Influencers That Matter

There has been a lot of discussion lately about measuring influence online, and influence scores from services like Klout, PeerIndex and others.

One recent book, Return On Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing (Zowee, what a title!) provides details on how influence may be leveraged effectively by marketers, “this eye-opening, action-ready guide shows you how to reach the superconnectors who ignite epidemics through word-of-mouth influence . . . and become one yourself”

But many others are questioning what these influence scores mean, and argue that they: actually measure popularity, rather than influence; have murky algorithms; and often lack proper context.…