Got Twitter? What's Your Influence Score - NYTimes.com

Stephanie Rosenblum via NY Times

How does one become an influencer?

After analyzing 22 million tweets last year, researchers at Hewlett-Packard found that it’s not enough to attract Twitter followers — you must inspire those followers to take action. That could mean persuading them to try Bikram yoga, donate to the Sierra Club or share a recipe for apple pie. In other words, influence is about engagement and motivation, not just racking up legions of followers.

Industry professionals say it’s also important to focus your digital presence on one or two areas of interest. Don’t be a generalist. Most importantly: be passionate, knowledgeable and trustworthy.

Still, scoring is subjective and, for now, imperfect: most analytics companies rely heavily on a user’s Twitter and Facebook profiles, leaving out other online activities, like blogging or posting YouTube videos. As for influence in the offline world — it doesn’t count.

Mr. Azhar, of PeerIndex, calls this “the Clay Shirky problem,” referring to the writer and theorist who doesn’t use Twitter much. “He’s obviously massively influential,” Mr. Azhar said, “and right now he has a terrible PeerIndex.”

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More broadly, Mr. Schaefer of Schaefer Marketing and others are concerned that we are moving closer to creating “social media caste systems,” where people with high scores get preferential treatment by retailers, prospective employers, even prospective dates.

We are moving into neo-tribalism, not some pan-democratic, egalitarianism. Why are people continuously surprised that the web is not a great leveler, but instead a redistribution of authority, and that not everyone will wind up with equal reputation?

PS I am still rooting for betweeness (degree of connection) instead of eigenvalues (popularity) to get down to the dark matter of influence (see It’s Betweenness That Matters, Not Your Eigenvalue: The Dark Matter Of Influence).