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Why don't companies understand digital influence? (Wired UK)
Influence is such a hot topic in the digital industry yet there remains widespread misunderstanding over how it works, argues Dr Michael Wu, Chief Scientist at social community specialists Lithium Technologies... janlgordon's insight:I selected this article today from WiredUK because, it's a very hot topic, more questions than answers. This piece addresses why scores are not enough and what needs to happen to present an accurate picture of true influencers.Here are some highlights that caught my attention:No one has any data on real influenceExplicit data that says precisely: *Who actually influenced who, when, on what and how**Just because a vendor can assign an influence score to a user, it doesn't mean that score is measured.To Truly measure influence, the vendor's influence meaasurement platform must do four things.1. Track when a desired change or action taken by someone or a group of people (e.g. a purchase transaction has occurred)2. Determine who influenced this purchase or action to donate to a charity, promote something, etc.3. Prove that this purchase or action taken by someone would not have occurred otherwise (this is very hard to measure) If this purchase would've occurred anyway, then the influencer didn't actually cause any changeNo influence platforms (e.g. Klout, PeerIndex, Kred, Radian6, etc.) actually measure influence as none does all four.* All influence scores are computed via some algorithms. They areresult of computation, not measurement.Takeaway: Influencer marketing has huge potential but as an industry we are far from realizing this potential. ** First, influence vendors must start paying attention to the influencees.** Only by incorporating more attributes of the influencees into their model, can vendors move towards a true influence score.Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Curation, Social Business and Beyond"Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/12hWlhg]See it on Scoop.it, via Curation, Social Business and Beyond