIn partner sites with a launch later this month.

Not only will this button make it incredibly easy for applicants to submit a full-bodied resume to a prospective employer, but on the employer end, it will also automatically sort candidates for them by pre-set configurations.

This doesn’t have any notable restrictions in that employers will also be able to include additional questions, requests, or requirements for applicants to their businesses. Employers will also be able to designate whether submissions will go to a URL, their email address, or even to a JavaScript callback.

Currently, hiring solutions generate about 43% of LinkedIn’s revenue. For a newly public company that will need to rely on employers as one of their leading demographics, this is an incredible and innovative tool.

Get Klout with +K

Providing social media analytics, Klout helps to provide the measure of a users influence across their own social networks. The analysis is provided by data that is collected from a users social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. This analysis includes taking a measurement of the size of a person’s network + content created + the reaction of your social network to your provided content. After this analysis users are provided with a number from 1 to 100 that will indicate their overall influence in their own niche, or on the topics they mention most.

Klout plans to increase their users’ clout by introducing their own button. Klout’s +K will allow users to designate other users as authorities on a given subject. This new button will allow individual users to +K any other person who has influenced their knowledge or ideas on a particular topic.

Users are provided with 5 +K’s per day that they can award to users on any topic. They can also +K the same user on the same topic once per week. The rankings will still be based on data from Facebook or Twitter, but users who regularly receive +K’s should definitely see a rise in their given Klout numbers.

While in the launch phase this new button will only respond to Klout’s own algorithms on a particular topic, in the future, Klout developers hope to allow users to submit their own topics.

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