I write this post with some trepidation, because we have come up with a new list and lists I have learned are controversial. Some weeks ago Jonny Bentwood who runs tech analyst relations at Edelman’s London office and I were debating influence and how the Facebook phenomena has changed things. When people talked about on-line influence in the past they were often referring to bloggers and Technorati scores, though obviously influence was always more complicated than that. But now with the increasing mass adoption of Twitter and Facebook and favourites listings like Digg and Del.icio.us things have moved on. Bloggers Twitter and Facebookers Dig. Many of us are multi-platform users and so our online ‘footprint’ is much more dispersed.

So we thought we would have a bash at measuring it. Underlying this attempt is the presumption that a cumulative and comparative score can be assigned for an individual’s use of the various social media platforms that are available. That is no small presumption and the assigning of mechanical scores is a blunt instrument to say the least. How do you compare the influence of a Hugh MacLeod cartoon to a Robert Scoble tech review? Technorati say this about their methodology: “On the World Live Web, bloggers frequently link to and comment on other blogs, creating the type of immediate connection one would have in a conversation. Technorati tracks these links, and thus the relative relevance of blogs, photos, videos etc”. So putting numbers to these things and assuming a level of influence from them is not exactly new.

What we have tried to do is add some new ways of measuring influence via platforms like Twitter and Facebook to blog scores. This is definitely adding apples to oranges we admit. So for example, we are placing a score for Facebook depending on the number of friends someone has. For Twitter, it is the number of friends, followers and updates. And if that is not insulting enough, we are then coming to a comparative weighting of someone’s Facebook score against their Twitter and blogging score. And the most sinful step is of course the final one where we have added those scores together and come up with a total Social Media Index. Which is an A list or a league table by another name I suppose. But we are not claiming it is definitive (how can it be with as many value judgements as I just confessed too) and we’re not entirely sure if the thesis itself will stand up. What we hope to do by this is to contribute to the debate and (and if possible) come to a community view of how you look at this. Why? Well, for us it is part of our business and I make no apology about that. Measurement is central to what we do and social media is massively powerful and we need to understand it to do our jobs. Many people do not like this and for them there is no good way of describing this.

So stage one; we created a Top 30 bloggers list from CNET Blog 100, Times Top 50 Business Blogs, Power 150 Top Marketing Blogs, Friendly Ghost Top PR Blogs and Technobabble 2.0 Top Analyst Blogs. A familiar enough grouping, but if you look along the top line you will see the new platforms we intend to combine with this listing.

Top 30 Blog - SMI weighting: 100% blogs

	Name
1	TechCrunch	98	0	0	0	0	0	98
2	Search Engine Watch	98	0	0	0	0	0	98
3	Boing Boing	98	0	0	0	0	0	98
4	GigaOM	97	0	0	0	0	0	97
5	Micro Persuasion	96	0	0	0	0	0	96
6	Scobeleizer	96	0	0	0	0	0	96
7	Scripting News	96	0	0	0	0	0	96
8	John Battelle’s Searchblog	96	0	0	0	0	0	96
9	Techdirt	96	0	0	0	0	0	96
10	Pronet Advertising	96	0	0	0	0	0	96
11	Gaping Void	95	0	0	0	0	0	95
12	Marketing Pilgrim	95	0	0	0	0	0	95
13	Online Marketing Blog	95	0	0	0	0	0	95
14	Copyblogger	95	0	0	0	0	0	95
15	Buzz Machine	94	0	0	0	0	0	94
16	SEOmoz Blog	94	0	0	0	0	0	94
17	Jonathan’s Blog	94	0	0	0	0	0	94
18	The Blog Herald	94	0	0	0	0	0	94
19	direct2dell.com	93	0	0	0	0	0	93
20	Romenesko	93	0	0	0	0	0	93
21	PaidContent.org	92	0	0	0	0	0	92
22	Secret Diary of Steve Jobs	92	0	0	0	0	0	92
23	Web Strategy by Jeremiah	91	0	0	0	0	0	91
24	Adrants	91	0	0	0	0	0	91
25	Seth Godin	91	0	0	0	0	0	91
26	Logic+Emotion	91	0	0	0	0	0	91
27	tompeters!	91	0	0	0	0	0	91
28	GrokDotCom	91	0	0	0	0	0	91
29	PSFK	89	0	0	0	0	0	89
30	adfreak	89	0	0	0	0	0	89

