As a follow-up from the release of the Digital Power Index by Newsweek/The Daily Beast, we’d like to provide some additional details on the digital influence scores we provided for the 100 individuals profiled in the feature. Newsweek’s excellent Methodology section covers the basics; this post will dive into the details.
To begin, here are few things to keep in mind regarding our Influence scores:
- The Influence scores we provide are always Contextual. This means we don’t provide “popularity” metrics. Our scores are always tied back to a context, such as: “Remodeling”, “Mountain Biking”, “Egyptian Revolution”, “SOPA”, etc.
- We calculate Contextual Influence scores for a particular search by looking at each individual’s Reach, Relevance, and Impact with regards to that particular search. We make each of these metrics available for each person as well.
- We’re not focused solely on social network data. We look across the entire public web, and collect all the information we can find on a person and particular contextual community before calculating Influence.
Check out the Product page for more details on the unique features of our data platform.
Now, let’s take a look at the process we went through to generate Contextual Influence scores on the 100 individuals profiled in Newsweek’s feature:
- Newsweek/The Daily Beast began by sending us the names & Twitter handles of the 100 Influencers they wanted data on. Additionally, they separated these 100 individuals into 10 categories (Visionaries, Innovators, Evangelists, Angels, Personalities, Revolutionaries, Builder, Opinionists, Navigators, Virologists).
- For each of the 10 categories, they gave us specific search terms that they felt best represented the category. Spot Influence did not predefine any of the searches or categories; we gave Newsweek complete control of category representation.
- Spot Influence did a massive crawl to discover relevant people and content, then algorithmically calculated Contextual Influence scores for each individual around each of the provided search terms within each category.
- Finally, we performed a mathematical average of the various scores for each person to determine the final Influence score for each individual and provided all of the analyzed data to Newsweek/The Daily Beast for use within their feature.
We had a great time working with Newsweek on the Digital Power Index project. It was a great opportunity for us to demonstrate the accuracy and breadth of our data at a very small scale. We’re especially proud to say that the process we used to analyze the Digital 100 is the exact same process we use to analyze millions of people.
Interested in seeing how our data and insights can help provide new marketing insights and drive revenue? Check out our Solutions for details. Ready to speak with us? Head to the Home page and click “Get Started”. Dulcolax
