Hi Ben! I just circled you back (I think it was you, let me know if I circled the wrong Ben). You know, we're *all* newbs. There is no end all, be all expert on any of this stuff. All we can due is try our best, learn from mistakes and share our lessons. Sounds like you've got a really healthy approach to this. Your company is lucky to have someone so aware at the helm of this. Good luck!

Thanks Andrew, appreciate it. We'll see if Dave invites me back to guest post! I'd love another chance to hang out with his community. I did just launch a new blog over on Forbes so I'll continue babbling over there in the meantime. :)

I haven't tried Appinions. I'll check that out. I thought about going as the Quaker Oat Guy but, try as I might, I can't find the right hat.

Thanks Karly. What do you mean, you have to post your Klout scores? As an exercise or as a measure of success?

Thanks for sharing this, I'll take a gander.

Ooh, I hadn't seen that, but I think you just gave me an idea for my first Forbes post this week. I appreciate you stopping by and also for sharing the "influence mix" you use. This is definitely a learn as you go type of experience, so these suggestions are helpful.

Wow. I'm going to see if I can fit this comment on a t-shirt. ;-) I'm glad the thoughts were helpful. My goal wasn't to change the state, but to give people a different perspective to consider. Glad that worked! Now, I'm off to Klout to give you a +K in oatmeal. Thanks for coming by the post, Chris.

Hi Matt, great quote: "The issue is not the social influence tools, it's lazy marketers." I think that could be used interchangeably with all kinds of tools that get a bad rap. However, I think the point you made is similar to the one that Marcus made above - he suggests using these in conjunction with Radian6 or a similar tool. If anything, these are used to help narrow down a list or focus a list, but should not be the end all, be all of determining an influencer. To your point, I also agree that a more focused influencer list might be more helpful and that's also why I am curious about Kred. If Klout were able to do more with topical influence and cut out some of the "popularity noise" it would be much more effective.

You know, I wish I had included that in the post. I like the idea of using this in conjunction with R6 or Rowfeeder or another good analytics tool. As a matter of fact, it'll only be a matter of time before they are integrating anyway.

Love it!

Matt, I liken it to the same way you have to show ROI as part of a PR program. Sorry, I always go back to PR since that's my wheelhouse. At its core, PR is intangible. You can't connect one article to one sale, etc., the metrics are far too ambiguous. But, you can determine if there's a relation in the type / amount of coverage to new leads coming in the pipe, and from where, and you can also use PR to help push leads further down the funnel. Social is similar to that. I agree that it's not a science but there has to be some relation there. Now, if you went to 10 of your son's games and you were able to close a deal at 4 of the 10 games, that would give you some sort of metric. Again, not scientific but it would help you point to a trend that you'd want to replicate for further success.

Exactly!

Very interesting, thanks Shawn.

Hi Anne - Thanks for the feedback. I like that you added to this discussion on how you personally use Klout for managing your own influence. This is smart, and perfect example of how topical influence is critical, and how focusing in on an audience rather than trying to be "master influencer" is the right way to go.

Thanks Dan, glad it was helpful!

You're welcome! And, actually, I do believe that's how the Oatmeal thing happened. I was tweeted a few comics and they received some retweets. It just goes to show how much contextual work these influence measurement tools have to do. :)

Thanks so much for sharing this!

I love what you said here in your closing: "Ultimately, if doesn't matter what Klout and platforms like it are measuring. If they come to be perceived as a measure of influence, then that's what they are." I think this is a really good perspective on social influence, and I look forward to checking out the report on pharama influenve in more detail and look forward to future conversations around it. Oh, as for managing our own influence topics, I know this, but I found it far too funny not to share. I guess there are two different approaches, right? Reviewing influencers as a business, and caring about managing your own influence score. I seem to fail on the latter. :)

Hi Shawn - Thanks for taking the time to reply. I think what you're doing is good, and I'm glad to know that you're going beyond bios and even hashtags and such. Question - how do you know which hashtags are valuable versus which are trash? For instance, if I post something silly I might use a hashtag #sonotserious to try and be funny (operative word "try"). How do you weed that all out? Very curious.