As we’ve noted previously, Social Media is meant to be social. With that in mind, what does it mean to have social media influence? Are you the voice that people turn to listen to? Who is? How can you become an influence with your social media profiles and pages?
Like all marketing, Social Media needs to be monitored to properly assess the gains you obtain from your social media marketing efforts as well as to adjust your work to increase response rates from your target market. It is these responses that are key to any successful social media marketing efforts. These responses and interactions also spell out the truth to your effectiveness as an influencer. So, how can you measure your real social media influence?
1. Klout
Do you have social media klout? Measuring the content you put up online to see which posts, tweets or blogs your company is best known for, Klout looks at Twitter, Facebook profiles, LinkedIn and FourSquare simultaneously. It will soon be taking Google+, YouTube and FAN pages into consideration.
Klout gives you a sense of what content is getting a real response from your connections or followers so you can adjust your editorial calendar to meet the demand of your audience.
2. PeerIndex
If your business uses Twitter, then PeerIndex is a great way to measure your social media influence. Using your Twitter profile as the basis for your measurement tools, Peerindex will also track Facebook and LinkedIn as well as a few other social media sites.
Using an authority measurement, PeerIndex gives you a real picture of the activity, topics and sources you are using to build your social media influence.
3. Backtweets
Another social media influence tool for Twitter is Backtweets. Easily check out your Twitter followers and the sites you share the most so you can see what your followers are responding to.
You also have the ability to check the social influence of your competitors by entering their Twitter usernames to see what you’re up against.
4. Twitalyzer
One more for Twitter. You have the ability of accessing a comprehensive list of reports to monitor and manage your tweets, as well as their social media influences with your followers. Check it weekly to see what’s drawing the attention of your followers.
Social Media Influence is just one of the metrics you can use to gauge the effectiveness of your social media marketing. While it is a debated topic on some marketing circles, in truth the above metrics can provide further insight into your social media influence. None of the sites is meant to be a one-stop view of your social media marketing, but added to your existing social media metrics, they can provide depth to your existing insight to help you increase your business’ social media influence.
By watching the pattern drawn by the responses to their social media content stream, companies have the rare opportunity of knowing, in real time, what topics are of interest to their target market. If you know what your market wants, then you can hone your marketing to most effectively meet that need. Monitoring social media influence allows for this incredibly fast response tool, making it a valuable addition to any Social Media metric they may be monitoring on a regular basis.