SocMetrics Identifies, Ranks & Tracks Social Media Influencers In Topic Niches

Yesterday I took a web tour of SocMetrics, a new service still in beta  that ranks social media influencers, from celebrities to bloggers, and offers multiple tools for identifying which ones are most suited to marketing outreach. It also allows you to track what influencers are saying about particular topics, including your brand, which makes it useful for crisis management as well.  SocMetrics is definitely worth a look for music marketers who need to sort out large numbers of influencers in particular categories.

Influencer Profile for Nelly Furtado

SocMetrics' key focus is listing and ranking social media influencers in particular topics or niches. I took a look at their list of Music influencers which is said to include around 10,000 listings from celebrities like Eminem to music industry pundits. Influencers are ranked within their topic areas which is one point of differentiation from such services as Klout which offers an overall ranking.

Topical influence is based on three factors:

• Their relationship to peers in the same niche.
• The focus of their following on that niche.
• Their ability to drive action such as shares of relevant content.

After identifying influencers, you can create your own list of individuals from one or more topics and then choose appropriate methods of outreach while monitoring reactions to your efforts with real-time search.

One feature which recently got quite a bit of attention is the ability to check out attendance at upcoming events and to identify influencers attending. This feature was used for the SXSW 2011 Influencers Guide which focused on folks attending tech related parties.

I think SocMetrics would also be useful when music marketers need to identify folks outside of music circles, for example, when an artist is launching a clothing line or partnering with a tech company. While music publicists often build deep lists of immediately relevant influencers, having to start all over again in other fields can be quite challenging and SocMetrics would be especially helpful in such instances.

Pricing varies with monthly subscriptions starting in the low hundreds for individuals and working their way up to the thousands for larger firms. If you want to check it out, you can do so by signing up for the beta on the SocMetrics homepage.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance: World Dance News is his primary web project.