The Justin Bieber Effect: The Power of Social Influence and How To Measure Yours
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Posted By Grace
Justin Bieber posts a picture of an LA traffic jam on photo sharing site Instagram and within a matter of minutes is inundated with followers. Whether it was Instagram’s ability to make even the mundane look beautiful or more likely the social influence over the pint-sized crooner’s 11.1 million followers on Twitter, Bieber put somewhat of a strain on the site’s servers gaining 50 new followers per minute, all clamouring to stalk his view of the world through vintage filters.
Being an internet sensation with such a high social influence certainly earns kudos online, but just how do the rest of us know whether we’ve inspired or influenced anyone? Whether you’re a listener, conversationalist, explorer, specialist or just plain socialiser, a series of social influence measurement tools are doing the rounds to see just how you shape up. Your most talked about topics? It’ll tell you those too, albeit in some cases a little too revealing.
Klout measures this standard of influence with a score out of 100, allowing you to compare with others in your network. Be warned though, measuring your Klout is stupidly addictive and a tad disappointing as you discover that inanimate objects and singing cats often score higher than you. Second up and nicely presented is the Sunday Times ‘The Social List’. Doing exactly what it says on the tin, as the social media version of the paper’s Rich List, it allows you to see how far removed you are from celebs on the list – as if we needed reminding.
With too many social influence systems to mention, Peer Index does a good job of indicating social reach along with Photorank.me, measuring the reach and popularity of your photos across Facebook and Twitter.
Being able to measure your social influence bolsters the ego, sure, but with stories of people cheating Foursquare to reap the rewards of a virtual badge and tweeters so addicted to maintaining their Klout score they can’t sign out, you have to ask: is it really worth it? While news of agencies employing candidates based on Klout scores alone are rife, simply spamming your network with content lacking integrity will ensure your score is short lived and will eventually Klout out.
Instead make sure content is relevant and interesting, curating and sharing the top stuff with influential individuals and companies in your network to legitimately raise your influence.