Measuring the Networked Nonprofit

Curated by Beth Kanter

http://www.bethkanter.org

Influences means a couple of different things.  You can measure other people's influence - as part of identifying champions or super fans or you can measure your own influence or organization's as part of a goal to have "thought leadership." 

This is a vanity metric - and there are several tools you can use to measure it.  This Infographic shows some of them.

Most important bit is the how to:

If you are really interested in taking advantage of your social influence score, it’s not enough checking your level every now and then. You’ll have to act.

What follows are the steps to develop a successful action plan according to Brian Solis (new media analyst at The Altimer Group) :

Track performances against current benchmarks that capture existing sentiments, behaviours and awareness.

Define who is your target audience.

Develop the strategy. You’ll find here the difference with the classic social media campaigns: you’ll have to take into account both your community and all your community’s followers. Find out what does matter to them and use that info in your daily content.
Determine who are your most influential followers and use them in order to improve your social media campaign. If they are engaged, they will help you with no doubt. This is the time to use the digital social influence tools.
Launch the campaign: do not forget these kind of activities take place in real time. Key influencers’ behaviours are totally unexpected. That is the reason the next step is crucial.
Measure constantly. Monitor everything every day of the campaign and modify the strategy when needed.