What is influence?

I’ve been mulling over this question since reading Steve Rubel’s post asserting the Google Page Rank is the ultimate measure of online influence. I drr Steve’s point, particularly when comparing Google Page Rank to other metrics that draw on server-based data.

Like Technorati’s authority rankings, your Google Page Rank improves the more people link to you. There’s a nuts-and-bolts problem with this as a measure of influence: You don’t know why people are linking to you. Sure, you hope they’re directing their own readers to what they consider to be high-quality content. In any given case, though, it’s also possible that they’re linking to you while telling their readers, “You won’t believe what this idiot has written now.” I frequently follow links deliberately directing me to examples of bad content.

Another problem with page rank is the ease with which the unscrupulous can game the system. Not too long ago, I started moderating comments to this blog so I could reject Akismet-proof comment spam that includes a link designed to boost a site’s Google Page Rank.

But these technical issues aren’t at the core of my discomfort with Page Rank as a measure of influence. It’s the definition of influence, which has nothing to do with your popularity. Influence happens when you cause something to happen. Page Rank is an outcome of your efforts, the social media equivalent of counting the number of newspapers that pick up your press release. Influence occurs when you produce outcomes, not outputs.

Katie Paine, in her excellent book, “Measuring Public Relationships,” defines outcomes as “quantifiable changes in attitudes, behaviors, or opinions that occur as end results of a PR program.” It’s a definition I agree with. The highest possible Google Page Rank cannot determine whether your site has produced such a quantifiable change. That’s what influence is—the ability to alter someone’s attitudes, behaviors, or opinions.

Measuring your ouputs—along with outtakes (the perceptions or understanding created by your work)—is important, but it’s a communication goal, not a business goal; you measure it to determine how effective your tactics have been at meeting the business goal. Ultimately, companies have business goals in mind when they employ PR.

Unfortunately, the ultimate measure of online influence isn’t accessible from any of the online metrics or analytics available. You can’t plug a URL into a search field and produce the answer. There are three basic ways to assess your influence online:

• Read and analyze what people are saying about you to determine whether attitudes or opinions have changed as a result of your online efforts
• Apply some kind of survey mechanism to ask people whether your content drove some kind of change in the people who consumed it
• If a direct link can be made, measure the impact of your content on the business goal; for example, where the goal is to get people to sign up for an online service, you could show that a blogger outreach effort produced a measurable increase in signups

The difference between Page Rank and these three approaches should be pretty clear when you look at what you report to your client. Which would you rather say?

Option #1: Sixty-seven percent of the people who read your blog were more likely to do business with than they were before they started reading it, and 28% said they’ve already done business with you because of the thought leadership you’ve established on the blog. That’s significant, given that our online efforts have generated a Google Page Rank of 7, which means a lot of people are linking to the blog, dramatically boosting the number of customers and prospective customers.

Option #2: We’ve generated a Google Page Rank of 7. That means a lot of people are linking to the site. Isn’t that awesome?

If we’re not working to achieve our clients’ or employers’ business objectives, there’s no reason for our clients or employers to pay us. If that’s not what we’re measuring, we’re not demonstrating the value of our work. Yes, assess your Page Rank. But for goodness’ sake, don’t stop there.