COMMENTS
Maybe its not about your influence. Maybe it the enjoyment of you connections. My twitter grade is low - but I enjoy all my followers and the interaction.
I may not be Guy Kawasaki, or Scobelizer, but I don't care....
I think Twitter Grader is useful, in large part because there are a large number of profiles in the database, and the good folks at HubSpot have had some time to tweak their algorithms.
Obviously, Facebook Grader is much newer, with only a few thousand Facebook profiles in the database. So it's got less data to work with.
I think (over time) that Facebook Grader will become as useful as Twitter Grader in measuring the influence of a particular Facebook member.
Mike,
I think the reason Mike gave it that post was that in order to get a higher grade, it depends how many friends you have, how many wall posts you have (regardless of quality) and how many groups you are joining... which is pretty different than being part of a twitter network and writing things people came about. There is no disincentive to Facebook, you can join as many groups as you want without any backlash whereas in twitter if ur posting too many tweets (assuming greater amount correlates with declining average quality) then you risk losing followers
However I do agree that it measures your reach - because you can use status updates - which is the best example - similar to twitter which would be seen by many, but perhaps in a slightly different light.
Maybe Mr. Arrington feels the way he does because he can't see a strong connection between your FB Grader score and FB campaign ROI.
Here's how to measure ROI with a tool like FB Grader, in my opinion:
FB Grader is a tool that shouldn't be used or judged in a vacuum. It's meant to be used as part of a suite of tools in an holistic campaign. One example of this is to quickly see if changes in one part of your marketing program affect your FB presence.
A tiny piece of information, yes, but since this tool is available within the Hubspot suite, checking your FB score and tracking it over time is very fast and easy to do.
Ease of use is not the only issue, however. I have found that in the world of web analytics variety is key. being creative with a large variety of web marketing tools - including FB grader - is what makes a good marketer good.
If Mr. Arrington can't think of a useful way to use FB Grader, then so be it. But that won't stop me from adding it to my marketing toolbox.
Once you reach a critical mass (TechCrunch) you get more mileage out of bitching about traffic tools than using them.
i agree with michael on this one, i think a lot of the grading tools you guys are creating are useless *especially twitter grader*. the only thing you are doing is feeding the egos out there. there is nothing actionable from these twitter grading platforms or services. if you want to grade an exam then fine, but don't try to grade people on their social media usage, that's just ridiculous.
you of all people should know that authority is relative and is subject to topics and categories, etc. it's not merely a measure of who you know or are connected to.
so let's say I used the tool and score a 100, now what? what if I score a 90? now what? i see absolutely no value in creating these tools. i think we can agree that they are great linkbait tools for hubspot, but beyond that...
jacob
In response to Jacob's comment, I want to re-iterate a previous point that perhaps wasn't clearly stated.
Jacob, I think Twitter Grader has to be used as a part of a lot of other analytical tools. It seems to me that no two analytical tools that claim to measure the same thing ever come up with the same measurements.
In light of this "fact", I would expect most marketers to use as many measurement tools as possible to try and home in on the "right" numbers. This is where tools such as FB Grader, which may seem irrelevant, become important as a group.
just my two cents.
-isaac