My Digital FootPrint

Have you noticed that with a crisis and a focus on key workers and health, influencers and celebrity have become less important?  Did you notice that the products and services they endorsed, prompted and demanded you trust are not on your essential list? Did you notice that you did not notice that they were not there? Brands had definitely given ground, in terms of who the consumer turned to first, to social media influencers as we’re finding that the marketing KPI gave better value.  However, we also knew that whilst cheaper and somewhat more effective in terms of income generation per pound spent, this new middle person had also removed brands direct reach. The question, do or can brands step back into a direct relationship with consumers, do they want to and what would it mean?   Many did not have data on consumers and used social influences as a way to get data they could not imagine about their users, but has that access channel to the data been broken and where do ...

Source: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/how-influence-should-work/ The source about is from Chris Brogan - well worth reading about how created digital footprints are not about influence in the real sense. The reflective question being posed by Chris is a good one. What is real influence? Essentially it is that is influence is about me accepting and being ready to accept ideals as they are timely and not about how much you can tell me what to do! one to think on….

Using Neuroscience to Influence Behavior [wpvideo DiRfjr6p w=400 h=224]

Source : http://gizmodo.com/5926939/evidence-that-klout-doesnt-make-sense-visualized “Are you kidding me? Even Graham, an academic who spends his days studying digital trends across the world, is shocked, pointing out that the US "normally excels in all metrics of online visibility/power/reach". All of which points to the fact that either the folks behind Klout know something that the rest of us don't, or their algorithm sucks. [ Mark Graham ]”

The Rise of Digital Influence from Altimeter by Brian Solis The potential for influence is unknown but gut says big.  Klout, PeerIndex among many others want to measure who you know, what you say, and what you do, and attempt to score or rank your ability to influence those to whom you’re connected.   Social network users are being influence by these scores and are now starting to think how they connect and communicate to improve their stature within each network (reverse gamification). On the other side of the equation Brands are taking notice as these services also help identify individuals who are both connected and relevant to help expand reach into new media and markets. Here is another report on the same topic and worth reading as it takes all views are building insights theriseofdigitalinfluence-120320132857-phpapp02.pdf Download this file

Influence_Landscape_Beta_v1.pdf Download this file

Here is a blog I wrote about how your likes can be gamed and when they are they become less of a signal and indeed can become worthless to a company. But thinking further....What if when you bought a new tech gizmo, the price was higher because your "Likes" or "tweets" constantly referenced your love and devotion for the product - and you did this as you wanted to win one? This is called online behavioural pricing (under the banner of behavioural economics .) Whilst if there was one supplier in the market, it could be a consumer’s worst nightmare as it uses the traces of your Digital Footprint to maximize prices on the products and services you want most. However, it rather directs us towards Doc Searls work on VRM - where we set the terms and the price.

image source : https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL-efwGSHcNRPHw-Z1HXrTzOAiT9YT7Wr6s81_FPSAzgoaWxpvoo55nr9t1GZ19_WX_TqXZLOAMuswCGNNyjJzbqBWCLhwcyToqK1pyOEUOO-PmrN__p0GdyIH3p76v86ZR77FHwoI1Aw/ Some scenarios to think about Digital footprints are about how your data describes you - but as we start to game (gamification) with you and how you react, do we loose the purity of the signal? Example.... option 1; your "like" is being bought by the competitions that say "like me and get a free iPad"  - you have been bought option 2; your "like" is earned as you decide that you "like" something for a reason              the original reason " A Facebook Like is supposed to show a user’s approval of a brand, product or piece of content " option 3; Your "like" brings value to you and the community - self interest Experian Hitwise...

A recent HBR paper What's Your Influencing Style? by Chris Musselwhite  president and CEO of  Discovery Learning Inc.  and  Tammie Plouffe  is the managing partner of  Innovative Pathways . In this digital word as we search for influencers - what type is the most effect and what is the signal we are looking for? Effective leadership today relies more than ever on influencing others — impacting their ideas, opinions, and actions.   From their research, they have a list of  five distinct influencing styles: rationalizing, asserting, negotiating, inspiring, and bridging. Rationalizing: Do you use logic, facts, and reasoning to present your ideas? Do you leverage your facts, logic, expertise, and experience to persuade others? Asserting : Do you rely on your personal confidence, rules, law, and authority to influence others? Do you insist that your ideas are heard and considered, even when others disagree? Do you challenge the ideas...

Playing with TweetLevel , a Twitter measurement tool created by  @jonnybentwood  at  Edelman "Even though we believe that it goes a great way to understand and quantify the varying importance of different people's usage of Twitter, by no means whatsoever do we believe we have fully solved the 'influence' problem."

