Tug and Social Media
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