By Rich Baker
Here are the top 5 blog posts on Rich-Baker.com/Conversational.ly over the past week. To make it easier get these direct to your inbox click here.
- UK Exclusive – a conversation with Shane Rich
- Klouts’ CEO talk to Rich Baker about Twitter
- Chris Moyles, Lily Allen among top Twitter Influencers
- Epic Fail – BBC Reporter breaks unbreakable phone
- Twitter Influence – For Sale
What’s your favourite this week? Got an idea for a conversation/article? Get in touch!
Which is your favourite?
©2010 Rich Baker
I was lucky enough to strike up a conversation with @joefernandez from Klout – the Twitter Influence Tool. I am really interested in measurement and analysis of Social Media – in particular Twitter. Klout.com is something that I recommend to people to try, and have talked about in earlier tweets. It just seems to be the best out there – and I’m not being paid to say that!
If you haven’t heard of it before – read the except below from their site. You can also read about how they calculate your twitter influence score.
‘The Klout Score is a numerical representation of the size and strength of a person’s sphere of influence on Twitter. The scores range from 1-100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. The size of this sphere is calculated by measuring true reach (engaged followers and friends vs. spam bots, dead accounts, etc.). Strength of influence is calculated by tracking interactions across your social graph to determine the likelihood of someone listening to or acting upon any specific message.
We believe that influence is the ability to drive people to action — “action” might be defined as a reply, a retweet or clicking on a link. We perform significant testing to ensure that the average click-through rate on links shared is highly correlated with a person’s Klout Score. The final Klout Score is a representation of how successful a person is at engaging their audience and how big of an impact their messages have on people. ‘
Could you start by telling us a bit more about yourself and your history?
JF: I am the cofounder and CEO of Klout. I’ve been in the data analysis business for about 8 years with several large companies before starting Klout.
When did you first get into social media?
JF: I’ve been starting (and abandoning) blogs since around 2001. I joined Twitter in April of 2007. In December 2007 I had jaw surgery and my mouth was wired shut for almost 3 months. During that time I couldn’t speak at all and even my mom couldn’t understand me. I pretty much only used Twitter, Facebook and my blog to communicate with the outside world and it gave me a whole new appreciation for the power of social media. As soon as my jaw was unwired I quit my job and started Klout.
Wow, that must have been tough. Can you tell us about Klout? What is it and what does it do?
JF: Klout measures influence across the social web. We track millions of people and analyze all of the content they create and how their network reacts to understand how influential a person is on any specific topic.
The million dollar question; How does it work?
JF: I will focus on Twitter here since that is main component of our functionality right now. We use the Twitter api to analyze a person’s social graph and all the content they create. When a person “tweets” we use semantic analysis to understand what they are talking about (we also analyze the links they share). We then look at how the person’s network reacts to the message. Do they reply, retweet, click links, etc. We also look at how influential the people are who perform those actions and compare it all to the normalized data from across Twitter. We generate a raw number representing a person’s influence which we then convert to a 1-100 normalized score.
How much traffic does it get? Or how many people’s influence has it calculated? stats would be great here!
JF: Klout has been growing like crazy (check out the chart below – Rich). We now have scores for more than 5 million Twitter users.
How important is it to measure influence do you think?
JF: We are entering a world where privacy no longer exists and attention is a sacred commodity. A person’s ability to drive actions and attention from others and their reputation on specific topics is very important.
Something that is very close to my heart Joe; is there room for the ‘little guys’ to have influence?
JF: Absolutely. We aren’t about figuring out who is on the “A-List”. We believe that every person who creates content online has influence. Our goal is to understand who that person influences and on what topics.
Brilliant. What tips have you got for people to increase their influence?
JF: The biggest mistake we see people make is confusing influence with follower count. Having a large number of followers is worthless if those followers are not engaged and paying attention to you. The only way to have an engaged audience is through creating compelling content and being yourself. There is no shortcut.
What are you working on at the moment?
JF: Adding more services to Klout. Increasing our ability to process more data. And a few big surprises.
What are you plans for the future?
JF: We want to help individuals understand their impact and influence and be able to leverage it as effectively as possible.
How do you think Twitter will change in 2010?
JF: I think Twitter is becoming more of a hub that all other tools publish into. Filtering is going to be a big deal (influence is a key component in filtering) and there are some really interesting tools coming out to help businesses mange their Twitter campaigns.
What impact will that have on business?
JF: To a lot of people social media is still a soft warm and fuzzy area where there are no hard metrics. The data Twitter and others are going to begin publishing is going to change this and I think it might actually hurt a lot of “social media gurus” in the short term when they have to prove their effectiveness. My main hope is to see the industry move beyond the gimmicks and scam like practices we see out there.
