Online influence is one of those terms we use, but do we really believe it matters? And if it does, how do we grow it? In this post I explain why influence should matter to you and I highlight a way to build influence by joining up to a free weekly tracking program with a couple of clicks.
Social media advisor, Jeff Bullas, gives five good reasons why you might need to establish a presence and build your influence online. These are:
- Find a new career
- Grow your existing profession
- Connect with other influencers
- Protect your reputation
- Promote and sell products and services
Now pretty much most of us will find ourselves in at least one of those categories from time to time.
Entrepreneur Stephanie Sammons goes further when she says that building online influence is the path to business success. Success only comes with credibility, and you only build credibility with, you guessed it, influence.
But what is online influence?
Tracking app, Klout, defines it: “Influence is the ability to drive action. When you share something on social media or in real life and people respond, that’s influence.”
So influence is worth having. But how do we know when we’ve got it?
For me, online influence is really measured in how other respond to what you say, write and do. If I post a picture of myself playing tennis in a red baseball cap on Instagram and the next day 10% of my followers do the same, and if one of my followers happens to be Andy Murray, also follows suit, then that’s influence.
Our goal here at Rise, is to help you get better at what you do. So, how can we help you increase your online influence?
Well, one way to do it is to provide a weekly report that tracks your influence, using the best measure of online influence we have, Klout. Now Klout isn’t perfect but it makes a pretty good assessment of our ability to drive actions from others, all based on our digital activity.
That’s why we created the Rise Online Influencer Board – it’s a completely free weekly program for you to join, simply by signing up with your Twitter account. Each week the Online Influencer Rise Board will remind you of your latest Klout score, whether it has gone up or down and help you to compare your Online Influence with others around you.
Of course comparing with the whole world, while somewhat interesting, isn’t as interesting as when you compare directly with your peers.
Take this week’s Rise Research Report – Top 100 Most Influential Tennis Players 2015 tracking the online influence of the world’s top tennis players and comparing them against each other.
Now if you really are Andy Murray, this Rise board is the one to join because it compares your online influence against your peers, people in the same situation as you.
With a Rise paid plan (a “Power 100” leaderboard) you can create your own Top 100 for the peers that matter to you or your organization. That might be comparing everyone in the Marketing team, or comparing different stores in your network. Now the board is yours you can do what you like.
Incidentally, running Power 100 leaderboards also has the net effect of increasing your online influence, as others in your community are leaderboarded to focus on the tasks that you decide matter.
And so we return to our original question, why you need to grow your online influence?
Increasingly our business lives are conducted online, so it’s important that you stand out with a credible presence, an engaged community of peers around you and deep influence in a specific area.
Focusing on building your online influence with Klout as your KPI and the Rise Online Influencer board as your weekly coach, might just be the way to go.
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