Respect My Authority – Social Media Analytics

If people like Avinash Kaushik are all excited over the notion of Web Analytics 2.0 and getting beyond the "what are they doing" and into cool metrics like sessions, downloads, actions and other telling ways of seeing who’s doing what online, then the individual’s presence is bound to be next. Technorati now features a ranking called Technorati Authority (it’s been live since May 2007). Here’s how the Technorati Weblog explains Technorati Authority in their Blog posting entitled, Technorati Authority And Rank:

"Technorati Authority is the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has."

It all matters, and it’s getting more important by the day… and here’s why:

Have you even been added by someone on twitter, and when you look at their profile the people following them is one-fifth the size of people they are following? Has someone ever told you about a Blog, and when you look it up on Technorati, it has a very low Technorati Authority rating? You check out a Podcast and there are no audio comments? You are asked to friend someone on Facebook, and you’re suddenly bombarded with event requests and messages that are not for you? You connect to someone on LinkedIn and now your inbox becomes nothing short of headhunter spam?

Being able to see a Blog’s Technorati Authority or looking at how many followers someone has on twitter is, definitely, the new web analytics that count. In a world where a "friend" means many different things to different people, we’re all becoming less and less concerned with how many people are coming to our Websites, and more and more concerned with who they are (and how connected they are).

We all make snap judgements on people (their Personal Brands) based on who’s connected to them, and what the Wisdom of Crowds thinks about that particular individual. Odds are that you won’t be adding someone on twitter if they have not displayed value in their content, and if they are following everybody but nobody is following them.

Social Media web analytics are being run by people like you and I with a quick scan of our eyes (and no need for tethered technology). It could well be the most important (and powerful) metric Marketers need to think about when they begin looking at new Digital Marketing initiatives. They’ll also have to focus not just on who they would like to connect to, but in this new world of transparency, how they are perceived in the social channels as well.

The best part? These types of web analytics have little to do with math, science or technology and everything to do with how one person connects to the rest of the world.

After watching my habits online with this thought in my brain, I have a new-found love for Eric Cartman‘s infamous line from South Park, "respect my authority."