Leave all that online talk aside: advertise where, follow who, write how. You've been around for a while and realized that it all comes around to one idea: having authority. And all you really want to do is become that authority. To have people listen and follow what you're saying, and make an impact on the way they buy and consume products.

Yes, that sums up all your efforts towards making it online. Creating content for that special audience has never been easier, with all the tips and tricks available out there. Not to mention all the quality stories just waiting to be re-shared. Measuring your influence, on the other hand, can turn out to be a difficult process.

Read this post if you're curios on how well you're doing on social media, to find out the true length of your authority and see if a program is suited for measuring your online influence or if the DIY method will bring you better results.

Abstract scores, complex algorithms?

Influential people find each other on Twitter nowadays. And Facebook, if you really want to include the posts you make on your wall. There are multiple programs that can calculate the influential scores you achieved with your tweets, but these are considered to be the most powerful ones:

Klout

It is a highly used, but also a frequently criticized program, which offers an influence score for your social media activity. It basically shows on which platforms you are performing best, but also the fluctuation of your score over a 90 day period. Klout shows data on key moments, top influencers, topics, lists and friends, used to create the final influence score, explains Grey Fry on ahaingroup.com.

Topsy

Unlike Klout, this program doesn't provide only one score for measuring influence. Instead, it uses an internal ranking based on how and by whom your content is shared, according to readwrite.com. The specific ranking determines how much of an "influence" you are.

See what each of the influence programs does for your tweeting activity:

More time, less unknown data

You can choose one of the programs described above or you can do the measuring yourself. See what influence you have from simply checking your activity out, as scientist of analytics Dr. Michael Wu states on techcrunch.com.

DIY method

The advantages are multiple: you can see for yourself what posts are read, which news are retweeted and have an overall better access to the actual data displayed on your social media accounts.

Can create your own algorithm for calculating the influence score, as Brandon Hickie explains on openviewpartners.com :

Online Influence = Reach + Impact + Efficiency + Content Relevance + Predictability

- Reach: the number of people that you can influence either directly or indirectly via a given channel

- Impact: the quality of influence that an individual is able to exert via a channel

- Efficiency: the marginal return that can be expected per a resource or unit of time

- Content Relevance: the focus of an individual in terms of content

- Predictability: the predictability and consistency of an individual within a given channel 

The downside to the DIY method is obviously the amount of time spent in analyzing everything to the bone.

The truth is...

Well, opinions are divided. There are some, like Allyson Kapin, who think that no matter how much you try, you can’t divorce offline influence from your online influence. That what goes on in real life will affect your online influence scores and only by keeping a close look on your online activity will you be able to realistically see how well you did on social media.

Others, such as Greg Fry, consider that your offline influence has no impact on your online score and that only by engaging effectively with your target audience will you achieve authority.

The truth is that measuring influences online is a subjective process, depending on many variables. If done well, it may provide excellent results on the long-run.

Jentla Marketing Hub provides a series of reports of your online activity including Facebook fans and likes, Twitter mentions, bounced emails, website visitors and many more.

Did you know?

That following the massive usage of influence measuring programs, there are some employers that require a certain influence score from their future job applicants?