TRAACKR

With all the hoopla going on about SXSW we simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to show off our sweet A-List skills and bring you a public list of the Top SXSW Music Influencers. With hundreds of musical acts showcasing their talent on over eighty stages in downtown Austin, we knew the buzz would be huge.

After compiling the data, we can honestly say that we were surprised with the results. Who would have thought that a political journalist, everyone’s favorite gossip columnist, a well-known public television station (not usually associated with music) and not one, but two marketing pros would make a music list?

See the list for yourself here. In the meantime, be sure to follow the top influencers via Traackr’s SXSW Music Twitter list (@traackr/sxsw-music-influencers). Once you’ve seen the list, tell us what you think – did you love it? Hate it? Let us know!

As we welcome the new year here at Traackr, we are also happy to welcome our first official influencer of 2010. With an impressive bio at the ripe age of 36, this honor is well-deserved – read on to see why.

However, as impressive as his bio may be, what truly earned Chris the spot of the first influencer of 2010 was the fact that he has shown up in Traackr a-lists spanning from small business marketing to Iphone apps to weight management to virtualization. There is absolutely no common link between any of those topics – aside from Chris.

Chris demonstrates passion and has strong involvement in things that impact his everyday life – no matter how unrelated they may be. This is what makes him so unique and why he is Traackr’s Influencer of the Month. His more than 75,400 Twitter followers, 8,400 fans on Facebook and 91,000 devoted YouTube viewers (who have exceeded  66,000,000 views as of December 2009) may be part of the reason too.

Chris’s cunning personality and strong opinions have helped him build an impressive following and strong online presence which led him to becoming the successful online influencer and entrepreneur he is today. We truly look forward to what Chris, along with the rest of the online influencer community, have in store for the new year!

It’s that time again! The Traackr team is excited to highlight the Influencer of the Month for the “ho-ho” holiday month of December. Read on!

Who is Anthony Padilla?

Most 22-year-olds are finishing up college and getting ready to enter the grueling work world of 9-5 jobs, but not Anthony. Instead, he has led the path of the new celebrity in entertainment – YouTube Celebrities. Ask most tweens, teens and even 20-something’s and they will probably know of Anthony’s humorous antics and good looks from his comedy duo YouTube channel, Smosh, which he co-creates with childhood friend Ian Hecox.

We first spotted Anthony in his number one influencer spot on our teen male influencers list. Since then, we have been amazed by his dedication to the online space and his communities, his clever comedy skits – one of which was awarded YouTube’s Best Comedy Award in 2006 – and his keen sense of knowing exactly what it takes to become an online super star.

Since Smosh’s beginning in 2005, it has become the third most subscribed to YouTube channel and continues to rise in popularity among the younger generations. It was this popularity that landed the duo among YouTube’s initial participants in their partnership revenue-sharing program in 2007. Interestingly enough, one of the revenue generating agreements that came out of the program was a sponsorship deal with Live Video – one of YouTube’s competitors. It’s not everyday you can say you got paid by one of your host’s competitors with everyone in agreement!

In addition to the more than 1 million subscribers on YouTube and almost 300 million views of their videos (that’s right 300,000,000 views!), Smosh has large amounts of followers among their multiple social media platforms, some of which include more than 45,000 followers on Twitter and more than 150,000 friends on MySpace. Anthony and Ian have even been business saavy enough to build what some might call an empire with the Smosh name, including t-shirts, posters, gift cards, games and contests.

Most importantly, however, is that aside from the Smosh name, Anthony has done very well with his own name by creating a fan base that is happy to follow his funny attitude and charming smile anywhere he pops up. Proof is in the numbers – he has been able to accumulate over 30,000 followers on Twitter, over 2,700 fans on Facebook and over 1,300 subscribers on his personal YouTube channel.

It is the amazing reach Anthony has throughout multiple major social media platforms-whether it is through his own name or Smosh’s-that got him a spot as our December influencer. At only 22 years old, Anthony demonstrates the true epitome of the power of online influencers and possibly even the future of the entertainment industry.

Fast Company (soap box)

We read through this month’s Fast Company cover story, “Mr. Social: Ashton Kutcher Plans to Be the Next New-Media Mogul” and felt the need to discuss it. And after having read through a summary of the impact Anthony Padilla has had on the online space for a number of years, we think you might feel the same way. So please, join us on our soap box.

We just couldn’t help but notice that many of the things Fast Company said Ashton is “leading the way for” are many things influencers like Anthony have already accomplished. For instance, Ashton has been filming a mini-series that he hopes will evolve into a go-to source for brands to spread their message through influencer marketing. Well, the Smosh channel is filled with sponsored episodes that reach more than one million viewers. These are numbers that would have late night show hosts crying in joy over.  The fact of the matter is that Anthony has been doing many of these “new media mogul” things for years, and he shows no signs of slowing down. We believe the integration of new media and entertainment is already here and it began with influencers like Anthony – it didn’t begin and will not end with Ashton. So, can we get Anthony and maybe even his comedy duo, Ian, on the cover of Fast Company stat?

Ok, we’ll step off our soap box now.

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…