Influencers

As always a great post Chris. However, there is one aspect of all this influence-measuring that bears keepng an eye on: When recruiters are making hiring decisions based on perceived influence or companies are deciding who to do business with as measured by tools such as Klout then at least knowing how you show up on these tools is worth knowing. Is it worth losing sleep over? That depends – will your Klout score keep you from that job or that contract? If it will then maybe you should at least pay SOME attention to it.

People are obsessed with influence partly because social media has provided so much opportunity that the number and variety of ways to engage and grow your networks and distinguish yourself are overwhelming. You could spend all day blogging, tweeting, connecting, helping, reaching out… and at the end of the day your actual work may or may not have gotten done. These are great tips, Chris. I think if business people focus on delivering value and giving others a leg up, vs. personal gain, it will help to create some calm within the squall.

People are obsessed with influence partly because social media has provided so much opportunity that the number and variety of ways to engage and grow your networks and distinguish yourself are overwhelming. You could spend all day blogging, tweeting, connecting, helping, reaching out… and at the end of the day your actual work may or may not have gotten done. These are great tips, Chris. I think if business people focus on delivering value and giving others a leg up, vs. personal gain, it will help to create some calm within the squall.

Agreed – I however do find the metrics behind Klout and Grader and a few others interesting and useful. They can remind you to do the things you used to do and stopped because you tried something else :-).

Thanks! – Bob

I follow. 

I really like that term, “Earned social capital”. It’s quotable. More importantly it is worth understanding how to achieve. Thanks for placing sign posts along the path toward it.

Just love this post. It is easy to get tangled up in the “world of Twitter” and what is important there, when relationships are built on many platforms (even a train platform!). 

And I agree with Derek… you make my brain think harder!

Love the definition of influence. And I believe that if you offer something that you know about, there is someone who will find it useful. It’s how you phrase it. I love to garden and offer what I’ve found useful during the years. I find that there are some people who find it useful.

Hurray for someone else stopping this ridiculous parade!
The sanest exposition on the topic yet!
Thanks, Chris.

I think it goes to show that services *cough* like Klout really CAN’T measure your true influence. Retweets and replies are not influence. Klout claims I’m an influencer of you, Chris. The only thing I can think of that might be considered ‘influence’ is that I once sent you a tweet about WordPress htaccess tweaks. You retweeted me, which in turn got retweeted about a dozen more times. However, Klout can’t know whether you implement any of those tweaks based on my suggestion. Therefore, it can’t know whether I truly influenced you or not.

Klout also claims I’m an influencer of Marian Call. I know Marian (Klout can’t know that), we’ve hung out (ditto), she did a show at our place last year (ditto again), and she’s RTd me a handful of times. Just as Klout can’t possibly be right about this example of influence, it also completely misses what I’m actually influential about. I’ve turned five friends into Marian Call fans because of my personal recommendation, and also helped line up a couple of shows for her 50 State tour last year. As a result, she’s gotten some extra show ticket and CD sales. I’m an influencer *for* Marian, but because Klout can’t know about person-to-person interactions outside of social media – where nearly ALL human interaction takes place, btw – there’s no way for it to know that.

I’ve also had people buy your books, along with several other people’s, based on my recommendation. But again, that’s influencing *for* someone, and it’s just something Klout can’t possibly know about.

So yes, blow off your Klout score and do what business always comes back to – focusing on people, measuring your efforts, and tossing out what doesn’t work.

I agree completely with your approach here – leverage is everything Chris. The people who garner influence in my eyes are the ones who help me get what I crave. Sometimes they support, education, encourage, or even throw cold reality water on me, but they do it the same whether I am a pauper or a king. It doesn’t matter to them – they are doing their thing. They don’t try to influence but rather they let me get what I need from them without trying to be something they’re not. Like you. :-)

Thanks for a great post but I’d have to disagree that you don’t have power. You do.

Vicki @Smartwoman Flaugher

I have seen fairly active accounts with Klout scores in the sub 20′s and a newly created bot account with a Klout score of 30+. That algorithm is all over the place and it’s a wonder people take those numbers seriously.

There doesn’t seem to be a way of assessing someone’s influence online because their is no directly attributable marker for what you do offline. The idea that you can create an internet persona in a bedroom and be influential for the most part is preposterous. 

I strongly believe that everyone cannot get the power to influence & those who get is by being very patiently understanding the emotions of the person to be influenced. Influencing cannot be always done in a unique way – it always changes depending on the people, business, community or anything. And as Chris has mentioned, it is very important to Influence only for the Good and not for personal gains.

I’m conflicted on this issue.  While I have also given people similar advice — concentrate on connections, shaing and helpfulness instead of scores — I can also see where klout is going mainstream and is being used as a short-hand assessment of social media participation and perhaps effectiveness.  It doesn’t matter what we think of the veracity of these scores. It is what it is. If companies are using this as a criteria for entry-level interviews (and they are) should people ignore them?  Again, emotion aside, there are practical considerations.

Much of what you describe here is power accrued through reciprocity — in your terms social capital. Do enough favors, you can call in favors.  And by the way, you better be doing me favors before you ask to call in chips.  It’s an interesting question to consider. On the social web, is “leverage” more effective that true “influence?”