Do you know what is more important, have a lot of followers or influence our followers a lot so that they propagate our message in a cascade?
The answer at this point is that both things are important since having a lot of influence achieves the propagation of the message in cascade towards the followers of our followers and so on, but this is favored the more followers we have (our companies, brands, products and services).
Now, to better understand this we must understand the various levels of influence that can be handled in Social Networks, since the things that are said are as important as who says them. This defines what is known today as " social influence."
First of all, we talk about the True Reach, which represents the segment of our followers who really receive our message when we broadcast it or who are really relevant. This implies that we can have many followers, however, there is no talk of a True Reach when we almost never interact with part of them or some are simply false users managed by robots or that have been created automatically to spam. The True Reach then is our level of influence over the human followers or relevant contacts with whom we interact on a regular basis.
Secondly, we can talk about the Probability of Amplification, which refers to the probability that our content will be handled by followers to forward it to third parties or mention us as sources thereof, thus generating a broader conversation on said topic.. This amplification will depend on certain aspects such as the implicit commitment that our followers have towards us, the speed with which they spread our message once we emit it and the number of reproductions or interactions that these messages produce.
Por otra parte podemos hablar de la Influencia en la Red. Este concepto está relacionado con los niveles de influencia que tienen nuestros seguidores hacia sus seguidores respectivos, es decir, tendremos mayor Influencia en la Red en la medida en que nuestros seguidores (con los cuales interactuamos en forma continua) sean más influyentes sobre sus propios seguidores.
It does not matter in which business or institutional area we are (organization, brands, products and / or services), to achieve greater positioning and penetration in our target audience we must improve our ability to generate action in people and “influence” them to that they react (preferably positively) about us with every interaction we have on social media. This in turn is favored when we get our ideas and messages to the right people, influencing them, grabbing their attention and getting them to spread the message to others causing a “ snowball ” effect.
When we talk about the levels of influence in social media, we are not specifying a particular network but rather all the possible networks where our specific market niche interacts (eg Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Youtube, among others).
The use of Influence indicators in Social Networks is being increasingly considered for large brands, creating rewards (eg prizes, discounts, benefits, etc.) for followers who have a higher level of influence on the topics or niches of interest since, again, it is not only important what is said but who says it, how it influences others and how many it influences.
In a previous article we discussed the topic What is Online Reputation and why is it important for your brand? Well, reputation is one of the most difficult values to measure.
Some tools allow you to classify the topics someone writes about by their areas of interest, thus managing the “fields of expertise”. Now, if a large number of people write about the same topics, and reproduce or link the messages that we generate, then we can be considered a relevant source on that topic. It is one thing to be Popular (quantity) and another thing to be Influential or Relevant on a topic, niche or market area (quality and focus).
An artist or politician, for example, can be followed by millions of people but does not necessarily have a true influence on the network of said people, unless each time he sends a message it is replicated by a large number of his followers and generates conversation and / or discussion.
Tools like Klout classify “influencers” into 16 categories based on their communication style, their audience and their participation (regardless of the specific topics they deal with), from there then they derive: Celebrities (people follow every word, and shares their content to the maximum), Style Creators (They know what they like and what their audience likes, generating their own trends), Experts (They share and create news. Their opinions are very widespread and highly trusted, recognized as leaders in your industry, when they speak, people listen to you), Thought Leaders (opinion leaders in their segment, generate trust, their messages are shared due to their relevance, help to understand the important events of the segment), Broadcasters (They spread great content that spreads quickly.They are an essential source of information for your segment. They have a wide and diverse audience), Curators (They highlight the most interesting people and share the best content on the web), Feeders (They are used by their audience to generate a constant flow of information about their sector or topic), Syndicators (They monitor and share what is trending and what to watch), Network Creators (They know how to connect with the right people and share what is important to their audience, with a high level of engagement and an influential audience), Socializers (They are the center from the social scene and allow us to know what is happening), Specialists (Within their area of experience their opinion is insurmountable and their followers are very focused), Activist (They share their ideas or causes), Talkers (They love to communicate with others,They are creative and always have the scoop), Hobbyists (Newbies to the social web who share very little), Explorers (They participate by trying new ways of interacting, exploring the ecosystem for themselves), Observers (They do not share much and enjoy watching).
On the Internet there are various services that help in the measurement of these Influence Indicators in Social Networks (eg Klout, Wefollow, Twitalyzer, Socialbakers, Icerocket, Socialmention, Howsociable, Kurrently, among others). However, all these services are based on measurements and mathematical calculations that do not necessarily analyze human behavior in depth since, although they can count messages and their repetitions, sometimes associating keywords, they cannot interpret what is said and how it is said by the people who handle them. This is why these tools should be used and interpreted by experts in Social Media Management. (Social Network Managers / Social Communicators) and eMarketing (Internet Marketing Specialists) to be able to reach a more exact conclusion about the positive or negative levels of influence that are had.
Success for all…
