Influencers: how to find the best ones

Social Influence: reach vs affinity

Do you need to communicate an experience to your customers or prospect customers? Could there be anything better than having one of them telling all the other ones about it?
And what if this customer has a high reach and can easily get in touch with other customers?
Leveraging on the right people is fundamental to implement successful Social Influence strategies.

You need to find and involve an "influencer". But how do you do it?


In a Social Universe that's full of "creators" (in the meaning that Forrester gives to this word) it's not easy to find out who can be a great influencer and leave out the ones that just contribute to noise.

Reach: look for numbers


Let's put this the easy way: Look for people who - with their actions - cause the highest number of reactions by other people. This will surely give you a first indication of valuable consumers you can involve. Of course you should search for people active on topics related to your communication objectives. There are plenty of tools that allow you to do it. Just to mention one, Radian6 is a great tool to find influencers and rate them based on the number of reactions that they cause. But this is not enough.

Affinity: don't look for numbers


When looking for influencers, you must not forget that these people will help you generating a lead: it could be a subscription, a purchase, a dialogue or a thousand more actions but the influencer should push influenced to act.
So let's rethink it: are you looking for someone who can reach the highest number of users?
Probably not. The one you're looking for is a person that can make an impact on the followers and inspire them, move them to act and push them to spread the message he is carrying. Real influence is not measured (only) with numbers. It's fundamental to understand what kind of affinity an influencer has with the audience.
Communicate the signal and wipe out the noise by choosing the right people.

How do you do it?


You need to breathe the influencer's world, to be part of the audience for a while, to look at the influenced closely to understand how a person can influence others.

Start by the numbers.
Analyze the behaviour.
Look for strong interpersonal ties. Avoid weak ones.

Apply your Social Influence strategy.
How do you find your influencers? Share your experience
Can you think of some additional to do’s when seeking for the right influencers? Tell it in the comments

Il Futuro del "Social Web" in Cinque Ere

This blog is normally in English, but I know part of its audience speaks Italian. I decided to translate Jeremiah Owyang's "The Future of the Social Web: In Five Eras" into Italian because of this part of audience and pushed by Jeremiah's request. So if you speak Italian, here's the local version. If not, come back soon because Digital Ingredients will still be an English blog after this post.

Il fenomeno "Groundswell", in cui le persone - e non le istituzioni - creano connessioni tra loro, continuerà a svilupparsi. L'adesione a Social Network da parte dei consumer sta crescendo a ritmo incalzante i brand si avvicinano ai Social Media anche durante il periodo di recessione, quindi si può ipotizzare che questo settore si innovi velocemente per seguire il trend social. I clienti Forrester possono accedere a questo report, ma i risultati di questa ricerca sono riassunti nell'executive summary:


La "Social Experience" oggi è disomogenea perché i consumer hanno identità separate in ciascun network. Un semplice gruppo di tecnologie che consentono una "Portable Identity" darà presto la possibilità ai consumer di portare con sé le proprie identità - trasformando il marketing, l'eCommerce, il CRM e l'advertising. Le ID sono solo l'inizio di questa trasformazione in cui il web si evolverà passo dopo passo da siti social separati in una "Social Experience" condivisa. I consumer faranno riferimento ai propri "peer" per portare avanti decisioni di acquisto, con o senza la partecipazione dei brand. I consumer connessi da un punto di vista social rafforzeranno le community e assumeranno il potere che oggi è esclusivamente dei brand e dei sistemi di CRM; questo darà maggiore potere alle community nel definire la nuova generazione di prodotti.


Abbiamo scoperto che le tecnologie attivano i cambiamenti nell'adozione da parte dei consumer e i brand seguiranno il cambiamento, dando origine a cinque ondate distinte:


Le Cinque Ere del Social Web:


1) Era delle Relazioni: le persone si connettono con altri e condividono;
2) Era delle Funzionalità: i Social Netowrk diventano come sistemi operativi;
3) Era della Colonizzazione: ogni esperienza può essere "Social";
4) Era del Contesto: contenuto personalizzato e accurato;
5) Era dell'Impatto Commerciale: le community definiscono i futuri prodotti e servizi;


Update: CRM Magazine pubblica contenuti sulle cinque ere: focalizziamoci sul visual..


