For all the number-crunching - and subsequent debate - by various research firms to try to determine the dollar value of a fan or follower, these efforts do not fully take into account a fundamental fact about social networks: some fans or followers are worth more, or rather are more influential or valuable, than others. They are not valued for the high number of followers, but instead for their ability to get their followers to act.
Forrester Research calls them mass influencers and has calculated that they make up just 16% of all online consumers - but are responsible for 80% of brand impressions in online social settings. Finding - and then cultivating - these influencers is attracting a new wave of research as well as commercial services for marketers.
Tools
A new service called PeerIndex is an example of the latter. It analyzes the flow of information through Twitter and purports to find people who are authoritative in certain domains. It does this by looking at the information in tweets and how that information spreads by connecting them in a network or graph. (via Technology Review).
Research
IP-Influence is a new algorithm that has been developed via a collaboration among university and HP researchers to find influential social media posters. It takes into account many factors, such as the novelty and resonance of a person’s messages with those of their followers and the quality and frequency of the content they generate. "Equally important is the passivity of members of the network which provides a barrier to propagation that is often hard to overcome," the scientists said in their research paper. "Thus gaining knowledge of the identity of influential and least passive people in a network can be extremely useful from the perspectives of viral marketing."
Real World Application
Other companies are not waiting for the latest tweaks to data or the newest toolsets but are plunging in, using software at hand to identify the influencers they need to target. Telecom companies, for instance, have come to realize that their most profitable mobile phone subscribers are not necessarily the ones who generate a large month bill, reports the Economist. Influencer subscribers, in the telecom world, are those that are able to take along their friends, family and colleagues to follow them when they switch to another network. Telecom companies characterize these people as those who receive quick callbacks, do not worry about calling late at night and receive more calls at times when social events are organized, such as Friday afternoons.
The telcos spot find these influencers, the Economist says, by crunching calling data using predictive analysis software that analyzes customers within the context of their social network.
