Online Influence and The Nuances of Measurement

Online Influence and the ability to identify relevant online influencers for a brand, product or service is not only a hot topic in marketing today but also a field of measurement that is rapidly evolving as we continue to learn more. With the ability to observe connections between people and uncover individuals whose opinion matters within different spheres of conversation, services like Klout and Kred are giving marketers more sophisticated tools for analysis and interpretation of the ever-evolving social media landscape.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Pivot Conference in New York city; an event focused on the connected consumer and how this new breed of customer is having a sincere impact on the ways that brands market, communicate and build trusted relationships. There were many fascinating sessions and topics discussed at Pivot. For me one of the more interesting was a panel led by David Armano discussing online influence. The panel included Joe Fernandez, CEO and Founder of Klout, Larry Levy, Co-founder and CEO of Appinions, Elisa Camahort Page, Co-founder and COO of BlogHer; essentially people who should be quite well versed in the theory and practice of influence and influencer identification.

While I've personally been working on influencer programs and discussing with clients all the various attributes that constitute influence, I think the panel did a great job of distilling online influence into a few logical categories that made a lot of sense to me. They broke the forms of influence into the following schema:

1.) Topical: where someone has influence in a topic of content or expertise
2.) Temporal: where someone has influence within a defined span of time
3.) Identity-based: where there is life-style association and affinity amongst the audience and influencer

While there were certainly other nuanced definitions and sub-categories discussed such at likeness, experience and expertise, these three seemed to bring clarity to how you should be thinking about the influencers you might be looking for.