The social media world has been abuzz with very honest (well, social media tends to be honest anyway) feedback on the (in my opinion) ill-conceived Fast Company “Influencer Project”. You can read more about it here, and probably the best written, and with the most traction (influence in my book) post about it here. I’ve been seeing bits and pieces flying about on Twitter and in blogs over the past 2 days, and the response has been severely skewed towards negative. My professional colleagues Esteban Kolsky and Mitch Lieberman also weighed in on their viewpoints. With so much opinionated stuff circulating around the social web, I just couldn’t resist measuring sentiment around the topic. Measuring across blogs, microblogs, videos, discussion forums and online news.
At closer examination, I discovered that the vast majority of the positive and neutral mentions come from Tweets sharing blogposts written on the subject and further expounding on ideas put forth. Because oftentimes a tweet says “Great post by @xyz – really captures what I think about the issue [link]“, the tweet itself is indexed as positive or neutral, even though it’s used to share a negatively-themed post. This was extremely true in this case, because a lot of people agreed with the blogposts that were written. Let’s see what happens if we take out Twitter as a source:
The picture changes quite a bit, with most posts negative. Scanning through the positive and neutral posts, I saw people blogging about the project in a positive context, usually asking for votes. The mixed mentions typically were skeptical of the project, but said something good about the project’s ability to measure reach, or Fast Company in general, such as its apparent facility with social media monitoring and engagement (comments by editor Bob Safian peppered through the blogosphere).
Shiv Singh wrote,
Interesting coverage. I’ve been quite disappointed too and have blogged about it with some suggestions for improvement over here – http://www.goingsocialnow.com
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Janet Thaeler wrote,
Maria,
When I got an email about the project and checked it out, my response was negative. It’s more who can mobilize the most people to vote for them than influence online. If they wanted true influence then they should come up with a list based on their definition of influence and analysis. They could choose someone and ask bloggers to vote on which they think deserved it (audience choice award). As the post you linked to points out the project is a popularity contest that doesn’t measure influence but ability to self-promote. If that’s all it is there isn’t a lot of value and it should be renamed to who has the biggest ego online.
Janet
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Bob Safian wrote,
Maria,
Bob Safian here, the editor of Fast Company. Thanks for calculating the sentiment around The Influence Project; it’s fascinating for us to watch how this experiment plays out. I use the word “experiment” purposely: for us this is a journalistic experiment, an effort to gether information about how social media operates–and to engage people like yourself in the dialogue. (I’ve been engaged in a dialogue on this with Esteban Kolsky, which you or your readers can catch up on if you wish.)
I don’t dispute that there are limitations to The Influence Project. The intentions of our program, though, is neither about ego nor lucre; it is about educating those who are not as steeped in this world as you are, to better understand how to navigate it, what is important and isn’t, where the risks and opportunities are. The editorial coverage that we will be devoting to this topic over the next several months will, I hope, help illuminate these areas. Perhaps in time we’ll be able to convince you that there could be some positives from this project, even if not everything about it meets your ideal.
Bob
| Link | July 9th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
themaria wrote,
I am again playing with @attensity360: Influence Me This – Social Media Speaks Up About #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U #fb
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 12:30 am
nancyrubin wrote,
RT @attensity Influence Me This – Social Media Speaks Up About #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 12:51 am
mdehaaff wrote,
RT @nancyrubin: RT @attensity Influence Me This – Social Media Speaks Up About #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 5:53 am
themaria wrote,
Bloggers are outraged about @fastcompany’s #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U cc: @ryankuder @estebankolsky @mjayliebs
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
collin_s wrote,
Interesting assessment RT @jennymoebius: Bloggers are outraged about @fastcompany’s #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U via @themaria
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
TheDaveCable wrote,
#FastCompanys #InfluencerProject is getting mixed reviews! What’s ur opinion? http://bit.ly/bpcVP8 http://bit.ly/c9jgqr http://bit.ly/duZWni
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
NewspaperGrl wrote,
RT @collin_s @jennymoebius Bloggers are outraged about @fastcompany #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U via @themaria [I don't like it]
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
jberkowitz wrote,
RT @mjayliebs RT @themaria: Bloggers are outraged about @fastcompany’s #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U #scrm
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
ggheorghiu wrote,
Bloggers are outraged about @fastcompany’s #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U #scrm RT @jberkowitz: RT @mjayliebs RT @themaria:
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
markmadsen wrote,
Nice little post about how easy it can be to misinterpret sentiment on twitter and blogs using sentiment analysis http://bit.ly/c9jgqr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
catevz wrote,
Attensity360 analyzes “launch”; can do same for yr co. RT @themaria Sentiment on @fastcompany #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
ShaunaCausey wrote,
@themaria Nice post! — What do bloggers really think of Fast Company’s #InfluenceProject? http://bit.ly/9FR65U
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
ChristaBabcock wrote,
RT @shivsingh: RT @themaria Bloggers outraged about @fastcompany’s #InfluencerProject http://bit.ly/9FR65U Conv analysis (My post http://bit.ly/cgxWea )
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 8th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
LaurelEarhart wrote,
RT @MarkGStacey: @markmadsen: Nice little post about how easy it is to misinterpret sentiment on twitter/blogs using sentiment analysis http://bit.ly/c9jgqr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 10th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
digitalfilipino wrote,
reading “observation about #InfluencerProject” http://bit.ly/a4iP7F
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 11th, 2010 at 5:03 am
themaria wrote,
@CathyBrooks sure! my views: http://bit.ly/afHkM8. And these are recaps of how people feel http://bit.ly/cSY6fB & http://bit.ly/c9jgqr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
| Link | July 26th, 2010 at 12:10 am