In the old days people were left in the dark when they were not happy with a company’s product or service. May be they tell a friend or two to avoid XYZ company but that was about it.
But, today that same person can let their whole Facebook or Twitter list know about their experience. Smart companies recognize that social media has given customers a greater capacity to influence buying decisions and are taking steps to ensure that positive relationships are built with key influencers.
Finding Influencers
The first step toward developing such relationships is finding who these influencers are and where they maintain a presence online. You can use comprehensive brand reputation monitoring tools — such as Alterian SM2, Trackur or Brandseye — for this purpose.
Even free tools such as Tweetbeep, which monitors conversations within Twitter based on keywords you input, or Twitter search can help identify potential influencers.
Once the list of influencers has been identified, merchants can determine their influence by using following tool.
Twitter Grader
Twitter Grader is one of a set of measurement tools provided by Hubspot.
Twitter Grader is a part of the “Grader” suite, from web marketing company Hubspot, to help marketers analyze the effect of their efforts across a variety of channels, including Twitter, Facebook, blogs and more. The free suite of tools serves a two-fold purpose. Not only do they assist marketers in research, but they also help Hubspot gain exposure.
To determine a person’s — or company’s — influence, Twitter Grader looks at factors such as: number of followers, influence of people following the user, frequency of updates, the ratio between followers and those the user follows, and the degree of engagement, such as retweets, @mentions, and replies.
Twitter Grader scores tend to range higher than Klout and the other tools mentioned in the article. For example, Practical eCommerce receives a score of 98.2 out of 100. But the score on my Twitter username, @pchaney, is 100 out of 100. Such a high score causes me to be suspect of its validity. Therefore, I would be certain to use at least one or two of the other tools on the list, as well.