Competing for Social InfluenceCompeting for Social Influence

Those concerned with their social influence have to continually post items. This competition increases the distractions not only for the senders, but will increase the burdens on the receiver's work time.

Enterprises are looking at leveraging social networks to enhance their operations and customer support. But enterprises can experience reduced productivity when employees become too involved in their own personal social networks. Social networks can keep the teleworker connected but can also reduce their productivity. Enterprises may have to develop social media training seminars so that the employees do not hinder their own productivity by accessing social networks during work hours.

Some social media users have had to discipline themselves to reduce their social media involvement. The social media addition can become almost overwhelming. The New York Times article, "For the Plugged-In, Too Many Choices" by Stephanie Rosenbloom presents some disturbing conditions. According to the author,

"The relentless pressure to partake of the newest networks was underscored in June with the debut of Google+, Google's social networking site. According to Nielsen, social networking is now the most popular online activity, ahead of sending e-mails, searching the Internet and playing games.

"Put another way: one in every four-and-a-half minutes spent on the Web is spent on a social networking site or blog. And last year the average visitor spent 66 percent more time on such sites than in 2009, when early adopters were already feeling digitally fatigued."

"Put another way: one in every four-and-a-half minutes spent on the Web is spent on a social networking site or blog. And last year the average visitor spent 66 percent more time on such sites than in 2009, when early adopters were already feeling digitally fatigued."

All of this generates traffic people may read as well as produce. These activities can cost the enterprise an average of $10,000 per year.

Another problem is the growth of sites to assist people to automate their social media operation. There are now sites that automate the posting process. Sites like Ping.fm, OnlyWire and Hellotxt offer users mechanisms that allow the users to post the same content at multiple networking sites with the click of a mouse. This just adds to the social network traffic and increases the work for those receiving the posts. You can create posts in advance, up to a few months, using sites like as Buffer, SocialOomph and TwitResponse. These allow the sender to work more efficiently but do not help the receivers.

A second Times article, also by by Stephanie Rosenbloom, "Got Twitter? You’ve Been Scored," discusses how Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn users are graded on their social influence. Businesses like Virgin America and the Palms Hotel and Casino are experimenting with Klout, to determine which influencers are worth pursing based on their influence score. Other such sites, in addition to Klout, include PeerIndex and Twitter Grader. These are called social analytics media providers.

Klout, which calls itself, "The Standard for Influence", provides social media analytics. Klouts look at a user's social network and then scores them on their influence. This is performed by collecting data from sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, YouTube and Facebook. Klout measures the size of a person's network, the content available and how others interact with the person's content. The influence scores range start at 1 goes to 100. Higher scores represent a greater and stronger sphere of influence. PeerIndex is another company providing social media analytics from use of major social media services such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Quora. Social networkers use PeerIndex to assess and score their influence. PeerIndex tracks 45+ million Twitter profiles. A third analytics provider is Twitter Grader.

Those concerned with their social influence have to continually post items. Going on vacation for two weeks without posting activity will reduce their influence score. People will try to game their scores, which only increases the time spent on social networks. This leads to greater social media addiction.

Those who want to increase their influence will work harder to add more LinkedIn connections and have more followers on Twitter, Facebook.... This competition increases the distractions not only for the senders, but will increase the burdens on the receiver's work time. Watching the Final Four at work will look harmless compared to the year-round social media participation.