This next chart is the same 30 people, but now we have added individual scores for their use of non-blogging platforms and in the final column come to a total Social Media Index or score for them. Here’s how we did that:

Each person has been given a score out of 10 based upon 6 criteria:

• Blog - analysed Google Rank, inbound links, subscribers, alexa rank, content focus, frequency of updates, number of comments
• Multi-format - analysed Facebook - number of friends
• Mini-updates - analysed Twitter - number of friends, followers and updates
• Business cards - analysed LinkedIn - number of contacts
• Visual - analysed Flickr - number of photos uploaded from the person/s or about the person/s
• Favourites - analysed Digg, del.icio.us

Each score out of 10 was the given the following weighting across the categories : Blog - 30%; Multi-format - 20%; Mini-updates - 25%, Business cards - 7%, Visual - 3%; Favourites - 15% which created a total score for each category. The sum of each of these numbers created an individual’s Social Media Index. Clear as mud. And about as appetising for some I suspect, because the weighting system is massively subjective. I repeat, it is our first stab at it and we are interested in your take.

And these results are vaguely embarrassing for us too, because the conspiracy minded will have noticed that Edelman’s own Steve Rubel of Micropersuasion fame is (drum roll) number one in this (surprise, surprise) Edelman league table. And we know how well that will go down. But the fact is he is so prolific across all platforms it is what it is. Personally I think he needs to do some client work some time.

Top 30 Blogs - SMI tiered weighting
Weighting: Blog - 30%; Multi-format - 20%; Mini-updates - 25%, Business cards - 7%, Visual - 3%; Favourites - 15%

	Name
1	Micro Persuasion	29	17	25	7	2	13	93
2	TechCrunch	29	20	22	0	3	13	87
3	Scobeleizer	29	20	25	0	3	9	86
4	GigaOM	29	20	13	7	3	13	85
5	Gaping Void	28	20	22	3	2	5	80
6	Scripting News	29	16	25	4	2	4	79
7	Web Strategy by Jeremiah	27	15	24	6	3	2	77
8	PSFK	27	16	14	0	3	12	72
9	Marketing Pilgrim	28	8	15	6	2	7	67
10	Adrants	27	5	19	4	1	8	64
11	Online Marketing Blog	28	15	12	0	2	5	62
12	John Battelle’s Searchblog	29	17	0	7	3	5	61
13	Buzz Machine	28	20	0	5	2	5	61
14	Copyblogger	28	13	3	0	0	8	53
15	Seth Godin	27	5	0	0	3	9	45
16	Techdirt	29	0	0	0	3	11	42
17	SEOmoz Blog	28	0	0	5	3	5	41
18	Search Engine Watch	29	0	0	0	0	9	38
19	Boing Boing	29	0	0	0	3	5	38
20	Jonathan’s Blog	28	1	0	0	2	4	36
21	PaidContent.org	27	0	0	0	3	4	34
22	Secret Diary of Steve Jobs	27	0	0	0	0	6	34
23	adfreak	27	0	0	0	0	6	32
24	The Blog Herald	28	0	0	0	0	3	31
25	direct2dell.com	28	0	0	0	0	3	31
26	Pronet Advertising	29	0	0	0	0	2	31
27	Romenesko	28	0	0	0	0	3	31
28	Logic+Emotion	27	0	0	0	1	2	30
29	tompeters!	27	0	0	0	0	3	30
30	GrokDotCom	27	0	0	0	0	3	30

But this list just orders in a new way, a list of top bloggers. We then looked wider a-field to try and come up with a more pure Social Media Index where we have added top scorers not restricted to the blogging top 30. Same methodology, just a wider catchment group. Yes and Steve is still number one.

Top 30 social media index
Weighting: Blog - 30%; Multi-format - 20%; Mini-updates - 25%, Business cards - 7%, Visual - 3%; Favourites - 15%

	Name
1	Micro Persuasion	29	17	25	7	2	13	93
2	TechCrunch	29	20	22	0	3	13	87
3	Scobeleizer	29	20	25	0	3	9	86
4	GigaOM	29	20	13	7	3	13	85
5	Gaping Void	28	20	22	3	2	5	80
6	Scripting News	29	16	25	4	2	4	79
7	Web Strategy by Jeremiah	27	15