Image Courtesy; Flickr/Sean MacEntee

When it comes to social CRM, it’s a world of semantics, and text and sentiment analytics.

Recently Gartner released its Magic Quadrant report on the space, and a reading of it makes it pretty clear that the category, which the research group defines as “a business strategy that generates opportunities for sales, marketing and customer service, while also benefiting online communities,” demands such intelligence.

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Klout, PeerIndex, and other companies offering up social influence scores via semantic analysis of social networking are all the rage, but why? What power do these scores really have? Sean Carlos of MarketingLand recently asked that very question. He writes, “What is online influence, also called social capital, and can these companies really reduce it to a number? Many readers will remember that it wasn’t so long ago that many would cite their site’s Alexa rank as a badge of honor, blissfully unaware that the score had no scientific basis nor business value. Can marketers, HR professionals and others rely on these social capital scoring services to identify influencers or are the scores so flawed to make them meaningless?” Read more

Leena Rao reports that Klout, the influence measuring tool, is launching a new feature called Brand Squads. David Temple of Klout stated that Brand Squads “are Klout’s way of giving influencers a place to be recognized and have a direct impact on the brands they care about most.” Rao notes, “Previously, brands had more simple pages with just their Klout Score. Brand Squads is a different twist on brand pages, where top influencers for brands have a chance to be recognized and have an impact on the brand.” Read more

Rohn Jay Miller of SocialMediaToday recently wrote about the challenge of measuring social influence through Big Data. Miller writes, “How big a challenge is measuring social influence online? The answer lies in why we’re asking the question. Do we want to know whom influences whom in what ways to get people to buy a certain car, or vote for a certain political candidate? If that’s the case we’re in for a wild ride because the psychology of individual choice is wide, deep and rich. We can understand social influence in its correlations—when certain influencers say something we can see a correlated set of responses occurring. But correlation isn’t the same as causality. Proving causality means you can specifically attribute when certain influencers say something it causes the following responses. This is not measurement, its attribution. And attribution is the real proof of social influence.” Read more

Semantic startup PeerIndex has raised $3 million in Series A funding to help build its social influence marketing platform. According to Krystal Peak of VatorNews, “PeerIndex, much like Klout, claims to measure just how influential people are online by using algorithms to see how may people read and re-tweet their Twitter activity or respond to Facebook status updates or connect with them on Foursquare and other services. But consumers around the globe have been critical of just how these influence rates are calculated and whether influence is certain categories is weighed more heavily than others.” Read more

A new article asks, “Can an online algorithm track down your child? In some cases, yes — and if you’re a parent, it could alarm you too… In the days just before Halloween, Ms. McGary got the fright of her life when she checked her Klout profile. Hovering above her score were the faces and names of those over whom she had influence, as calculated by Klout. They included her 13-year-old son, Matthew. The boy had never set up a Klout page for himself; he was only her Facebook “friend,” so she could monitor his interactions there. Klout had automatically created a page for him and assigned him a score. Then Ms. McGary’s 15-year-old daughter Mimi popped up on her Klout page — this time not with a Klout score of her own, just a nudge to Ms. McGary to invite Mimi to join.” Read more

A recent article reports that Klout, “a startup that measures influence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Foursquare, is now integrating Google+. For background, Klout evaluates users’ behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals on social networks. On Twitter, Klout’s influence score is based on a user’s ability to drive action through Tweets, Retweets and more. On Facebook, Klout will examine how conversations and content generate interest and engagement, via likes, comments, and more, from the network’s 750 million-plus users.” Read more

According to a recent article, “Online influence determiner Klout has doubled the number of its services adding Blogger, Flickr, Instagram, Last.fm and Tumblr to its scoring system, reported TechCrunch. Joe Fernandez, Klout CEO told Mashable, ‘The networks we launched today were chosen to give the Klout score a more holistic view of influence. By adding blogging, photos and music to the interactions that we are already measuring we are moving closer to our goal of providing a complete picture of your influence.’ On the basis of the ways you drive actions among your online friends, followers or subscribers Klout will calculate your influence on these newly included networks.” Read more

We recently reported on a growing start-up known as Klout, a service that uses ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of social media content to determine a user’s level of influence on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. A new article reports that the social marketing platform Involver is partnering with Klout “allow brands to interact with and reward their fans on Facebook based on their Klout score. Basically, Involver allows brands to create a Klout widget on their Facebook page that engages users to measure their Klout score. Brands can then see which of their users have the most influence on Facebook and the social web, and reward users for signing-up and/or interacting with the brand. And brands can see which fans have Klout in their particular product area.” Read more

According to a recent article, “Klout, a startup that measures influence on Twitter and Facebook, is expanding its product today with the addition of LinkedIn. With the launch of Klout scoring for LinkedIn, you’ll be able to add your LinkedIn account to your Klout score and see your influence on the professional social network network itself… Klout evaluates users’ behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals on social networks. On Twitter, Klout’s influence score is based on a user’s ability to drive action through Tweets, Retweets and more. On Facebook, Klout will examine how conversations and content generate interest and engagement, via likes, comments, and more, from the network’s nearly 700 million users.” Read more