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part three: measuring influence

Hemera Technologies

In previous instalments of this series, we've looked at some of the reasons that small and medium-sized businesses are becoming more and more concerned about on-line influence – essentially, the ability to monitor and shape the conversations that customers are having about your business on the Web.

With so many more potential customers now using sentiments expressed online to shape their purchasing decisions – from Yelp reviews to comments on Twitter – social media influence has become more than a fringe concern, even for the least tech-savvy businesses.

For companies looking to have a more direct impact on the online conversation, there's the question of what tools and services to use in order to achieve that task.

The short answer? There's no shortage of such tools out there. While there can be significant overlap in the functionality of each one, they all bring something a little different to the table.

Klout, mentioned in a previous instalment, is perhaps the most well-known tool for measuring the influence of social media players.

The service measures the "reach" of a particular social media entity – for example, how many people a Twitter account reaches, and how likely those people are to act on the tweets – and assigns a Klout score. The higher the score, the more influential the entity is.

For companies, services such as Klout aren't just a good way to measure influence, they're also a resource for reaching out to influential people who might be able to talk up your brand.

It's a well-established norm in the social media world for many high-reach bloggers and individuals with influential Twitter accounts to regularly receive free perks from companies, such as new gadgets, in the hopes they'll talk to their online followers about the company or the product.

Besides Klout, there are various tools and services that help connect businesses with the most influential people in the social media world. Twitalyzer, which, unsurprisingly, focuses on Twitter influence, uses algorithms that take into account up to 30 different metrics to figure out how authoritative a social media voice is.

Besides multiple plans that let individuals and businesses monitor their own impact, Twitalyzer also keeps a running tally of the most influential voices on Twitter.

As you may have guessed, the list is largely populated by a mix of well-known services, such as the BBC's breaking news account, and celebrities such as Paris Hilton.

Traackr, another influence-monitoring company, offers many of the same services as Twitalyzer, but focuses on the wider Web.

The company offers its clients a detailed list of who the most amplified voices are in their particular area of operation, and lets clients follow how those voices are influencing the conversation about them on blogs, Facebook and other online forums.

On the other side of the social media equation, services such as Crowdbooster can help companies expand their own influence in the online conversation.

Like other services, Crowdbooster monitors Facebook and Twitter, and gives its users frequent recommendations on how to boost their voice. Those recommendations can include items such as what time of day to post tweets to reach the greatest number of people, as well as reminders about which influential customers to engage online.

In addition to the services listed above, there are myriad other tools that can help businesses get a better sense of how to best make their voices heard online.

The good news is that many of these services offer free trials or limited versions, allowing a small business to get a first impression of the world of social media conversations without committing serious dollars up-front.

This series continues next Thursday.

Other stories can be found on the Web Strategy section of the Report on Small Business website .

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