You stand in front of the crowd. Who stands behind you?
Tag Archives: twitter

WTH Was THAT Kred?!?

Posted on February 16, 2012 by in Jennifer Puterbaugh

All I Wanted Was An Answer

OK, I am gonna start off this post by saying that, I probably wouldn’t even have written this post if someone at Kred had answered my question directly.  I am just curious what this marketing play by Kred (@Kred) was all about.  Last I was told, when I asked why they “aligned/piggybacked” on Klout, rather than keeping their differentiation was “It’s really busy in the office today. We will craft a response soon.” (As a writer, I noted the word “craft.”  It seemed odd to me) As of this posting, I still don’t have an answer. So, I am going to see if anyone else does. Why? Because it seemed like a very strange move for a company of data specialists to call itself an “alternative” and then “piggyback.”

I’ve seen many a varied marketing tactic over the years…and I was just curious why they went this route.  I really just wanted to understand, maybe even learn something deeper about the new little niche.

The Scientific Study of  Social Influence

 

I have been studying the “Social Influence” utilities for a bit of time now: quietly, in the back ground, just a little geeky project.  A lot of my clients have started to ask me questions about it, and many people I know in the Speaking industry have started using various tools (mostly @Klout). The problem was that everyone was equating social influence metrics to social media “stuff.” I wanted to be able to explain it to them with some knowledge, so I started studying it.

Now, I am NOT a highly influential person…I produce goods for people who are influential. This allows me to just sit and watch. Which, having the data background I do, is cool in a geek way.

Over the last few months, I have had many conversations on the topic of “social influence” tools with knowledgeable peeps. Some people call it phooey, and “nothing more than high-school cliques revisited.” I can see where they are coming from, but I differed in my opinion of it. I found it rather interesting that a new metric was emerging. I wanted to know:

 

  • How will it be measured?
  • Who is gonna get it right?
  • What are people going to do once they know that they are being measured?
  • How is this going to be used in business?
  • Will a high “social influence” score allow a person or brand to charge more for their services?
  • Will persons/brands with high scores start selling their tweets ? (Note: I discounted celebrities, since they openly do this and well, we don’t really care that they do. I was thinking more about powerful mom-bloggers, academics, and the like.)

 

See, I am one of those that does believe the metric can be a good one. Now, how you can announce that you are measuring something and than not have your measurement affected by it is a whole ‘nother story.  Once you say “we are gonna measure this,” there will be those that want to “game” the scoring and get a higher score.  So, the measurement is only valid (or rather, truly pristine and uninfluenced, accurately measured) before people realize they are being scored. After that, the analysis will have to account for people who are “working the system,” so to speak.

Regardless of whether or not it has lost it’s data derived innocence , I believe the metric will be an important one. Or rather, one that might be important IF 1. It gains long-lasting recognition as a valid metric that has meaning (in business, this typically equates to sales) and 2. If solid companies come out and truly seek to measure the influence data and not taint it.  No, I am not saying that they should not PROMOTE it’s use, but there is a line to “education, explanation and promotion” and “creating your own data to measure.”  The line isn’t all that clear yet, but it’s there and we will find it.

Kred – Oh, You Look Really Cool

 

Read More…

SUPERHERO YOU

Posted on November 13, 2011 by in Jennifer Puterbaugh

I still remember the first time I tied my little brother to a chair, with my magic truth lasso.  I can feel the swoosh of my cape as I turned (quite dramatically) to dive into the safety of my invisible jet.  Wonder Woman rocked!  AND, she had fabulous hair and makeup! Oh, hours were spent in my pursuit of SuperHero status – jump moves, spin moves, laser eye beams.  I wanted ALL of the superhero powers, AND a kick-a$$ costume.  That was a very long time ago.  I haven’t thought of the faux menacing look in my brother’s eyes in years…until last week…

What happened to bring back the sweet memories of the crime-stopping prowess of a bustier outfitted Super Princess?  I got an email…not just any email…I got an email from Jim Kwik of Kwik Learning, inviting me to attend the upcoming Super Hero You event.

Read More…

The Twitterverse is Big

Posted on January 21, 2011 by in Dave Cole

Sometimes it’s hard to grasp the cottage industries that emerge from a successful business. Sure, there’s probably a few thousand “Social Media” shops, but it honestly came as a surprise to me to see this graphic which shows dozens of different companies and services all carving a little niche for themselves in the “Twitterverse”.

The Twitterverse

Obviously, something like this took Brian Solis (author of Engage) and his designer a little while to create, but it’s such a valuable way to get a rapid snapshot of the “empire” of cottage industries that have popped up from that little blue bird. I’ll be amused to see how much more this universe grows (and, if Twitter ever, ya know, makes money…) For those of you looking for some social tools – just scour this graphic for about all the options you’ll ever need.

Hat tip goes to @chrisgarrett & @chrisbrogan

Signal, Noise, and Twitter

Posted on August 16, 2010 by in Dave Cole

To those who don’t know my background – in my college years I spent quite a while in home audio sales, helping customers find the right home theater for their needs. It was a fun job because it was all “want”, and the boom-years meant a lot of customers could afford (and really wanted) good quality home theaters. I had fun, my customers had fun, and all-in-all it was a great experience.

One of the often overlooked stats for any piece of home theater gear was a ratio called signal-to-noise (S/N or SNR (signal noise ratio)), and the premise is pretty simple… You wanted as much signal (useful information) as possible, and as little noise (static and background) as possible. And that brings me to this little 140-character shootout we call Twitter.

I’ll be the first to admit I was late to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what the perk is. Unlike social networks like Facebook or even (gasp!) MySpace, Twitter is basically a 1-trick pony. You post your little note, and go about on your merry way. In theory, people follow your tweets because they’re interested in what you have to say. But I’ve discovered Twitter suffers from a real serious signal vs. noise problem.

The problem goes like this: You want to follow as many people as interest you as possible. They’re all there, tweeting at random intervals. But there’s no filter – no meaningful way of saying “give me this but not that”. You get someone’s feed and it’s an all-or-nothing experience. Once you’ve followed someone, your feed of incoming tweets expands – showing you their tweets in the process. And therein lies the noise issue… If you follow too few people, you may be underwhelmed by the useful information (signal). But the more people you follow, the more likely it is that you’ll be overwhelmed by noise. And noise there is a plenty! Suddenly, in seeking signal, you’ve increased your noise, and the signal becomes harder to come by.

The search function is helpful to get timely information on a topic or keyword, but even there, you’re forced to scour through endless re-tweets and subjective interpretations from people you don’t know (and therefore are challenged to prove that the signal is useful or not). And the short-code links mean you can’t really trust links that people are forced to post on their twitter feeds, because a bad apple might have slipped in a link to a malicious website without anyone noticing.

In the end, I’m not opposed to Twitter. I think it’s an interesting platform (even if I can’t figure out how in the world these guys are supposed to be making money other than the typical “ad-space” play), but I think it’s inhibited by its own inherent flaws. Too much noise, not enough signal. Now, I’ll be right back – gotta go post about this new blog posting … On Twitter.

Ps… If you’re a “signal” person, feel free to give us a follow at @PropelPoint