Measuring influence online is tough. People say that it can’t solely be a followers/friends/fans/readers game, can’t be measured by interaction alone and shouldn’t be left to amateurs.
Good thing Fast Company came along. Instead of relying on a number of readily available, very transparent statistics like Klout, Fast Company is reinventing the process. In it, they claim to be able to measure influence by how many people you can get to click on your unique URL.
Fuck that. I really hope they’re kidding. Seeing as how many, many reports agree that the lowest-educated internet users account for a disproportionately high number of click throughs (something like 17% and 85%, respectively), the only damn thing that Fast Company is proving here is that to be influential, you need to have a bunch of stupid people following you.
Influence should be based on how likely a person is to get others to do something useful. Anything less than that is simply persuasion, manipulation or even a Ponzi scheme. But even good services like Klout only really measure one thing: your digital influence. Guys like Evo Terra and Derek Neighbors both have lower Klout scores than I do, but how many people show up when Evo speaks, hosts a party or plans an #evfn? Lots. Same with Derek and his little Gangplank venture.
Online influence doesn’t mean shit unless it extends into real action. Getting someone else to click on something, unless that makes you money directly, matters even less.
Go back to whatever it is you do, Fast Company. Stop annoying us with half-ass projects that don’t do a damn thing.
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{ 6 comments }
Hah, I was wondering what all of the hubub today was about. If influence is equal to how many clicks you can fake… erm, I mean, obtain… then any joe off the street can be damn inspirational. Besides, it's not very difficult to get thousands of bots following and clicking on links through Twitter. I know from experience (article coming soon).
They should consider consulting with a professional next time, aye Tyler?
I am not sure I agree. I do agree that Klout is still having trouble figuring out exactly how to measure influence, but they have a small team working on it every day. I met people over the weekend who are very familiar with them, and everyone realizes the issues. However, I don't know that showing up when someone speaks signifies influence, either:-) This is one of those subjects that deserves further thought.
Klout does a far better job than whatever Fast Company just came out with.
Mmmmm… the words you speak are delicious to my mouth.
Despite your nasty comment to me on the tech crunch article about Fast Company's Influence Project, I agree wholeheartedly with you. And in defense of my posting links to the sites on which I am an influencer, it was simply to support the comments I made. After all, I cant very well claim that I have a good deal of measurable online influence without proving it by showing you the stats about which I spoke. It would have been very hard to believe me if I hadn't. I was just trying to ad credibility to my point of view.
I didn't mean to be nasty and if I did, I apologize. I was, from my point of view, being direct.
As I said just now on TechCrunch, it feels like we're constantly walking a balance beam. We can't very well ignore what we disagree with, but at the same time cannot support it.
This social media thing is hard.
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