Tug and Social Media

Hello, my name is Ben and I’ve recently jumped aboard Tug as the Social Media Director, heading up all things social. In less than a week I’ve been given the nickname “Social Ben” asked what my Klout Score is and told I should up my number of Foursquare badges (outnumbered by some of the guys in the SEO team). The question (being raised more and more) asks, what matters when it comes to measuring the value and importance of someone’s on-line presence?

Given that there are so many rankings to choose from, metrics like ‘influencer points’ or sentiment trackers and score cards make it tricky to know what counts and what just passes for a bit of fun. When marketers check to see how influential a source is on the web, the task becomes a full-blown mission, particularly for PR and digital agencies, often relying on tools like Technorati and PeerIndex to gauge who is worth talking to. Tools give a number and often have a crude formula that can help to find new bloggers and influencers in the social space, but nothing beats sitting down, reading a blog, getting to know the field and asking – “do I really trust this source?”

Once that has been done, it’s worth using paid-for tools like Radian6 to generate a better understanding of the sector using keyword searches (e.g. Chefs > UK > Cooking). Looking at activity like this, it is possible to drill down and discover who are the noisiest people in the social media space, read their content and then make a decision about whether or not to approach them.

A simple approach but skips the need for score cards, rankings and points systems but gives you a good idea who is worth getting in touch with. That being said, (and just for the record) I’ll leave my Klout Score here!

To talk about social media drop me a line at ben.romberg@tugagency.com

Or find me on Twitter @benromberg