Tools

What We’re Reading, August 12th

August 12, 2011 by Kari Rippetoe

How the London riots showed us two sides of social networking from Ars Technica: The London riots are the latest in a series of uprisings in recent years where social media sites like Twitter have been the main hubs of activity – from organization and mobilization to as-it-happens news. Those of us who use these tools as part of our jobs are so used to our own one-sided viewpoints of social media and how Twitter and Facebook can be used; but the riots reveal the much darker side. To the point that the British PM David Cameron is considering blocking Twitter and Facebook in the UK.

Before I continue with this week’s reading list, I want to ask you to post your thoughts in the comments below on social media’s role in the London riots – do you think blocking Twitter and Facebook is the answer?

Now, back to our regularly-scheduled reading list:

Klout Shares 6 Secrets Of Twitter Hashtag Chats from AllTwitter: Thinking of hosting your own Twitter chat? Klout offers some useful tips to help you get started.
64% of Small Businesses Think Social Media is Unnecessary [STUDY] from Mashable: This is an interesting report, but I’m baffled how it distinguishes word of mouth marketing (which 50% say they can’t do without) from social media (which apparently small businesses don’t have so much of a need for). Things that make you go…”Really?”
StumbleUpon Launches Program to Help Nonprofits from AdAge: Is it me, or have we not heard much about StumbleUpon lately? They seem to have gotten lost in the social networking jungle. But having used their Paid Discovery platform in the past, I definitely like what they’re doing for nonprofits with a new Stumbling for Good program.

We’ve also been reading about privacy issues in social networks (when aren’t there privacy issues?) – here are a couple of articles to help you:

Facebook stole every contact and phone number in your phone – here’s how to undo the damage from BGR
A Box You Want to Uncheck on LinkedIn from Connection Agent

Have a great weekend!

How Klout Should be Measuring Social Media Influence

June 22, 2011 by Kari Rippetoe

Something that I’ve noticed and kept tabs on in recent months is the preoccupation with influence in social media, specifically how to measure it. Since we’re in the business of locating influencers and running campaigns to build relationships with them on behalf of our clients, I’ve keeping a close eye on emerging tools for identifying said influencers and determining, well, just how influential they are (BTW, here’s a really great infographic that maps out influencer ecosystems and roles).

One of those first tools out of the gate that so many in the social media world have been chattering about lately is Klout. Klout started out as a tool that measured a person’s influence based on Twitter only, which caused a bit of a stir from those who rightly thought that influence should not be determined by tweets alone. So, they added Facebook and, most recently, LinkedIn to the mix of profiles that help calculate a person’s Klout score. They also added the ability for others to give you Klout (or +K) in a certain topic – which is certainly a step in the right direction in terms of how influential others think you are. Klout is now starting to emerge as the tool for measuring social influence.

Well, almost.

When we think of social media, straight away we think of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, right? But when we talk about social media influence (or, better yet, social influence), we’re talking about an animal of different stripes. Social influence isn’t just gauged by the “Big 3” social networking sites, it’s gauged by your entire social sphere and how your network is engaging with you. Influence in a certain topic shouldn’t necessarily be determined by how often you tweet about that topic, either (case in point – Klout has determined that our own Mitch Arnowitz is influential about ice cream and I’m influential about cars) – it should take into consideration other sources of content you’ve posted about the topic.

In terms of how they should be measuring influence, here’s what I hope to see from Klout in the near future:

Blogs

Ability to add your blog to your Klout profile to help determine score and influence in certain topics based on readers’ level of engagement with your blog (i.e. shares of posts, comments, Facebook Likes).
Ability for your blog readers to +K your blog posts for certain topics (imagine a +K button you can add to your blog).
Consideration of the comments you leave on other blogs (determined by services like Disqus).

Consideration of posts in LinkedIn groups and how many people Like or comment on those posts.
Consideration of Answers you’ve provided on LinkedIn and how many were chosen as “Best” to determine topic influence.
Ability for companies to add their company pages.

