Australian Journalists and Social Media Influence

ByLaurel Papworth

Forbes Magazine recently very kindly named me in the global Forbes Top 50 Social Media Influencers. I thought I would repay the compliment by listing in order of Influence, the top 500 Australian Journalists by influence in social media. Editors should really pay attention – if the journalists are not connecting with readers, having their…

Forbes Magazine recently very kindly named me in the global Forbes Top 50 Social Media Influencers. I thought I would repay the compliment by listing in order of Influence, the top 500 Australian Journalists by influence in social media. Editors should really pay attention – if the journalists are not connecting with readers, having their content distributed through communities, are they fulfilling ALL of their brief (to communicate stories that will be read and discussed by Australians)? At the moment, social media influence is in the hands of industry experts who write (original source) or find (filter) stories and then distribute them into the community. I’m pretty sure Journalists will do that even better as they move into online communities properly (not just use it to pilfer stories for traditional media).

FYI Leaderboards (lists) are an important function of community online or offline. The Role of Leaderboards in Online Communities.

From PeerIndex. Compare with the (outdated) Klout list  – based on my list from 2009. Use your scrolly-wheely-mousey thing to scroll. Which journalist/media person is missing? Let me know, I’ll add them, and we’ll see where they are on the list 🙂

Note Rupert Murdoch and Monica Attard are fairly new to social media so their ranking will increase if they continue to use it.

Influence is a funny thing – other people have to say you have it. And more than say, they have to show it in their actions. Retweeting, sharing, liking, forwarding, commenting, emailing… that’s influence. In some senses “influence” is filtering. Communities seek out people who can filter for them. Journalists filter News, Academia filters Research, Academy Awards filters Actors, Olympics filters SportsPeople. And I’m filtering Journalists for you. 😉

social_media_influencers LP

Always consider the filtering system e.g. Authors. First they must finish the book, then they must get published, then they must get distributed, then they must get on a Top list, then they need word of mouth. Lots of filtering to be a successful author. Here is a list of different types of Influencers and Social Media.

Influence is a TIME thing too.

Start, build a profile, contribute, get rewarded in comments and connections, if you don’t like what you get rewarded with, revise your tone and strategies.

Social Web - Reputation Management Cycles diagram

What do you think? Can journalists that come with inbuilt reputation systems of filters by Editors and Media Proprietors gain EARNED media in social media?

Images from my diagram set.

DISCLAIMER: I run classes on building reputation and influence in social media and how to find influencers. #RhymeMeetReason

114 Comments

      1. That’s the interesting thing about influence on social media. Altho LaTingle is around 155-6 on Peerindex, you will find that most ppl on Twitter wld rank her second or third after Colvinius for trust and influence. The fact that she tweets less than Colvin is immaterial to them.

    1. My list is already on Twitter and Peer pulls it in. Klout doesn’t have that service does it? I don’t want to manually check 500+ Klout scores 😉

      1. Also, a lot of people, myself included, have opted out of Klout because of its dodgy business practices and arbitrary scoring.

        1. verrry difficult to opt out Caitlin, did you find it so? Laurel haven’t tried it on any of my lists. I wonder how the same list would rank on Klout though just curious.

        2. Opting out is not really an option – most of the people on the list did not opt into the ranking program (the ones with “register” on their line), but it ranks them anyway!

  60. Hi Laurel,
    The list is quite interesting but I also wonder how you define journalist. Some of the people on the list are as much journalists as I am. Aren’t we all journalists now? Maybe I’m just being pedantic.
    Mark

    1. Everyone is a journalist now – but tracking the behaviours of traditional journalists & how they are or arent using Twitter etc has been fascinating. My first post in this series in 2009 had less than 50 journos on it, and they werent particularly influential at all: this sector has changed a lot!

    1. I think MamaMia splits her traffic across multiple Identities… not sure how this service rates that, or collates it. Her newspaper column hasn’t probably been added in yet… dunno.

  74. Slightly bizarre list IMHO. I wouldn’t have classified Rod Peno as a journalist for example although he works for a news organisation, obviously. I have been a journalist for many years but now that I’m working on the digital production side, I wouldn’t have expected to find myself in a list like this — although feel free to add me :-). There are a couple of other people in the list I would say the same thing about.

    1. I agree – I formulated the list back in 2009 (see old blog post) and since then people have quit, been sacked, retired, moved in PR!! or else done other things.
      The list is actually a Twitter list (go to Twitter, create a list). Then Peer brings the list in and rates the people automatically. I just found out that Klout does the same thing – and rates everyone differently. Colvinius drops down, Mama Mia goes up.
      Almost as bad as circulation stats 😛
      What is your Twitter ID btw?

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