What are BlogLevel and TweetLevel?BlogLevel and TweetLevel are social media planning and measurement tools

developed by Edelman. They’re

designed to identify who is influential on aparticular topic, on a designated platform. TweetLevel finds the influentials onTwitter, and BlogLevel does the same in the blogosphere.Think of each of these tools as a GPS for navigating influence.Who can access these tools?Although we developed the tools primarily to help our employees plan andmeasure client campaigns, BlogLevel and TweetLevel are accessible to anyonewith an Internet connection.Is there a cost to use these?No. Both tools are free.How do they work?Using a specially developed algorithm, TweetLevel and BlogLevel track bloggersand tweeters and score them according to their influence, using 40 distinctmetrics. People who rank the highest are those who create unique ideas that arethen amplified as well as those who engage with their followers by providingrelevant content. The algorithms are completely transparent and will evolve asuser behavior changes.

What is unique about the algorithm?We believe that our algorithm is unique in several ways:

Distinct metrics for

“i

dea starters

”

vs.

“

amplifiers

”

: We believe that peoplewho are idea starters

—

the people who originate ideas or are first to surfacenews

—

are different from the amplifiers

who spread other peoples’

ideas. Bothare influential, but their influence should be recognized and emphasizeddifferently.

Broadcast to engagement ratio

: TweetLevel places higher rankings ontweeters who engage in conversation, reply, and post interesting and relevantcontent

—

as opposed to those who primarily post their views.

Blog importance measured by discussion on other social media platforms and search optimization

Unlike other blog-ranking tools, BlogLevel ranksimportance by how much a post is discussed on Twitter or how optimized theblog is for search.Can these tools track content in other languages?Yes. Edelman created tools that would be as relevant in Japan as they are inGermany or the US. Both tools track content in any language and country.How are these tools different from other tools that already exist?There are many other social media targeting and measurement tools designed tomeasure and rank influence. The New York Times recently described a few here. All of these tools use some level of subjectivity to assign scores, but most focus onTwitter and Facebook profiles and ignore other online activities like blogging.With BlogLevel and TweetLevel, we can consider influence more holistically. For

example, it’s clear that blogs are more influential when their content is shared

and discussed in social media channels like Twitter, which is why

—

unlike otherblog-ranking tools

—

BlogLevel ranks importance by how often a blog post isdiscussed on Twitter and how optimized it is for search.

Why is Edelman developing these products?Understanding who is influential on a particular topic

—

both online andoffline

—

is important to our clients and to our business. As the recent NewYork Times article (see link above)

suggests, the “democratization of influence”

is rich territory for all of us.Edelman has a distinct point of view about how different forms of mediainteract with one another and how stories unfold across what we call the

“media cloverleaf.” Knowing which bloggers and tweeters are influential—

andunderstanding who influences them

—

is central to our media and storytellingstrategies for clients as well as our influencer engagement work. We willcontinue to create tools like BlogLevel and TweetLevel that support this pointof view.When should I use these tools?Think about using these tools to assist in corporate and brandcommunications.

Both

“Level”

tools uniquely identify influential people by context, and canmeasure the success of campaigns by calculating buzz, share of voice, relatedtopics and shared links.You can also use the hashtag feature on TweetLevel to track campaignprogress and engage with the influentials that TweetLevel identifies assignificant for a particular hashtag.

I’m trying to find information about a

specific blogger (or tweeter), and i

t’s not

showing up. Why?When you conduct a search, the names displayed are the Top 100 users byrelevance over the past 15 days. On our tool, if you select the

“

Show Other

Tweeters”

(or bloggers) button, the list will expand to include other peoplewho regularly talk about this topic.