The Five Eras Of The Social Web




Timing delle Cinque Ere:

È importante notare che queste ere non sono sequenziali, ma si sovrappongono. Siamo entrati nell'era delle relazioni e ne abbiamo visto la maturità. Siamo entrati anche nell'era della funzionalità, anche se non ne abbiamo ancora colto la vera utilità più profonda. Stanno anche nascendo tendenze dell’era della colonizzazione, con le tecnologie come Facebook Connect. Presto queste identità "associate" daranno la possibilità alle persone di entrare nell'era del contesto social con contenuto social e personalizzato. Questo schema dimostra come possiamo prefigurarci lo sviluppo delle ere in futuro - con l'era dell'impatto commerciale come momento più remoto.


Timing Of The Five Overlapping Eras



Interviste con 24 tra le Top Social Companies:


La ricerca non viene effettuata "sotto vuoto", ecco perché Forrester ha condotto un’analisi qualitativa per scoprire cosa sia utile aspettarsi dal futuro. Forrester è giunta a queste conclusioni basandosi su interviste con executive, product manager e strategist di queste 24 società: Appirio, Cisco Eos, Dell, Facebook, Federated Media Publishing, Flock, Gigya, Google (Open Social/stack team), Graphing Social Patterns (Dave McClure), IBM (SOA Team), Intel (social media marketing team), KickApps, LinkedIn, Meebo, Microsoft (Live team), MySpace, OpenID Foundation (Chris Messina), Plaxo, Pluck, Razorfish, ReadWriteWeb, salesforce.com, Six Apart, and Twitter.



Come possono prepararsi i brand

L'elemento interessante non è la visione del futuro ma ciò che il futuro riserva ai brand. Le società possono prepararsi in questo modo:


  • Non esitare: Questi cambiamenti si sviluppano molto velocemente e saremo nella terza delle cinque ere entro la fine dell'anno. I brand dovrebbero prepararsi inserendo queste ere all'interno dei propri piano a breve termine per non rimanere indietro e non lasciare ai competitor la possibilità di connettersi con la community per primi.
  • Prepararsi per la trasparenza: Gli utenti potranno navigare con i propri amici. È fondamentale che le società abbiano un piano. È importante prepararsi perché ogni pagina e prodotto potranno essere commentati dai clienti e visti dai prospect - anche se il brand sceglie di non partecipare attivamente.
  • Connettersi con gli "Advocate":È utile focalizzarsi sui consumer "advocate", che influenzeranno i prospect e difenderanno dai detrattori. La loro opinione è molto più credibile di quella dei brand e, quando il potere si sposta verso la community, che inizierà a definire i prodotti, gli "advocate" diventeranno cruciali.
  • Evolvere i sistemi enterprise: I sistemi di gestione enterprise dovranno essere connessi al social web. I social network e i loro partner stanno divenendo velocemente una fonte di informazione per il consumer e di lead generation. I CMS dovranno ereditare le caratteristiche "social".
  • Distribuire il Corporate Website:Nel futuro più remoto, il contenuto raggiungerà i consumer e non viceversa. È utile prepararsi per frammentare il website corporate e distribuirlo nel sovial web. Sarà fondamentale permettere alle informazioni importanti di diffondersi presso le community; pescare dove si trovano i pesci.


Ecco il post originale di Jeremiah Owyang in inglese. Se in qualche modo questo post o la traduzione ti sono piaciuti, considera la possibilità di lasciare un commento e/o di iscriverti al feed RSS di Digital Ingredients.

Cooperate with people who inspire you - CountMeIn.it

Brainstorms at INDEX: Views

Who inspires you today?

Inspiration is a great thing: it helps you improving yourself by showing how to, it makes you learn a lot adding details to your point of view. As you know, it might come from many ways.
Also from... (Yes, I'm about to say it) Twitter.

Take a look at the list of people you follow on Twitter. Are there people who inspire you? I bet that - if you're like me - you'd see at least 5 - 10 of them who do.

Exchange and cooperation is the best way to be inspired and grow.

Very often you have no way to let them know you'd like to cooperate with them and they have no way see a list of people who want to help them out on a project.

This is where CountMeIn.it helps.


Just subscribe with your Twitter account, select one of the people you follow and state that you're available to cooperate with them on a project (small, medium or big). Then you need to quickly describe yourself and indicate links to your digital streams and it's done.

