1. Can English
Problems Be
Solved With Math?
It is apparent that the Social Media space is as wild as the untamed American west
of the early 18th century. People of prominence are doing their very best to define
services, new situations, and make linear attempts to objectify the newest
phenomenon of social interests and activities. Brian Solis has done much in
offering up terms that help the newly introduced be able to digest the flurry of
activity and myriad of new services on the social scene.
SocialMatica has a challenge on their hands. In defining what we do, we have two
choices. We can create a better mouse trap, or we can invent a new game where
people play by our rules. The real difficulty is becoming one with the community
by examining the problem long enough to be able to have the credibility of
declaring a solution.
What are Influencers:
• A person who or a thing which influences
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/influencer
• In b-to-b, a person who has a say in the decision-making process but does
not have the final purchasing power.
multichannelmerchant.com/crosschannel/marketing/crosschannel_marketing
_glossary/

2. • A person in a business who has an effect on buying decisions and helps the
purchasing manager decide which products to buy.
www.glencoe.com/sec/busadmin/marketing/dp/mktg_mgmt/gloss.shtml
• The individual(s) who will influence(s) the decision but may not necessarily
use the product
www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-1552100037.html
• individuals who affect purchasing decisions, usually the ones that have
conducted research on specifications and pricing
www.cecausa.com/general_marketing_glossary.htm
The fact is, none of these terms adequately define who an influencer is on the
internet because if we simply used them finding an influencer within social
networks would be simple. Our experience shows there are vast quantities of
algorithms, foe vs friend models and other mathematical equations that try to
quantify who this person really is. For the most part, they fail. How can I say that?
Well, in any system that attempts to mathematically produce a result, in order for
those results to be trusted, peer review must be conducted. We need independent
analysis so that we can see what results are being omitted in the process. We know
from experience that even an refined system generates a certain level of noise. The
trick is to tune it so that you have a satisfactory signal to noise ratio. For instance;
if I did a test that told you I could find all the smokers in a given town using an
iPhone app, but I had to manually omit 400,000 results that appeared in my list
who are not smokers and only showed you the rest who were…you’d think my tool
wasn’t so handy. And you’d be right. A real thinking person would wonder what
did I add to the system by way of human intelligence to remove the 400,000 that
cannot not be programmatically added?
This leads us to the problem. Influencer identification can be formulaic, but a
person must consider context and implied thought, or presuppositions. This means
in order to understand someone’s influence, we must know why the come to a
particular site. While there are many peculiarities, we think common rules can

3. explain “the rule” and we can except, “the exceptions”. Now understand, we’re just
examining the problem here folks…the fix is in the sauce.
Lets begin with the rudiments of how influence can be measured.
• Someone must post something on the web
• Someone must have an identifiable persona (in other words, anonymous
posters cannot be trusted)
• Someone must have an identity that is consistent enough within a
community to create relationships
• Someone must have a disposition to the thing about which they are posting,
ambivalence is not possible
How can I say that? Consider the time and effort commenting on something takes?
Even the least learned, disengaged commenter must pass hurdles in order to
comment. If they comment we know a couple of things;
• They reacted
• They were engaged enough to take an extra step
• They may or may not care about the influence they are creating
• In the case that they do care, they definitely creating influence
So, now we know that a person coming to www.cakewalk.com has a vested
interest in the things that go on in Cakewalk.com. Building an identity around that
persons comments becomes essential to interpreting their influence. We can reach
an understanding of their implied presuppositions based on the following general
rules.
• They come to the site so they are interested in it
• They have a desire to participate (because they do)
• They are seeking knowledge, to gain or to give
• They are seeking opportunities, to create, to review, or ingest

4. So, practically, I have a subject. His name is Dr. Keaf Saddress. He is a user
on slickdeals.net. I know these things about him already before I ever start my
Influencer identification engine;
• He believes this site has something to offer him
• If he posts something, he believes what he says is important enough to share
• He creates some level of influence by merely participating
• He does care about influencing people, because he participates.
This is simple enough to think through, but how do you translate this to a metric
that can be easily understood? Again, we’re defining the problem; what do you
think that we’ve missed here?
Posted in: Influencer Formula