What advice do you have for people starting up a social media/tech business?
JF: Thinking about ways to drive real value to the people you are trying to serve. It’s not just about getting followers or fans. I recently spoke to a moving company that uses Twitter to reach out to folks talking about moving to NYC. This has actually worked well for them and they’ve converted a bunch of these leads but they were preoccupied with their follower count. There is no reason for anyone to follow an account like that. There are lots of instances where you can provide pin-point specific information to people in need and gain great value from doing it.
When you aren’t working, what do you like to do?
JF: Running a startup is kind of like being at work so enjoy boxing. I also hang out with my girlfriend and our dog.
Thanks go to Joe for taking time out to share with us his thoughts on influence.
What do you think? Continue the conversation below.
By Rich Baker
This Wednesday I’m invited to appear with @cosmond and @guy1067 at the first ever ‘mini’ Media140 event. It’s being held at Pingpongdimsum in London and is about ‘a business’ guide to the real-time web’. It’s my second time at Media140 and it is always an honour to be asked. Thanks to Ande and Kate!
I’m looking forward to meeting (in person; we already know each other digitally!) Charlie and Guy and hearing them share their experiences. If you are going along then please do say hi, and again – share your thoughts and ideas. I’m looking forward to learning from everyone!
After the event there is an opportunity to chat face to face. We will mainly be drinking strawberry beer. Or wine. Or cocktails. 
About Media140
Media140 was founded in February 2009, by Ande Gregson. Media140 is an independent global movement creating unique multimedia conferences and events to explore the future of the real-time web. They do not just focus on Twitter but look at all the real-time platforms that are now beginning to affect business and consumers: to foster discourse, collaboration and innovation within journalism, media, advertising, entertainment, marketing, PR, gaming and technology industries.
Media140 is a global brand and organisation spanning 5 continents, employing over 12 Media140 Associates in more than 10 major cities.
They are a group of highly respected and well-networked individuals from leading media outlets, universities, agencies and brands who link together their peers to have real and productive discussions about the evolving world we work in. As industry professionals, they are people investing in pioneering ways to make change count for industry, audiences, consumers, brands and the bottom line.
Media140 are establishing Meetups around the globe to offer support and fuel the Real-Time Web debate. Media140 Meetups will feature speakers and technology exploring Real-Time Web and its impact on journalism, brands, advertising, politics, business and media. You will have plenty of opportunity to ask questions specific to your needs in a relaxed environment and discover the tools that can best benefit you.
Following the success of their London Brands event our next Meetup in London will be
‘A Business’ Guide to Real-Time Web‘.
6.30 Kick Off
7.00 Ande Gregson – What’s Happening in 2010
7.15 Guy Stephens (@Guy1067) & Rich Baker (@Richard_Baker)
7.45 Charlie Osmond (@cosmond)
8.15 Networking
Hope to see you there!
On the cusp of 2010..
By Rich Baker
It’s been a funny old year. Like most of you, I have a bit of a think about the previous twelve months around this time. 2009 has been different for a few reasons;
- I got married
- I started using social media seriously
- I left my job
So there have been some pretty significant things happen this year. Normally around this time I would be reflecting about what I have learned at work, or a new challenge with a new team. Interestingly, I also never would have been able to predict what would have happened in the previous 12 months, and this one is no different.
How are you feeling today? Has the last twelve months panned out in a way you were expecting?
I go into 2010 with a lot of questions, but not many answers. Which is a little uncomfortable but also good for me.
There is one thing I am clear of though. I am very grateful to all the people I have had the pleasure to meet, both online and offline in 2009. I now have around 1500 followers on Twitter (of which 80% are active, which is nice!) and thoroughly enjoy your banter, questions and most of all generosity. Thank you.
So what of 2010?
Well, I guess we all know it will be the year of social media. Perhaps we should call it digital engagement now we are serious about it. ‘Social’ sounds like it’s only a recreational thing and it isn’t.
By the way, I was also talking about Resolutions with my wife and both agreed they aren’t generally a very positive thing are they? We are too fat, never about right. We drink too much, and don’t accept it’s okay to have a drink. We tell ourselves we must work harder rather than accept the balance of work and play. We need to earn more rather than accept we don’t actually need any more stuff. We tell ourselves we don’t get enough exercise and feel guilty about it, rather than acknowledge going nowhere on a treadmill isn’t your cup of tea (or slice of cake).
So how about we have a (new) New Years Resolution; that the next time we catch ourselves beating ourselves up about something that we could/should/might have done, we stop. And then we remind ourselves of all the great things we have going for us and in our lives.
Have a great 2010 – Happy New Year!
