Edelman, one of the world’s leading public relations firms, recently launched two free online tools to help you measure your social influence: TweetLevel calculates influence on Twitter, while BlogLevel gauges how impactful a blog is.
Both these tools use a proprietary algorithm consisting of 40 different metrics, to track and score bloggers and tweeters – in any language and country – according to their influence. “Until today, marketers often used popularity as a benchmark to identify and engage with key influencers online,” says John Kerr, Director, Edelman Digital, Asia Pacific. “However, to drive return for these social media and marketing programs requires finding the people who are going to amplify marketing activities.”
Kerr adds that marketers can use tools such as TweetLevel and BlogLevel to assess and get agreement on who has influence online, and that the scores generated through these tools can offer practical intelligence for companies and brands who need to identify and quantify online influencers on particular topics. “At the same time, marketers can tap into the network of relationships that shape influencers’ interactions online and use them to elevate the quality of engagement for a brand,” adds Kerr.
Jonny Bentwood, Director and Head of Influencer Engagement, Edelman UK, led the development of both tools and explained how the tools differ from others designed to track influence. “Most of the other tools that are out there focus exclusively on Twitter and Facebook profiles and ignore other online activities like blogging,” explains Bentwood. “With BlogLevel and TweetLevel, we can consider influence more holistically. For example, it’s clear that blogs are more influential when their content is search-optimized and discussed in social media channels like Twitter, so those are metrics we’ve built into BlogLevel.”
According to Edelman, here are other ways how algorithms underlying both tools are different from existing ones:
– Distinct metrics for “idea starters” vs. “amplifiers”: BlogLevel and TweetLevel distinguish between people who are “idea starters”– the people who originate ideas or are first to surface news – and the “amplifiers”’ who spread other peoples’ ideas. Both are influential, but BlogLevel and TweetLevel recognize and emphasize their influence differently.
– BlogLevel algorithm considers the discussions on other social media platforms and search optimization: Unlike other blog ranking tools, BlogLevel ranks importance by how much a post is discussed on Twitter and how optimized the blog’s content is for search.
– Broadcast to engagement ratio: TweetLevel places higher rankings on people who engage in conversation and post relevant content, as opposed to those who simply post their views. TweetLevel analyzes every tweet to help communicators match their brands and issues with the right people, increasing the efficiency and relevance of influencer outreach and engagement efforts.