Your entry gets saved to the CountMeIn.it database.

When the person you selected needs valuable people to cooperate with on a project, he will be able to see everyone interested by accessing CountMeIn.it with his / her twitter account.

Then he can contact interested people, describe the project and ask if there's an interest to cooperate on the project, discussing all the details (also economics if necessary).

In a nutshell

CountMeIn.it is a good way to build up motivated teams where everyone gains:
  • The "followed" finds valuable and motivated people to work with
  • The "follower" cooperates on interesting projects, learns and grows
  • The project develops easily in the team building phase

CountMeIn.it has only one tiny limitation. It doesn't exsist yet.
Who wants to build it?
Who has suggestions on how to improve it?

Photo credit: Jake Captive

The Twitter Replies Case

Today Twitter faced a major backslash, since they removed the possibility for users to see @replies to others in their own streams from people they aren't following.

Twitter Engineering Team said there's no way to restore it now.

Here's what might have happened (or might be happening) behind the scenes...

Update: funny thing, 6 hours after this post was published, Twitter declared that they've found a solution for the @replies problem. Chances that it went like this (see below) grow.

The Twitter @replies Case

Back to the Twittersphere - Celebrity Twitter Overkill

Worried about what is going on into the twittersphere?
There you go: part two of Current's SuperNews series about Twitter. And remember... It's not about trends. Well not (just) about trends.





Why am I embedding this? Because in some markets outside us (e.g. Italy) you can't see the video on local Current website.

Only 2 more steps to Social Shopping - The MyKmart and MySears Communities

MySears Community, MyKmart Community: 2 steps and we'll have Social Shopping

Recently, Sears and Kmart launching their new community: MySears and MyKmart. The nice feature about those is customers can review products on-line, give them a rating, describe them and tell other users about their experience with them.
This is a real good step forward, for many reasons:

  • It allows people to leverage their knowledge and make a better purchase experience
  • It also suggests brands possible product improvement
  • It pushes best products, praising them and allowing them to stand out in front of others
  • It also allows a “light” sort of support: users can also interact with each other solving basic questions and problems.

What could really make this experience great?

There could be a tiny little step that makes the circle complete: automatic product identification.
Think about it: a barcode would make it all. Here’s how it could work:

  • Consumers buy a product
  • In front of their webcam or through a mobile App, they take a picture of the barcode
  • They access the product and review, comment or rate it automatically, without having to search

But it could be really outstanding if people could take a snapshot of the barcode at the supermarket and view ratings, reviews and comments where they can decide for their purchase, in real time.

And one more step…

When MyKmart and MySears will be able to import your portable social graphs (e.g. via Facebook Connect), allowing users to be "portable", we will have the true social shopping, where peers and friends can suggest what to buy and support the consumer in its purchase choices.


...Just two more steps to social shopping...
How do you think this shopping experience could be improved even more?


Twhysteria - Track hysteria on Twitter

Inspired by the “Barchart” visual by David Armano, I started wondering: can we really track hysteria on Twitter?

Barchart Hysteria

Barchart Hysteria by David Armano

I tweeted about "Twhysteria" like almost a sort of joke but, considering that hysteria can be defined quite precisely as a state of mind characterized by emotional excess or unmanageable fear, probably if we want to, we could really track Twhysteria.

... Let's imagine for a while an application that could do this ...
Let's call it Twhysteria.

It would be very useful to understand if a news is overhyped or characterized by a much too strong emotional component.

How could Twhysteria track hysteria on Twitter? Through quantitative and qualitative "clues".

Quantitative:
  • How fast has the chatter about the initiative grown? (# Tweets vs Minutes vs # of ppl Tweeting)
  • What is the level of engagement in the conversation? (# of on topic replies vs # of tweets with no reply)
  • How many references are there in the tweets? (external links)
  • What more metrics can we define?

Qualitative:
  • People might be able to tag "hysteric tweets" (maybe ReTweeting them and adding hashtags #twhysteria)
Through these simple and immediate solutions (qualitative and quantitative) Thysteria could provide tracking of hysteric tweets and memes on Twitter, and the interface could also show where in the world hysteria is spreading and how.
Twhysteria could be a way to filter signal from noise, by highlighting what the noise is.

How can we make it better?
It might never be developed, but - if so - it could be a useful tool.

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