We should add “voodoo” as a product/service feature. Best voodoo wins, what they win is another matter…

However, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Influence can be measured. You need a balance of outputs (eg reach, frequency) and inputs (eg expertise, independence). You need a good understanding of the decision process that you’re trying to influence. And you need a process for uncovering influence where it exists. The reason that people don’t know who influences them is that there are too many influences for them to recall. A more complex research approach is required.

Finally, the impact of social media is overstated. Certainly, people are as likely to be influenced in the ‘real’ world as they are in the online world, and one is not a proxy for the other. This is particularly true in B2B markets.

Influence is an abstract concept, but can and should be measured by identifying its constituent elements. Just because it’s hard to do doesn’t meant we shouldn’t try.

Good luck with the book.

I’ve been following you for a while on The Customer Collective, and am surprised by this post.

To me, you are essentially saying that social media influence measurement efforts should end with outputs. No outtakes, no outcomes.

It comes across to me as more of an advertising measurement conversation. In short, it seems more like a lead-up to AVE (advertising value equivalent) than a lead-up to measuring an individual’s influence.

The simple social media statistics — audience reach, social graphs, etc. — aren’t the end goal. They’re just part of the equation that helps you figure out how influential a person is and with whom and about what.

You can’t give up on going from the simple stats to the big picture.