Is the discussion around/practice of online influence actually regressing? Identifying and then activating influencers is an important topic that deserves informed debate and the implementation of only the best tools. I actually think we have quite a bit of the former, and the latter is the gigantic black hole that we're all getting sucked into.
David Armano wrote an excellent post examining Klout, followed by Rebecca Dennison writing her own review of some of Klout's new features. Rebecca also wrote a great post looking at mPACT that you should check out. I'm not being critical of Rebecca or David because both of their reviews are great, and obviously very helpful to the person that is coming to this space for the first time.
Before we launch into the meat of the post, lets debunk a few influencer misconceptions
- The process can be automated - The extent of the possibilities around automation begin and end with identifying outlets and writers. The actual number crunching/qualitative analysis should not be eliminated. In my experience, clients feel better about the final output when it has been scrubbed by a human.
- Influencers are bloggers - I can't tell you how many times I see examples of "influencer lists" that are comprised entirely of bloggers. As if the entire social web centered around blogs? Have we forgotten YouTube? Forum users? Twitter users? Mainstream press? Your influencer list needs to be all encompassing otherwise you have an incomplete list.
- Because someone has written negatively about my brand they shouldn't be in my list - This one causes a bit of a headache for me. You can learn just as much from the negative comments as the positive ones. In fact, probably more. Why eliminate these people?
- I have to reach out to everyone on my list - One of the things I advocate all of the time is trying to come up with a list that includes people you might only listen too. Another segment that you'd be reaching out to directly, and still another that might be receiving a mass pitch. A mass pitch?! In social media?! The horror! It can work. Trust me.
There are others, but I don't want to get bogged down in the misconceptions. Rather, I'd prefer to tell you what tools I'd use if I were starting to build an influencer list from scratch. And no, just to get it out of the way, the process would not involve Klout, PeerIndex, mPACT or any tool like it. So where do I begin?
- Google - No duh, right? This is where the process usually begins and ends. I'll develop some sort of query (that involves my client's name, some industry keywords and competitors) to start identifying outlets. Ideally, I'll start with at least 6 months worth of results (though I'd prefer 12) and just start clicking through. Yeah, it's a manual process. Yeah, it's time consuming. Yeah, trust me, it'll be worth it in the end. Oh, don't forget running similar searches in Google Groups, and Blogs
- Listorious/Twitter Search - Both of these are invaluable resources for Twitter users. Check them both out.
- YouTube/Flickr searches - Self-explanatory, right? But you'd be surprised how few influencer lists actually involve video bloggers. There are ton of them out there with broad reach
- Compete/Quantcast/Alexa - Several people, including my friend Dave Fleet, have written posts identifying issues with compete data. It's true. However, obtaining traffic data for sites you don't own is generally problematic. All you can do is attempt to verify the data on multiple platforms.
- Yahoo! Site Explorer - An excellent tool for looking at a site's indexed pages and inbound links. Both excellent barometers of overall reach
- Microsoft Excel - I'm assuming you have this on your computer, right? Ok, moving on...
- Blogrolls - Pretty invaluable in identifying other bloggers stemming from your initial Google searches. Use them and use them well.
Anyway, those are the tools I use to start building my lists. Does this take more time? Sure. Are my results likely to be more accurate/relevant to the client? You bet your ass. Don't give in to easy. Conduct your due dilligence.
