TRAACKR

Thanks to everyone who sent in submissions for our PR2.0 influencer contest.  It was a very interesting experiment for us and we’re very happy for the participation.  Thanks!

The List…Revealed

Without further ado (drumroll please), we can now release the “unmasked”, totally exposed list of the Top 25 Authorities moving PR Forward.  As you can see, the Top 5 Authorities moving PR Forward are:

#5 – Steve Rubel

#4 – Jason Falls

#3 – Sarah Evans

#2 – Brian Solis

#1 – Chris Brogan

Surprised (we were)? Excited?  Disappointed?

Contest Winner

The entries were very interesting.  It was actually difficult to determine the winner with several top contributors offering very similar pics.  With that said, there was not one single entry that picked everyone on the Top 5 — let alone in the right order.  However, the one who came the closest was the team at @PerkettPR (led by @pprlisa) who guessed the Top 3 correctly…making them the closest of anyone in the contest.  So, congratulations @pprlisa and the rest at @PerkettPR — we will be forwarding your $50 Amazon gift card to Lisa’s email today!  Nice job!

In case you are interested here are the % of submissions that selected the Top 5 (respectively):

• Chris Brogan – apx 65%
• Brian Solis – apx 60%
• Sarah Evans – apx 35%
• Jason Falls – apx 20%
• Steve Rubel – apx 20%

Interesting stuff.  A couple of people who were mentioned by many of the submissions were Michael Arrington (founder of TechCrunch) and Richard MacManus (founder of Mashable)…this is an important point as it refers to Traackr’s methodology.  While both of these blogs are extremely influential — what we do at Traackr is locate the specific author on each site who is most relevant to the topic at hand.  In this case, Sarah Evans is the most relevant Mashable author.  Knowing this is very, very powerful for those trying to gain insight into the influencers in a specific topic area.

One Final Note

After releasing the initial list earlier this week, we received some (passionate) comments about #15: Strumpette (aka Amanda Chapel) is a fictional character that has been created by a PR professional (some say there are multiple authors behind Strumpette) to speak AGAINST social media and the traditional pro-PR 2.0 rhetoric.  So, some people thought she should be removed from the list.   We respectfully disagree.  It happens quite often with our work that influencers from both sides of an issue make the list.  It is important to note that at Traackr we believe that the sentiment of one’s content does not drive or define influence.  The fact that they built a following listening to, engaging with them and amplifying the signal defines their influence.  In fact, we would argue that knowing the influential voices on the other side of the aisle are just as important in almost any circumstance. As for the “fake” identity, Traackr’s philosophy is always to try to identify the person behind the content, rather than a mere URL or Twitter handle. That said, non of our geeky technologists have a background on intelligence gathering or P.I., and nor should they: if influencers we find don’t feel comfortable sharing their “real” name on their public feeds, we won’t look for it – this is really no different from the use of aliases by authors, actors and journalists we have come to accept for centuries.

With all that said — congrats to PerkettPR and thanks to everyone for participating!

We are very excited to release a rare public Traackr A-List today :  The Top 25 Authorities who are moving PR forward.  Check out the list here.  Be aware, however, that if you look at the list now you will notice that the Top 5 Influencers on this list have been hidden.  Why is that, you may ask?  Well because we wanted to have some fun with this list before the upcoming holiday season.  We decided to have a contest and invite everyone to make their best guess as to who they think are the TOP 5 Authorities on our list.

Here’s how the contest is going to work:

The Contest

Rather than just giving away the entire list, we want everyone to work for it a bit.  Not only is there a great prize for the winner, but there are a whole lot of bragging rights too!

Dates:

Opened – Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 8 a.m. EST

Closed – Friday, Nov. 20 at 12 p.m. EST

Winner announced – Friday, Nov. 20 at 1 p.m. EST (Winner announced on the Traackr blog)

E-mail answers to: PRcontest@traackr.com

Make sure to give your answers in ranking order 1-5.  Also make sure that you offer the REAL NAMES of the individuals (as opposed to their blog URL or Twitter handle — we don’t believe influencers are defined by any single platform)

Prize: A $50 Amazon gift card – just in time for the holidays!

Tips from the team: The three Traackr measurement scores, reach resonance and relevance, displayed on the list, can help you make an educated guess. Another tip? You don’t necessarily need to be in PR to move PR forward. The first person to submit the correct answer wins!

