Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Millions of updates are shared on social media every day and years worth of content is spread along with it. When we log in to Twitter we are greeted with “What’s happening?” On Facebook it’s with “What’s going on?” Social media demands content from us and is driven by user-generated content, but it adds a lot of noise across the social media channels we are using and on the social web.

Some organisations sport hundreds of followers and unique visitors to their blog every month while others have thousands of followers and generate so much more unique traffic. Which one has more influence? Of course you will think that the organization with a larger audience has more influence, and in some cases, you might be correct. But, digital influence goes so much further than the number of people following you or the traffic you are generating to your blog....

The sheer wealth of social media monitoring tools available is matched only by the richness of practical uses that they afford users. Considering this, I thought it would be useful to list some of the key ways you can get the most out of your monitoring tool, starting with identifying influencers. 

...You need to be looking at both relevancy to your search AND the metrics that help determine influence. Your approach may value one process over the other, but the essential part is that you undergo both of them in order to find a suitable list of influencers.

This is just one of a series on the most effective ways to use a monitoring tool, so stick around for more insight. 

...According to Neilson Global trust survey back in 2009, only 14% of people trust ads while 78% of people trust consumers’ recommendations.

While the number may change today, the concept of consumers trusting their friends’ recommendations remains the same.

Recently, I wanted to watch a movie and I couldn’t decide if I should watch Wreck it Ralph or Rise of the Guardians, so I asked my editor Henry for his opinion, and he recommended me to watch Wrect it Ralph. I went with his suggestion and I didn’t regret it. But guess who just lost one customer here because somebody I trust pointed me the other way? 

The big question is how do you find these influencers or brand advocates? There are a couple of tools out there that can help you with that....