With social influence playing such an important role in who is determined to be an expert on any given topic, Social Media Action Camp would not have been complete without an expert panel of social influence professionals.
Michelle Ross of the Brand Partnerships Team at Klout spoke to attendees a bit about what it takes to produce the Klout score itself. Much of Klout’s employee-base, around 
85% is dedicated solely to the development and management of the intricate algorithm that helps to determine a user’s score. Michelle mentions too that Klout is in actuality, sponsoring brands who are looking for the more ‘everyday’ type of user when it comes to directing Perks and marketing efforts.
“Brands are so excited and hungry to connect with influencers who are not the traditional famous blogger, journal, or celebrity. “
Ben Farkas is the U.S. Director for Synthesio, a global social media monitoring service that was founded in Paris in 2006. Ben shared that their U.S. office having just recently opened may be one of the reasons why they aren’t a more easily recognizable name in the States, but that they are likely soon to be. Ben shared that what Synthesio has a focus on is in leveraging the wealth of data available on social networks.
With such big names to represent such as Microsoft, Toyota, and Nike, there is no doubt that Synthesio has been tried and tested when it comes to how to monitor all forms of media channels. Everything from forums, blogs, Facebook, and basic mentions are monitored in real-time to help the ad agencies to continue to fuel their entire organizations. Ben shares his thoughts on what social media really is becoming to many businesses.
“Social media is the DNA of the organization, of any organization, that’s what it is becoming.”
It is also fairly cool to know that as one of the official sponsors of #SMWsmac, Synthesio was actually tracking our hashtag and the social influence of our event and will provide us with some of the analytics for the event in a couple weeks.
Anthony Napolitano, Director of Sales at StumbleUpon, shares that StumbleUpon’s service answers two questions. One for consumers and one for advertisers. The one for consumers is in supplying a collaborative format for sharing all of the content from the web. As businesses of all types produce blog articles, images, and other forms of content, they are sent out to all of the different distribution channels such as social media networks. However, how can one individual possibly consume all of the content relevant to their own industries or interests?
Quite simply, there isn’t enough time. StumbleUpon allows its users to aggregate all of the best content for their personalized needs. StumbleUpon is not indexing web content, but letting users do that for them. So while hitting the Stumble button means that you may not know what you are about to see, you will know that it will be something incredibly relevant to your own interests. StumbleUpon can be highly beneficial for those content creators as well. While many tend to rely on the same resources for their industry news, using StumbleUpon can help introduce users to other options for relevant and reputable content beyond what they have already become familiar with.
If you would like to watch the full panel, head to the livestream video for the social influence #SMWSMAC panel.
Author:
Joy Lynskey is the owner of JRL Solutions, a copywriting and content management company based in Bedford, Virginia. JRL Solutions hosts a Freelance Writers Education Blog that is managed by direct and guest posting. Joy is the Content Manager and Editor for Puglisi Consulting Group at Digital Brand Marketing Education. Joy regularly works in SMM via freelance consulting private clients with their social media campaigns.
Sources:
Thanks Joy for this post and the video of the panel. I did not get to see it livestream during #SMWsmac.