Top Influence Marketing News: Generation C and Social Scoring

By Brett Henley

This week’s influence marketing roundup finds us exploring the connected consumer, tweetable lessons from Content Marketing World 2012, the historic importance of social scoring and a few other gems.

Every week, the range of insights on influence and influence marketing (and related topics) is growing by leaps and bounds. This week’s bunch is no exception, so let’s get right to it.

14 strategies for finding and leveraging major online influencers

VentureBeat and the Young Entrepreneur Council offer up 14 strategies from 14 young entrepreneurs to help brands that are looking to identify and leverage online influencers.

This article offers 14 different takes on whether the role of influence is a catalyst for disruption, and whether the effort is really worth the investment brands must make to see a return. Our own Jesse Davis was one of the folks quoted for this piece and we appreciate him mentioning Appinions as a top tool in the contextual influence space.

Read the full article at VentureBeat – 14 strategies for finding and leveraging major online influencers

If You’re Interested In Influence, Social Scoring Is Of Historic Importance

Mark Schaefer is everywhere these days (rightfully so), this time opining on the historic importance of social scoring and the oft-debated Klout. As usual, he jumps in feet first with this:

“While it’s easy, and maybe trendy, to hate on it, Klout and its peers are becoming legitimate channels for indexing and connecting with word-of-mouth influencers.”

Not many experts in this space are willing to take the high road on Klout and similar personal influence tools, but there are few who offer the level of expertise and objectivity on the subject as Mark does.

In his Fast Company feature, Mark takes us through a different perspective on measuring social influence, and why its of absolute historic importance to marketers. Whether you object to Klout’s brand of social influence measurement or embrace it – Mark is one of the few willing to look at BOTH angles with an open mind.

Read the full article at Fast Company – If You’re Interested In Influence, Social Scoring Is Of Historic Importance

Are you connecting with your new generation of customers…Generation C?

I talked pretty extensively about Brian Solis’ take on this new generation of consumers in Customers and the Influence Continuum™

It’s, as expected, a post that has Brian really digging beneath the surface layers of social media and traditional marketing to examine how consumer behavior is evolving (rapidly) in this new hyperp-transparent and connected landscape.

Brian offers up Generation C – the “connected consumer” – as the next evolution in customer behavior. For those of influence marketing, we should be paying attention to where our customers fit on the spectrum of influence. But in the case of these “always on, always sharing” Generation C customers – it’s a whole new ballgame for brands looking beyond fan engagement to redefining how we interact online with our customers.

Read the full article from Brian Solis – Are you connecting with your new generation of customers…Generation C?

Social Media Measurement: The Numbers Suck Because the Models & Metrics are Wrong

Taking us from the early days of online adoption, when advertising and marketing were young in their challenging climb translating traditional models to the web (which is still challenging), Sean Carton offers a ton of perspective on a familiar, somewhat “fresher” challenge we all face today:

Figuring out how social media really works.

Sean is especially poignant in his points on new media requiring newer models of marketing to adapt to the shifts that social has brought to the table – especially in how we perceive consumers in relation to our holy grail-esque quest to quantify and define what works in social media.

Perhaps he says it best here:

“Marketing” in social media has to be about facilitating conversations, not interrupting them. Measuring the impact of social media has to move beyond the idea that it’s going to drive clicks and move toward measuring influence, participation, engagement, and, yes, delight.

Read the full article at ClickZ – Social Media Measurement: The Numbers Suck Because the Models & Metrics are Wrong

5 Tweetable Lessons Learned from Content Marketing World

Jon Thomas from Post-Advertising offers 5 “tweetable” takeaways from his experiences at this year’s Content Marketing World.

All 5 takeaways are short, sweet and chock full of valuable nuggets of knowledge on how we can take our content marketing efforts to the next level.

The most applicable to our ongoing conversation on influence comes in takeaway #2, where Jon riffs on a tweet from Mark Schaefer, who states that influence boils down to relevant audience, meaningful content, and consistent engagement.

Jon talks about the need to move away from defining the influencer in the social media space based on networking prowess or volume of speaking gigs. Instead, he offers this:

“It’s truly about ‘being there,’ early and often, and making the extra effort to help those who could use your expertise, even if it’s not going to lead to new business. “

Read the full article at Post-Advertising – 5 Tweetable Lessons Learned from Content Marketing World

What are your favorite recent articles from the world of influence marketing? Please share in the comments below!

Image credit: Mark Menzies