Your Friends Suck

Influence, Social Judgement, Social Media

We often talk about social networks operating in a bi- or multi-directional way. The conversations flow from one point to another and ever-onwards.

But the same can be said of reputation.The same can be said of “influence”. After all, the people that we associate with – the people that we know and that we trust impact the way that other people see us. And those people also influence us.

Here, for example, is my Klout “influence matrix”. Now, I don’t think Klout is the be-all and end-all of measurement by any stretch of the imagination, but it provides us a glimpse into the world of mass-digital-data that sits just below the so-called level playing field of the social web.

klouter

What this shows, is at this point in time, indications are that I am influenced by David Armano, Mack Collier, Craig Wilson, Heather Snodgrass and Mark Pollard. But the same can be said of those who I, in turn, “influence”: Kate Kendall, Rob Campbell, Jye Smith, Trent Collins and Matt Moore.

Now, I am quite happy to write about these smart folks because at some level, they reflect well on me. They are smart, focused, professional people. But I would not have included their names, links and pictures in this post if I did not respect them. It is precisely because we can now see your visible networks, that we are able to make an assessment of what YOU are like, how professional YOU are and how likely YOU are to work well in a business context. And this is not just about HR or marketing. It impacts every aspect of your business. It impacts every relationship.

So now you really need to ask yourself – do your friends suck? And just what are you going to do about it?

7 thoughts on “Your Friends Suck”

  2. Thanks Gav! Looks like my Klout’s dropped of late – goodbye 60s. I am also apparently influenced by silkcharm, zacmartin, trevoryoung and mashable. I need to do some sorting or following management though, as I unfortunately don’t get to read individual’s ongoing tweets as much as I’d like in the stream. Anyway, I think Klout’s a promising service and I was fortunate enough to meet the team last year in San Francisco to find out how they’re going. Interesting stuff in the pipeline…

  3. Apart from the fact that I am very much influenced by you, Klout is more about ego than influence. It’s a bit like horoscopes, when they say something positive about your day you believe them and when they don’t, they’re rubbish.
    It has a place in terms of general perspectives, but if people read more into it than that, it’s a worry. Possibly.

  4. And get this, I’m classed as a specialist. The bloody irony after my circus rant about the need for generalists!

  6. I quite like Klout, and it certainly gives us some common vocabulary, but as Rob says below, Klout’s more about ego. It’s useful but is just one tool in our Felix-the-cat bag of tricks.

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