Brands are missing out on opportunities to drive sales through online platforms by not measuring numbers raked in by influencers who consumers trust.
So says Mike Sharman, owner of digital communications agency, Retroviral.
To address this gap in the market, Retroviral collaborated with development house Silver Apple Studios and digital media venture capital fund Stratos Capital to design Webfluential.
"Webfluential has been designed to provide PR [public relations] agencies, brand influencers, advertisers, media buyers and brands on social platforms, including Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Instagram, with a means of quantifying their influence so that they can generate new revenue streams off the media they have created," explains Sharman.
The platform uses a step-by-step procedure to process data from online social platforms and quantifies the numbers, according to Sharman.
In other words, he says, it looks at each individual's reach, resonance and relevance by interpreting the numbers behind their social media interactions. How many people follow individuals who are potential and existing brand influencers on Twitter, for example? How many re-tweets and responses do the individuals get, on average, from tweets relating to a product they endorse?
"The individual can then use these numbers to provide online analytics from their social communication efforts, for clients to use them confidently for brand activations and campaigns," says Sharman.
Murray Legg, co-founder of Stratos Capital, explains that influencers do not pay to be listed on Webfluential, but do need to meet the platform's minimum requirements. This includes a minimum of 1 000 legitimate Twitter followers.
By nurturing relationships with influencers as they emerge and evolve, Legg says, Webfluential will maintain current profiles for each of them, including details of their particular interests and content niches, how many followers or fans they have on the platforms where they publish, and whether they are open to advertising, product reviews, product placements, and invitations to launches and events.
Influencers, he states, are grouped by location, audience, what platform they're influential on, and into verticals such as entertainment, sport, motoring, food, fashion, beauty, etc. Identifying relevant influencers is now a simple process.
He adds that PR agencies subscribe to the Webfluential platform for R5 000, excluding VAT, per annum, which provides users with access to the listing of accredited social influencers relevant to their client campaigns.
"The influencers' rankings are also made available, so consultants can report the true reach and influence of the social communication channels they have selected to their clients," he says.
Sharman notes that consumers are spending an ever-increasing amount of time online in order to study and review their potential purchases, and they gather opinions from their networks of trusted sources before making decisions.
"By measuring and ranking the 'influence' of each influencer on the platform, Webfluential makes it possible for them to earn income from their social communication efforts by connecting them to paying advertisers and marketers, for which the platform in turn claims a small commission," he concludes.
Share