I attended a Bloom event last night, which featured a talk by Mark Schaefer, author of Return On Influence, followed by a panel debate. Return On Influence is a recent title, focusing on the phenomenon of ‘citizen influencers’, as Schaefer calls them, effectively you and I with a large social following online. This is nothing new, but his book is causing controversy due to the high stock it places on social ranking services, in particular Klout. 

Klout features so heavily in Schaefer’s talk (and one must presume, his book) that you would think he was part of the company. He readily admits that the technology is not perfect, the scores can be ‘gamed’ and that influence is a contextual notion, but then goes on to use it as the basis for decision making in social influence regardless. His point seems to be that these scoring methods are here to stay and will get better, so we might as well get embrace them. But that refuses to consider the other option – that social scoring is inherently flawed, an algorithm simply cannot do it, and, like the amount of ‘friends’ you had on MySpace, it could die a death as a redundant metric.

He is, however, an engaging speaker and produces moments of genuine entertainment. He’s also incredibly passionate and you sense he genuinely believes in what he says. He sites some examples of individuals, ‘like you and me’, who tweet 200 times a day and have 80,000 followers and a Klout score of 80. Brands send these people free stuff like gadgets and plane tickets, evidence of their ‘return on influence’. But I’m not sure. Yes, there are some people benefiting in this way, but by definition we can’t all have this kind of influence and I’d say this phenomenon is still the exception rather than the rule. 

This is enough to produce a decent following debate, with Giles Palmer of Brandwatch in particular making some excellent points. The question of influence within context gets the best responses, with Palmer showing admirable honesty in admitting that monitoring tools simply cannot be the final judge on whether someone is influential or not. A score can tell whether someone has a lot of twitter followers and whether those followers are engaged or not, but it cannot tell if their blog is well or poorly written, or if their ideas are innovative and interesting. 

Another question is raised around the integrity of social influence if companies are effectively ‘buying’ positive reviews, tweets, etc using bribes of free stuff. It is felt by the panel that this tends to be ‘self regulating’, that the blogging world is so transparent and, dare I say, cynical, companies which are too overt will be outed quickly. Having seen how quickly opprobrium against ‘big corporations’ can flare up on the social web I’m inclined to agree.

The final question deals with the ‘froth and the coffee in the Cappuccino’ as the questioner elegantly puts it, essentially, the chatter and noise in social media, and genuine conversations. Emma Thwaites a reputation management and public communications specialist makes the point about breadth vs. depth of influence: that you can have many people talking about something without it really ‘cutting through’ and shifting opinions. Likewise, she uses the example of the London riots to demonstrate how only a handful of people with ‘depth’ of influence can make a huge, real-world difference. It’s a great point and once again highlights deficiencies in the social scoring approach. Justin Bieber’s Klout score of 100 demonstrates his huge breadth of influence, but he has a very narrow depth of influence – you wouldn’t take his advice on which mountain bike to buy, or laptop, or where the best skiing resorts are.

All in all it’s a fascinating session that will be sure to polarise opinions and get people talking. However you feel perhaps the most troubling question of the night is not dealt with. Why is Schaefer, such an advocate of citizen influence through new, digital channels releasing a traditional old book? Is it a tacit admission that, in order to really influence people, to have genuine legitimacy, you need to do something ‘official’ like get published? In fact, Schaefer’s whole rise to prominence defies his central premise – it was only after his blog was picked up by established, heavily financed influencers like the New York Times and Daily Mail that he started to build an audience. Clearly, whilst the age of the citizen influencer is upon us, the good old tried and tested methods of curated, trained and legitimised journalism and celebrity are a long way off being replaced.

Thanks to all at Bloom and sponsors Brandwatch for a great evening.

@Brandwatch
@markwschaefer
@BLOOMWorldwide