Image source : http://memeburn.com/2011/03/why-data-is-the-new-oil/ There are a lot of trends for 2012 about data being the new gold, oil currency or something other commodity. Even if we ignore the basic economics about physical commodities (they are limited) raw data has some value, moving along the refinement process we know that filtered data has more value, presented data has even more value but data analysis that tells the story and the future has more, but the highest value is that which changes a behaviour.  Assuming that  everyone now has some digital influence  that can create behaviour or attitude change (not just celebrities, academics, policy makers or those who sway public opinion) - will we see in 2012 an influence reward system that will yield wealth and value on those with the most digital social influence or just more about how to score it?

Categorising media as Paid, Owned and Earned isn’t particularly useful. In fact, it simply appears to reinforce increasingly irrelevant functional silos. The Influence View of Content aims to establish something more useful. It’s a perspective that seeks to help influence professionals think about how influence goes around and comes around in line with the Influence Scorecard framework . [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZX9_Skc6Qg] Source : http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2011/11/the-influence-view-of-content-0-1/

Gideon Rosenblatt of Alchemy of Change posted this image a part of a longer thought blog on “Who to focus on.” It is worth reading! One aspect of personal value and model generated from a digital footprint is so that you will know both who matters, who influences you and who you can influence.  

Image from http://www.demographicsonline.com.au/ Why everything you know about demographics is wrong ! ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS: Traditional demos aren't dying, but nobody looks at them in quite the same way. The pitch isn't about reaching X number of males at a certain age with an income of $50-100K, it's about leveraging a passionate community. Without the social lens, demographics -- even if you apply targeting technology -- are just amorphous groups. ----- Personally I find it interesting that with all the data we now have we flip between saying that you are part of this group (classic segmentation and demographics) and you are unique and I can target a sample size of 1.  We are still overlooking the new ways of segmenting: such as Trust and Influence

Online influence measurement is a nascent body of work and tends to focus on identifying "influencers"   Klout who has introduced a new feature they call "+K"   think Google “+1” or Facebook’s “like” button for influence.  At a random guess someone at Klout has realised that any measure of Influence is meaningless without context [what ever that it] but there is a need to establish a link between people, organizations, expertise and subjects. However the output (some determination of Influence) is only as good as the input and the algorithm, which itself needs to determine what is more valuable…. “who influences me or who/ how many do I influence?”   worth reading  From Any to Many: The Collective Influence    http://blog.peoplebrowsr.com/blog/?p=1054

LinkedIn has  launched  the LinkedIn Connection Timeline and provides a way to remember people you used to work with throughout the years and see where they are now – how some have changed. The visualization illustrates “the tip of an iceberg” of structured social data could provide when accessible. The obvious next step is for other social graphs that show the timeline of who I connected to, when and the levels of interaction (rather link XOBNI + Memolane) Is there a model?  Brand, loyalty, discussion, marketing, viral, value – probably!

  This is driven by a thought - is there a flaw in personalisation? Most TV service providers now recognise that there is a need to incorporate recommendation as part of their content discovery mix - according to TV Genius . Depending on the provider, this can be a matter of personalising the video-on-demand store, promoting premium TV channels, or driving viewers to video-on-demand services from within the traditional EPG. All of these solutions have appeal to different demographic groups, but recent research they have conducted shows that a much broader content discovery solution is required.  After all, not every user has the same exact content discovery needs; while some viewers know exactly what they want, others are simply browsing for something new to watch.   So segmentation could look like ..... with each group having very different content discovery behaviours. 1. Socialites: Influenced by friends and family, channel surfing, and web and mobile 2. Progressives:...

Is there a balance between the size of our network and its composition and our view on sharing?  I would argue that we are more likely to share less as the network grows and become more diverse.   When we start .   The original offline world of physically separated “friends and family” Closed circles of friends with you sharing specific information with each group – controlled by you As we move online. The original offline world reflected in a digital world. Closed groups start to cross over by what I say – I start to limit what I say as the same information goes to everyone As we grow. Online F&F become dominant as I add old and new contacts. Become much more careful and thoughtful in what I say leading to a lock down on content and status.

Originally posted at  Social Fresh A follower counts are an indicator of influence but not a very good one. Yes, followers can be and are gamed frequently with the assistance of shady web services. Here are a few more critical Twitter influence indicators: 1. Lists Being included on lists gives us two clues. One: Being included on thousands or more signals that you are visible. Two: The categories people use to classify you tells you something about the topics you have influence in: This is known as “topical influence” and it’s really what counts in influence. 2. Retweets These tell you something about how willing people are to amplify your messages and help them spread. A retweet essentially says “this is something I want my network to see”. It’s Twitter’s version of viral loops. 3. @Replies These signal how much others want to talk to you or intentionally tag you, and also serves as an indicator for how willing you are to engage...

http://www.slideshare.net/oliverpayne Worth 20 minutes of your time if you are in communication and want to use behavioural principles for sustainable development. And if you enjoy that, make sure you follow Dan Ariely – Predictably Irrational Why of interest – as much as this helps you improve your message; it helps me understand influence. [slideshare id=3776632&w=425&h=355&sc=no]