Facebook

Ability for companies to add their Facebook pages.

Other social networks

Ability to add your Quora profile so Klout can analyze your answers to questions to help determine topic influence.
Ability to add your profiles from location-based services like Foursquare or Gowalla to factor in friends, tips (and how many people have “done” the things your tips mention), mayorships, badges. This might help to determine local influence. Update July 14: Klout has added Foursquare as one of the services affecting scores. No details on what kind of activity affects it (natch), but apparently they’re still trying to figure that out.

How do you think Klout should measure social influence and what should they be taking into consideration?

Using Quora for Personal and Business Benefit

February 10, 2011 by Kari Rippetoe

I joined Quora and have been using it for a couple of months, after seeing all the buzz about it on Twitter in recent months (and since it’s my job to know about these things). Now, you might be thinking “ANOTHER social network? How am I going to keep track of this? And what use could this possibly be to me?” I don’t blame you for thinking this, because I thought the same thing at first. It seems like there’s a new social networking site every week, with claims from all over the social mediasphere about how it’s “the next big thing in social media.” It can get a bit tiresome, ya know?

Now that I’ve had the opportunity to evaluate Quora, I want to give you my initial thoughts, as well as provide a few opportunities and uses for Quora for businesses.

What is Quora, anyway?

My first thought when I started using Quora was Oh, this is like a cross between Twitter and LinkedIn Answers with some Wikipedia thrown in. You create a profile, “follow” some topics (and people) in which you’re interested, and post your own questions and/or answers to other questions. People can vote your answers up or down, comment on them, thank you for an answer, and even mark it as unhelpful (which essentially buries your answer). You can also follow individual questions within a topic to be alerted of answers that are added. So, there’s a lot of following going on.

The Wikipedia-esque part comes in the ability for people to edit your answers. Well, you can “suggest” edits to the original poster that they can choose to accept. This is where I’m slightly confused, though. Why would you suggest edits to someone else’s answer? It’s their answer – why not leave a comment, or post your own answer? Maybe there’s something glaringly incorrect about their answer, and rather than publicly call them out on it, you choose to suggest the correction. To me, though, this seems rather nit-picky. Am I wrong here?

That’s great, but how can I use Quora?

I hear ya. You don’t want to join yet another social network without knowing what you could possibly get out of it – both personally and business-wise. Let’s go through a few of these uses and opportunities:

Building Thought-Leadership: Follow topics in which you have some expertise and answer questions in those topics. Provide well thought-out answers that will help to position you as a go-to expert on that topic. You also have the ability to describe your experience on a particular topic, which people see when you post an answer within that topic.

Content Marketing: The questions and answers you post on Quora can be great fodder for other content – like blog posts, for instance. Use your questions for a specific topic as the basis for a blog post to get your readers thinking about answers. Or, create a blog post from your answer (and the answers of others) to someone else’s question. And hey – you can even connect your WordPress or Tumblr blog to Quora to make this easier!

By the way, Quora has a cool feature that gives you the ability to tweet a link to your answer to a question. This is great for cross-promotion between platforms, although I wish you could also post to your LinkedIn profile (makes sense, doesn’t it?).

Research: Quora covers a wide array of topics, so it’s dead easy to find a wealth of information on whatever you might be looking for. If you still can’t answer your question from what’s already there, post it and crowdsource answers!

Brand & Industry Monitoring: Run a search for an industry topic (like “Mobile Broadband”) or a brand (like “Verizon”) – the results are a treasure trove of information to help you gauge industry hot topics and customer pain points. It’s a great way to listen and participate in the discussions going on – both for thought-leadership and for customer support.

Expanding Your Network: Sure, there are loads of people from my existing networks that I’m following and who are following me on Quora; but I’ve managed to find lots of new people as well through mutually-followed topics and questions. These are incredibly smart people who I consider to be top of their game and post some really helpful answers to questions.

Are you using Quora? How have you found it useful (or not, even)? Tell us your opinion!