There’s a growing debate on the relevance of social influence. From services like Klout to the Social Business Index, everyone seems to be discussing either how to measure influence or how to be influential. As Paul Colligan asks, “Does any of this matter?” We decided to join the discussion and look at it from a B2B brand perspective.
This discussion around thought leadership and influence does matter as Eloqua reminds us.
The battle for social influence
But I’d like to shift the question. Not the debate. Rather than ask “How can we be influential?” the better question to ask is, “What are we trying to achieve?” If you can start to think about it from this perspective you may find that you will be closer to your answer around influence than you think. And when we look at influence we really are talking about achieving one of three options — create awareness, educate or change opinions. You may focus on one or any combination of these, but it comes down to choosing one of these.
As you think about how your B2B brand can be influential here are some thoughts to consider.
From a B2B perspective, one of the biggest obstacles with social influence metrics is that they are focused on consumer and retail brands. So from the start, those numbers mostly become popularity contests. However, if you can use a service like Klout to identify the people who talk about your B2B service/product you can help further narrow the prospects of who you want to talk with. My suggestion is stop focusing on the top people/brands overall. They more than likely won’t matter to you. What you need to research are the topics you want to discuss and then find out who you need to follow and engage.
Don’t focus on the obvious numbers thrown out at you — number of Twitter followers, number of Facebook likes, etc. Those number are meaningless for the most part. What you need to do is find and implement a measurement system, which means making a time and money investment.
What we need to realize is that this discussion around social influence is new, and I believe we need more people talking about the topic and more debate about social influence. We also can’t ignore influence in the non-social world. That still matters more these days by building relationships and gaining access to the right people. Don’t be blind and just focus on social. Remember that there are still plenty of organizations and people who are influential and not active on social networks, so while social is growing in importance it is one piece of the puzzle.
But the key to all of this discussion remains that being influential must be defined by you. Not others. So while you can’t ignore the concept, you should may want to ignore all of the rhetoric around the offerings. In the end, it may all come down to content anyway, but that’s a discussion for another post.
Here are some recent stories from around the web on this subject:
Klout has raised ~ $30 million – Business Insider
Klout tries to adjust your influence…again – PR Breakfast Club
Do we need a social index for businesses? – B2B Voices
What is Klout really about? – KD Paine
