A lot of people continue to talk about Klout and whether it’s something to take note of, or simply another tool that’s fun to use but doesn’t offer real value. Personally, I’m in the second camp. Probably because I don’t feel you can measure influence purely by what you do online, and most definitely because there are so many variations that make up a single decision that – to me – it’s impossible to say what influenced that decision the…

You may be aware that there is a big debate going on in the social media blogosphere about “influence” (and you can see links to several blog posts at the end of this one for examples of these discussions). How we need to leverage influencers in our communities in order to get the word out about our causes, brands or services, etc. And that makes total sense from a generating-word-of-mouth point of view. But hold on. If you’re trying to…

I just read something by a friend that’s both interesting and sad at the same time (and sad as in lame, not as in Bambi). My friend mentioned that he was speaking to a well-known PR guy and author a few months back. The topic of the conversation was a site for bloggers and authors that my friend works at. According to the PR guy, the site would never be much of a success because he (the PR guy and…

People talk about influence – what it is, how to get it, how influence is guided by numbers and how to attract the attention of influencers for promotional needs. Folks like my good friend Sue put influence into perspective, while smart folks like Valeria also question how influence is measured. There’s no doubt that influence is a constant hot potato. But sometimes, influence comes from the strangest of places. Sometimes influence comes from folks we might never look twice at. Sometimes influence…