Introduction: How to measure social influence
Setting out on an expedition to fully utilize the power of influence marketing to answer some very common questions like how to measure social influence, how to quantify social influence, or how to access social influence. We explore the art and science of gauging influence marketing in this blog.
Come along as we explore the world of digital influence marketing, from interpreting engagement metrics to comprehending the power of influencers on your business, and discover practical methods for measuring and enhancing your social presence. Whether you’re a social media enthusiast, marketer, or company owner, learn the insights that will enable you to measure and improve your influence marketing.
So today we will explore the four-dimensional system for quantifying social influence by Edelman. Understanding of this system will help us with accessing social but also help us choose a social media influencer for our upcoming campaign.
How to choose a social media influencer?
Define your target audience, and evaluate content quality, engagement rates, and alignment of values. Consider authenticity, and past collaborations, and ensure their audience matches your demographic.
RARA framework
The field of influencer marketing and engagement is expanding and getting more sophisticated day after day. A strong framework is required to evaluate and, ideally, quantify an individual’s influence.
The RARA approach, which divides influence into four dimensions- Relevance, Authority, Reach, and Accessibility- allows us to do this. When combined, these factors enable a comprehensive, data-driven, and quantitative approach to our marketing initiatives.
Why do you need a framework to choose an influencer for your campaign?
Influence is multifaceted. However, a lot of people in the marketing and communication fields still seem to mistake influence for reach. According to this reasoning, a person must be twice as influential as a person with one million followers if they have two million.
Undoubtedly, influencer compensation is correlated with total followers- a correlation that has received fair criticism. But you very well know there is more than just reach.
There are three more things. Combined with reach these are the four aspects of influence and they are Authority, Reach, Relevance, and Accessibility.
When combined, these elements create a comprehensive model of social influence in both online and offline contexts.
You need to take into account each factor when choosing influencers, combining them to create a composite evaluation of an influencer’s suitability for a specific brand or campaign.
1. Relevance
In order to determine the relevance you will need to answer a few questions such as:
- Does the person already speak, distribute, present, and circulate content that is intrinsically consistent with the brand’s core values?
- Does the target audience find their message compelling?
- Does it relate to the current project or marketing campaign?
- Would the influencer’s video or post’s closing frame be a suitable place for the brand’s logo to appear naturally?
- Think about their persona: does it align with the identity of the brand and the target audience? Using psychometric profiling technology makes for a very accurate and unbiased analysis in this field.
Each of these elements has an impact on the individual’s relevance score. Do the values of the influencer and the brand overlap? Are they appropriate?
2. Authority
How much can you trust that this person is knowledgeable about a particular subject? Do they have conversations or relationships in the media and professional community that position them as an authority in the field in question?
Is there a substantial amount of work experience associated with their name? Do people generally view them as the experts on the matter? All of these factors work together to increase their Authority score.
3. Reach
It is more than just the total number of followers; that is only the number of people who have chosen to “subscribe” over their lifetime. You have the technological capacity to go farther. What is the number of people who are actively watching, reading, or listening right now?
Most importantly, do these people fit the profile of our target audience? We can identify this with amazing accuracy by using sophisticated tools for demographic analysis.
Surprisingly, this is the least important of the four dimensions because reach can be acquired more successfully by making well-targeted paid advertising investments. How involved is this person with the particular audience that we are trying to reach?
4. Accessibility
To what extent is this person willing to work with the brand? This depends on the influencer’s reputation as well as how they feel about the brand. Their Accessibility score can be affected and decreased by several factors, including extreme popularity that results in bookings months in advance, demanding high fees, displaying ardent loyalty to a competing brand, or being constrained by professional constraints that limit their freedom of expression.
The RARA system
When you work with influencers embracing the RARA system will allow you to get extremely focused and accurate influencer recommendations.
The capacity to quantify every aspect of influence is extremely helpful. This may be a time-consuming process as every one may not have a system or data for each dimension. But once you have the data you can you can get the quantifiable score for each influencer across the four dimensions that range from 0 to 100.
Relevance can be carefully assessed by using entity-defining KPIs, keyword matching, and a wide range of different sources.
Authority can measured by social media engagement metrics, contextual search rankings, and other relevant indicators.
Reach is a well-researched dimension in which you can precisely identify the target audience for each influencer based on their engagement timing and the particular demographic that they appeal to.
Finally, accessibility, can be measured based on the location of influencers, their current brand affiliations, and their expected fees.
Although the specifics look very easy there can be challenges as there are many other factors such as language, geographical, and limited data for offline. Still, this suggests that influence can be efficiently mapped to provide a thorough understanding of its dynamics once it has been quantified.
If you can quantify anything then even mapping them becomes easy which can immediately answer the question that you are struggling with ie; how to measure social influence. Mentioned below is an example for your reference:
Quantified influence
Now don’t focus too much on the word ‘quantified influence’ the whole idea of the concept or map is to make you understand the landscape of influence will looking around a particular topic or brand.
The system easily adjusts to everyone, regardless of their background in politics or journalism, video game streaming, or pet ownership.
Here in the map horizontal axis is a measurement of brand relevance. A greater degree of alignment with the goals of the company campaign is indicated by a drift further to the right.
Topic authority is measured on the vertical axis in the meantime. A higher score denotes a greater degree of confidence in the person’s capacity to handle the complexities of the communication problem.
The sizes of the bubbles indicate reach; larger bubbles indicate a more engaged and widespread audience.
At last, each bubble’s color represents accessibility. Darker colors indicate a shared commitment to maintaining the integrity of the brand and a greater willingness to work with it.
Contextual influence
Contextualization is inherent in this framework. The specific topic and campaign that these scores are applied to affect how each person is scored varies.
For example, relevance depends on the particular brand and communication theme. An influencer may fit in perfectly with one brand but not with another.
Similar to authority, it depends on the subject matter. I might believe Technical Guruji when it comes to gadgets advice, but he might not be able to recommend finance.
One variable related to the target audience is reach. The reach of an influencer with ten million teenage girl followers might be restricted if, for example, the brand associate is an IT security company.
In turn, accessibility depends on the type of brand alliance. An influencer might be more open to working with a tech company than a mining company, but they might be less interested in doing so.
Although providing aggregate scores for individuals may not be feasible, the technique is excellent in accurately assessing a person’s fit for a particular brand collaboration. This method offers a strong and definitive way to find the best candidates for a particular communications goal.
The associated risk with influencer marketing
No framework is 100% risk-proof, there can be even a 0.0001% possibility of failure and the same is true with the RARA 4-dimensional framework that is used to answer the question of how to measure social influence.
Influencer marketing comes with risks that should be understood and minimized.
- Firstly potential risk to one’s reputation is collaborating with unsuitable individuals. Companies need to do their research and make sure the influencer isn’t involved in anything or part of some trends that could damage their brand.
- Second, it’s advisable to have a crisis communication plan in place that details what to do in the event of a scandal during the campaign.
Conclusion
Now that you are familiar with the RARA system for how to measure social influence, you can measure social influence and use this knowledge to make better decisions when selecting the ideal influencer for your marketing campaigns. By breaking influence down into its four components, you can more thoroughly distinguish and analyze each one.
Furthermore, our data-driven methodology and proprietary algorithms allow us to successfully and reliably quantify influence. This makes it possible to compare influencers objectively and across different platforms or locations, which makes it easier to make wise partnership and budgetary decisions.
Are you prepared to use your social influence to its fullest? Together, let’s design a customized strategy that easily fits your objectives. Get in touch right now to find out how digital marketing services can boost your social media presence and produce noticeable outcomes.