Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Influence is a controversial topic and its measurement and definition are increasingly scrutinized as social media democratizes one’s ability to earn stature and prominence in new online societies. There’s a clear delineation between influence and popularity and it’s important to understand that in social networks, influence is not derived by the quantity of followers, friends, clicks, or “likes.” Nor is it discernible by the frequency of which one participates in their respective communities. While these serve as indicators of influence, they are not necessarily constant factors in its quantification.

Merriam-Webster defines influence as the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command.

Exploring alternative sources, influence is described as the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.

Influence vs. Influencer

In social networks, influence is naturally tied to individuals, where the extent, level, and effect of leverage or authority coalesces and contributes to a stature of varying degrees. Eventually, individuals who possess a propensity to cause a discernible effect earn a designation of influencer. When the funnel focuses on subject matter and themes, influencers are then further divided and ranked accordingly. Whether we agree or disagree on the idea of establishing a digital hierarchy, many social services are already verticalizing the horizontal nature of peer-to-peer networks. Klout, Edelmen’s TweetLevel, and PeerIndex, for instance, introduce a level of prominence into online connections measured by complex human algorithms.

Over the years, I’ve explored the roles of influencers in social networks and as a result, I’ve refined the definition as simply the ability to cause measurable actions and outcomes. Intentional influence then assumes that certain actions are therefore definable and as a result, desired activity and results are now designed into strategies. The execution of these plans is then dependent on the reach and conviction of the influential voices to which they’re aligned.

The Gender Divide in Social Networks

Late last year, I analyzed the demographic composition of many social networks and among other findings, it was clear that women represented the greatest majority of users. Dave McCandless visualized discovery in this wonderful infographic…

In April of this year, Nielsen released data that reinforced the role women play in social networking. As in social networking on the Web, women also ruled social networking in the mobile landscape.

Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet

10 years ago comScore reported that the number of women on the Web in the U.S. had surpassed the number of men.  In 2010 comScore still finds that women are the digital mainstream and social networking is central to their online experience. In celebration of the 2010 Blogher Conference, comScore released a new report, “Social Networking Sites Reach a Higher Percentage of Women than Men Worldwide.”

If e-commerce is a form of influence, women dominate. In fact, the report shows that women shop more online and in aggregate, they drive a disproportionate amount of online spending, representing 58% of all online spending. Accordingly, women also spend more time in social networks than men at an average of 5.5 hours per month compared to 3.9.

According to the comScore report, women spent an average of 16.3% of their online time on social networks. In comparison, men dedicated roughly 11.7%.

The trend of women powering “the conversation” in social networks is indeed global across the board.

The Gender Divide: Influence on Twitter

The theme of women dominating popular social networks was recently validated by comScore’s research. In addition to other leading social networks, the study found that women represent the majority of Twitter’s population. And since Twitter is, for the time being, one of the only social networks where the data to measure social stature and influence is readily accessible, I partnered with Klout and PeopleBrowsr to analyze the balance of influence by gender.

As social networking continues to transform how both men and women communicate and connect, individuals gain varying levels of prominence with every interaction. Working with Klout and PeopleBrowsr, we analyzed the top 50,000 most influential people on Twitter to capture a snapshot of influence. The results practically matched the global Internet population as measured by comScore.

Twitter Influence Composition:

Males = 52%

Females = 48%

Global Internet Population, 18 + (Comscore)

Male = 54.3%

Females = 45.7%

Of these top tier influencers, females earned a spot above the median with an average score of 54 out of 100.

The average Klout score for males was two points higher at 56.

We then sampled 100,000 random Twitter users to measure the average level of influence for the general Twitter population. Upon sorting by gender, we discovered that the majority of the group was comprised by women, 54% vs. 46%.  Of the random sample, the average Klout Scores weighed in favor of women, 34 compared to 31 for men.

While women represent a greater portion of the overall Twitter population, men edged slightly ahead in terms of Twitter’s top influencers. Yet that power balance shifts when looking at influence across the entire Twitterverse as women hold a  higher level of influence within the general Twitter population.

