Twitter, BirdBrain, Mavens and wine – tech fermenting

We’ve looked at the best wine tweeters on a national level in the last post. Now we zoom in a little.

We look at how to identify great wine tweeters in your local area

I’ll show you an interesting tool that might work called BirdBrain, then move onto some more Klout analysis and mash it up with some Tipping Point theory.

At the end the answer will magically spit out. Or maybe just a process

A mashup

When various web pages or applications are brought together to create a new one then the tech world calls this a mashup.

Klout has mashed two apps together – twitter and your facebook profile to create a mashup called BirdBrain. It’s labelled an experiment in a playground for influence, which I guess means its got lots of bugs?

Klout says that BirdBrain,

connects with Facebook to find your interests, then we show you the people on twitter who are influential on that topic. We rank those people based on their influence style so you can choose the type of person you’d like to follow.

So I gave it a go.

This is what it showed

For my Facebook Interest “Wine”. The score is out of 100, the higher the better. The name is the twitter handle. The bold title and italic description are Klout’s.

Source: BirdBrain

In her Klout blog post, Better Know the Klout Classes Megan explains what these communication styles mean.

She says they’ve used machine learning to come up with these categories. Machine learning covers scores of different types of algorithms, I’m guessing its normal cluster analysis as used for this sort of study.

Kudos to Klout

Still, I like the way they do this.

Rather than pretend there is only one sort of communicator, audience and engagement sytyle they have split this out into 16 different types.

They then say, No class is inherently better than any other. Hmmn that’s getting a bit communist for me. Dabblers and Casuals ain’t as important as a Connectors in the blogosphere?

But perhaps their point is they are describing a behavioral type – not sinners and do-gooders. Fair enough.

They then go on to say, However, you may find that some classes are a better fit your personal or business goals. Which I entirely agree with.

The Little Things

In his famous book, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference“, Malcolm Gladwell describes tipping points as “the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable.”

He goes on to say, “The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.”

Which brings me to my point.

As a retailer some people are more special than others.  I’d call them the referrers, though Gladwell puts it better this way,

• Connectors are the people who link us up with the world … people with a special gift for bringing the world together.
• Mavens are information specialists, or people we rely upon to connect us with new information.
• Salesmen are persuaders, charismatic people with powerful negotiation skills.

So we’re looking for those very influential people

Let’s do our own low tech “mashup”.

What we’re aiming to do here is to identify which Klout categories match Gladwell’s.

If we can match them up then we can say that a particular twitter user is worth spending scarce time following or perhaps even partnering with in some way.

“Connectors”

Gladwell

Connectors are the people who link us up with the world, people with a special gift for bringing the world together. They are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack for making friends and acquaintances.

Gladwell characterizes these individuals as having social networks of over one hundred people. He attributes the social success of Connectors to their ability to span many different worlds as a function of something intrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy (all tipping point info taken from wikipedia).

Klout’s Connectors

• Socializer – You are the hub of social scenes and people count on you to find out what’s happening. You are quick to connect people and readily share your social savvy. Your followers appreciate your network and generosity.
• Networker – You know how to connect to the right people and share what’s important to your audience. You generously share your network to help your followers. You have a high level of engagement and an influential audience
• Coversationalist – You love to connect and always have the inside scoop. Good conversation is not just a skill, it’s an art. You might not know it, but when you are witty, your followers hang on every word (all descriptions are taken from klout’s blog)

“Mavens”

Gladwell

Mavens are information specialists, or people we rely upon to connect us with new information. They accumulate knowledge, especially about the marketplace, and know how to share it with others. Mavens start word-of-mouth epidemics due to their knowledge, social skills, and ability to communicate. They are really information brokers, sharing and trading what they know.

Klout

• Feeder – Your audience relies on you for a steady flow of information about your industry or topic. Your audience is hooked on your updates and secretly can’t live without them.
• Syndicator – You keep tabs on what’s trending and who’s important to watch. You share the best of this with your followers and save them from having to find what’s hot on their own. You probably focus on a specific topic or cater to a defined audience.
• Taste Maker – You know what you like and your audience likes it too. You know what’s trending, but you do more than just follow the crowd. You have your own opinion that earns respect from your followers.
• Broadcaster – You broadcast great content that spreads like wildfire. You are an essential information source in your industry. You have a large and diverse audience that values your content.
• Curator – You highlight the most interesting people and find the best content on the web and share it to a wide audience. You are a critical information source to your network. You have an amazing ability to filter massive amounts of content to surface the nuggets that your audience truly care about. Your hard work is very much appreciated.
• Thought Leader – You are a thought leader in your industry. Your followers rely on you, not only to share the relevant news, but to give your opinion on the issues. People look to you to help them understand the day’s developments. You understand what’s important and what your audience values that.
• Specialist – You may not be a celebrity, but within your area of expertise your opinion is second to none. Your content is likely focused around a specific topic or industry with a focused, highly-engaged audience.

“Salesmen”

Gladwell

Salesmen are persuaders, charismatic people with powerful negotiation skills. They tend to have an indefinable trait that goes beyond what they say, which makes others want to agree with them.

Klout

• Celebrity – You can’t get any more influential than this. People hang on your every word, and share your content like no other. You’re probably famous in real life and your fans simply can’t get enough.
• Pundit – You don’t just share news, you create the news. As a pundit, your opinions are wide-spread and highly trusted. You’re regularly recognized as a leader in your industry. When you speak, people listen.
• Activist – You’ve got an idea or cause you want to share with the world and you’ve found the perfect medium for it. Your audience counts on you to champion your cause.

So as a Wine Retailer what should you aim for?

Remember this blog is all about a local wine retailer taking on the world. Actually – just the 20 miles around his store.

So you are looking for Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen to tweet about you to your local potential customers.

Here’s what I recommend,

• Identify the local wine tweeters (comment below if you’d like to know how).
• Enter them into Klout.com.
• If Klout tags them as a Socializer, Networker, or Coversationalist then they likely to be more than happy to introduce you to their followers
• If Klout tags them as a Feeder, Syndicator, Taste Maker, Broadcaster, Curator, Thought Leader, or Specialist, and if you can prove to them you really know your wine and you have a wine range they rate, then they may introduce you to lots of new customers.
• If Klout tags them as Celebrity, Pundit, Activist, then if you can get these big hitters on side they’ll be your most influential supporter.
• If Klout tags them as Casuals or Dabblers then ignore them.

How to do this?

Now that is a great question, I think it is similar to the ways I brought up in this post Wine Retailers and Local Wine Bloggers – an opportunity for both.

What do you think? Please comment below.