This blog will focus on developing my ability to academically analyse a source. I have chosen to read and study a chapter on ‘Mapping and Leveraging Influencers in social Media to shape Corporate Brand Perceptions’ from the textbook ‘Corporate Communications: An International Journal’. I chose this article to focus on as with my Mathematical background I believe I may have the appropriate skills to understand this type of writing.

What do you get from the Abstract?

This abstract has helpfully been split into manageable chunks: Purpose, Design/Methodology/Approach, Findings and Originality/Value.

There are a lot of new types of influencers being viewed and listened to today over a range of social media that previously, were not seen, heard or used. This new ‘community is wielding significant power over the perceptions of brands and companies’.

Booth and Matic (2011) plan to identify these new influencers by means of a ‘customizable/index valuation algorithm‘. This basically means a computer uses a set of rules to problem solve operations, in this case using a ‘cross-section of variables that numerically rate influencers in the social media conversation‘.

Findings lead to understanding and new strategies for a ‘comprehensive social media approach for optimizing brand equity’. The index includes rating subject and tone, and how to identify this.

Deepening the Understanding from the Article

These new influencers come in the form of the ordinary consumer gaining a voice through the power of the internet connecting people with a common interest. This takes control away from corporations trying to manage their brand reputations. Companies can’t just make a presence on Facebook or Twitter and expect that to give them control again. Even using digital marketing agencies to improve campaigns and advertising, web designs and software developments, SEO and introducing new channels still may not be enough. What really makes the difference is the ‘quality of the relationship between the firm and the consumer’.

There has been a monumental increase in Americans using social media and viewing video content in the past 5 years. This means that consumers are sharing among themselves personal and second-hand stories, and reaching more people than ever before. Companies need to recognise who these people are that are being listened to, and then they need to leverage and cultivate them. A firm’s awareness and understanding of content shared about them means that they can target the ‘unhappy consumers’ and turn them into ‘brand advocates’ by acting on their issues. The goal is to engage in conversations with your consumers to improve relations. You can’t control what anyone says to you, but you can be strong at influencing the conversation.

How to find these Influencers

This is where the valuation algorithm comes in. After the influencer has been found and you’ve decided to engage with them, the communication objectives must be defined to map out the potential digital conversation. Part of the algorithm measures the number and type of connections a blogger can reach, the subject and tone of their content, as well as key conversation points that ‘guide engagement’. This uses quantitative (numerical) and qualitative (text analysis) data to determine ranks.

Variables include…

• Viewers per month. 10%
• Linkages. 15%
• Post frequency rate. 5%
  
• Media citation score. 15%
  
• Industry score. 10%
• Social aggregator rate. 10%
• Relevant topic post rate. 5%
• Conversation index. 20%
• Qualitative subject/topic‐related posts. 10%
• And finally the actual Index score. 100%

The Index score gives a weighted average that can be directly compared between bloggers etc. When ranking the qualitative data a scale of 1-5 measures from poor to excellent. These variables covers research across social media, manual identification and blogger authority vendors.

Once the strongest influencers have been identified, maybe overall or in one specific variable, companies can then approach them to support a product launch for example or address any complaints directly to change the bloggers expressed opinions.

Categorizing

High value influencers can now be categorized into tiers, from most readers to least.

“Tier A blogs … writing tends to be more news oriented. … Frequently, (they) have a team of contributors, accept advertisements, treat their topics in a broad context and provide the opportunity for expanded content”.

“Tier B blogs … tend to be more focused on a particular topic, providing insight and (unique) information. Writers are considered passionate authorities by their readers. … often on the verge of recognition, searching for ways to monetize their popularity”.

“Tier C blogs … can be the most influential outlets due to their extremely targeted subject matter. …Enthusiasts searching for the story or scoop to propel them out of obscurity…, they write as passionate experts … provides candid, detailed product reviews, and serve as op‐eds and forums for thoughtful discussion”.

Brand campaigns now need a strategy to approach these different tiers. ‘Using a consumer-to-consumer process as a step-by-step strategy’ can optimize blogger outreach. This include four steps; Setting objectives and strategies, Searching and analysing, Engaging and Socialising, And Reporting and refining. This last step is crucial to maintaining the most effective strategies to use in the future.

Conclusion

Using the algorithm to find your brand’s key influencers allows you to engage one-to-one and have a bigger impact on the relationship than previous methods. However, this communication needs to be almost immediate to keep up with the instant changes and growth of bloggers and their power. The customizations are really important in terms of analysing for relevant topics at certain times, dissecting the information out there.

 

 

Analysing my Analysis

I have compacted the article into around 900 words instead of 2300. Which is a start, but still way off from an analytical  summary!! I think that my Dyslexia plays a role in this as I have always find it hard to cut out information I feel is important, expecially if I have to summarise in a time limit. My targets for future analysing include a word limit of 500 at maximum, improving how I highlight key information and relating my findings to a real world application.

 

References:

Norman Booth, Julie Ann Matic, (2011) “Mapping and leveraging influencers in social media to shape corporate brand perceptions”, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 16 Iss: 3, pp.184 – 191

URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/13563281111156853#