Traackr’s Methodology

Traackr’s Authority List is developed through a methodical approach that finds meaning in the massive amount of data that is collected and shared throughout the online space. In other words, we take all the jumble on the Internet regarding online influencers, and turn it into meaningful, understandable and useful information for our clients. Through this approach, we identify the most influential individuals who play a pivotal role in a specific space – in this case, moving the PR world into the next millennium.

*Note: While all of these influencers may not be PR professionals themselves, they still play a significant role online influencing the profession.

Like all of our searches, identifying the top 25 PR influencers began with a keyword-based search using industry terminology. Our main focus for this search was around the PR 2.0 space, so the keywords were made up of more recent terminology trends among public relations professionals. Based on the data received from this keyword search, the influencers were ranked using Traackr’s scoring algorithms; reach (the ability to generate views), resonance (the ability to spark and propagate conversations) and relevance (the ability to cover specific topics or a market).

This methodical approach encompasses all of the social media platforms from Twitter to Facebook through Friendfeed and blogs, which is what makes Traackr’s lists so relevant and useful. Traackr sees the value in each online space, and by focusing on numerous platforms, sometimes it enables us to identify influencers who are making huge contributions to their field but may not have been recognized yet. Our good friends at Corporate Eye put it best; we spot the “king-whisperers”.

If you have any other specific questions about our methodology in regards to this list, just send us a note.

Good luck making your picks.  Don’t forget, we will be releasing the final list this Friday at 1 p.m. EST, right here on this blog…

Last month we decided to start an Influencer of the Month feature on our blog.  Then, of course things got crazy around here and we didn’t have time to release our Influencer of the Month for October as planned.  So, we’re going to do it now — in the middle of November.

A bit late on our end, for which we apologize.  We will definitely get them out on time in the future (last Friday of every month).  However, please do not allow our tardiness to devalue the talent of our Influencer for October: Brett McKay.

Who is Brett McKay?

We had no idea until he showed up on one of our recent Authority Lists for online DIY influencers. Brett appeared on the list because of his work on his primary blog —  The Art of Manliness (apx 150k monthly unique visitors).  Brett’s blog is a smart, fun portal for all things Man-ly.  He’s done a tremendous job building a brand around the Art of Manliness — as well as a loyal audience.  He furthers his work on his blog through two twitter accounts, @brettmckay (1,500+ followers, 700+ re-tweets) and @artofmanliness (5,800 followers, 1,100+ re-tweets); a YouTube channel; two Facebook pages, his (631 friends) & Art of Manliness (7,800+ friends); LinkedIn; and a StumbledUpon account.

One of the reasons why we’ve selected Brett this month is for his skills and use of multiple social media tools/platforms.  That is important for any influencer we consider.

Another reason we like Brett is because he is in the midst of translating his online success to additional offline success with the release of his first book – The Art of Manliness (what else?).  From all accounts the book is doing well.  For us at Traackr, this is a very exciting trend that we continue to see…and celebrate.  More and more, people are building their brands online, through social media, and creating value, enterprises…empires offline.  Brett is one of the early ones and we’re very happy to see it happen!

With all that said, the real reason we chose Brett for our Influencer of the Month for October is that the Art of Manliness wasn’t his first successful online endeavor.  Not at all.  While a law student at the University of Tulsa, Brett started and built a very successful blog, The Frugal Law Student, which was named the top student blog by the ABA Journal in ‘07.  This is what we call a true online talent.

Our decision to select Brett as our Influencer for this month is not really about his current online endeavor and success.  We’ve selected him because he personifies one of Traackr’s fundamental beliefs in this whole new world — the idea that the individuals who generate influence online are talented people.  The content they create is very much secondary to that.  It doesn’t matter if they are talking about Ramen noodles or straight razors, knitting patterns or new marketing strategies.  It’s the person doing the talking which is where the influence is derived.  It’s why we started Traackr.  Brett (and many others) is proving our point with every post…

Thanks and congratulations to Brett McKay for being named Traackr’s Influencer of the Month for October!

DS

*by the way, here’s a good post from Chris Brogan (Content is Not King) which helps illustrate this last point.  The comments for this post are great as well…

Just wanted to thank, Lucy – a new Traackr friend working for a UK-based business called Corporate Eye, who wrote a great blog post on Traackr’s A-List this morning.  It’s always nice to see a customer (in this case a potential customer) articulating your value better than you do!

I really like Lucy’s “Gaining the Ear of the King” concept.  Well, done…

Thanks, Lucy!