As Twitter is young, the balance of influence is evolutionary. With the introduction of its new “human algorithm,” Twitter is encouraging its denizens to expand their social networks based on context over contacts. Over time, these new connections will affect how we as individuals contribute to our level of influence and ultimately the stature we merit within our relative social graphs and communities of interest (aka nicheworks.) Influence is something that’s both earned and cultivated and is yours to shape.

About Klout Scores

The  overall Klout score ranges from 0 to 100. Klout’s algorithm involves three  stages of semantic calculation. The first, described as “True Reach,” measures influence between each and every relationship, evaluating the engaged audience versus total audience. The secondary metric known as “Amplification Probability,” documents the likelihood of a specific tweet spreading beyond the primary network through retweets as well as generating a response from the immediate audience. Finally, Klout factors the “Network Value,” which measures the influence of those individuals who follow the original user and their propensity for sharing their content, which contributes to overall authority.

By Brian Solis: www.briansolis.com

Image Credit: ShutterStock

Over the weekend I visited one of my favorite places. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been there in a while, or didn’t know most of the people I encountered. The second I walked in, heard the noise, saw the walls… even the way it smelled… I was transported.It’s incredible to think about–a room could magically change the way I felt. A physical room with the right memories can do this in just a heartbeat. So can a metaphorical one, even a brand.

The states of your emotions (your moods and passions) are like rooms in a house.

Anxiety, flow, joy, fear, exhaustion, connection, contemplation, emotional labor… each one can be visited at will if we choose. Sometimes by entering a real room, but more often in metaphor…

Do you have a friend you can have an intimate, tearful conversation with anytime you pick up the phone? Is there a topic that if you bring it up with your boss, it will quickly lead to contention? Is there a place or a memory that never fails to bring melancholy along with it?

Occasionally we encounter emotions at random. More often, we have no choice, because there’s something that needs to be done, or an event that impinges itself on us. But most often, we seek emotions out, find refuge in them, just as we walk into the living room or the den.

Stop for a second and reread that sentence, because it’s certainly controversial. I’m arguing that more often than not, we encounter fear or aggravation or delight because we seek it out, not because it’s thrust on us.

Why check your email every twenty minutes? It’s not because it needs checking. It’s because the checking puts us into a state we seek out. Why yell at the parking attendant with such gusto? Teaching him a lesson isn’t the point–no, in that moment, it’s what we want to do, it’s a room we choose to hang out in. It could be something as prosaic as getting involved in a flame war online every day, or checking your feeds at midnight or taking a shot or two before dinner. It’s not something you have to do, it’s something you choose to do, because going there takes your emotions to a place you’ve gotten used to, a place where you feel comfortable, even if it makes you unhappy.

There’s a metaphorical room I can go to where I’m likely to experience flow–a sense of being in the moment and getting an enormous amount done. Down the hall is the room where there’s a lot of anxiety about something I can’t change. I can visit that room if I choose, but I don’t. And yes, it’s a choice.

Great brands figure out how to supply a ‘room’ to anyone who chooses to visit. Soap opera fans, for example, can count on being put into a certain state anytime they tune in. The Apple store is carefully calibrated as an architectural and retail room that will change how you feel when you enter it. Chiat Day built offices in New York and LA that triggered huge waves of creativity. And there’s nothing like the face of a kid eating a Hershey’s bar…

YouTube isn’t just video. It’s a room. Not everyone uses it the same way, but most people use it the same way every time they use it. If it’s the site people go to see stupid pet tricks and write stupider comments, then they know why they’re going and it’s going to be hard for it to become something else…

Is your brand providing the right room to the right people at the right time? Most products, most services–they provide a thing, a list of features, but not a room for my emotions.

This insight about our moods and your brand is all well and good, but it becomes essential once you realize that there are some rooms you’re spending way too much time in, that these choices are taking away from your productivity or your happiness.

Why are you going there again?

Every time you go to that room, you get unhappy, and so do we. Every time you go that room, you spend more time than you expected, and it stresses out the rest of your day. Every time you go to that room you short-circuit the gifts you give to the rest of the team.

Once your habit becomes an addiction, it’s time to question why you get up from a room that was productive and happy, a place you were engaged, and walk down the hall to a room that does no one any good (least of all, you). Tracking your day and your emotions is a first step, but it takes more than that. It takes the guts to break some ingrained habits, ones that the people around you might even be depending on.