Maps and Hill and Knowlton’s Influencer Network Analysis

This is of no earthly use to me, virtually no good, as I have zero map/direction skills. (notice the puns, huh? huh?)
Hmmm, 2CH is the largest online community in the world but it rates a small mention next to Second Life? Ah well. Anyway, I own a Rough Guide to the online world, which you can borrow if you like:

*hat tip to Maxine Sherrin for the medieval map.

Ok, fun’s over, let’s look at mapping social networks in a grown up way, through influencer tools like Hill and Knowlton’s :We are going to see the rise of more of these tools. ROI for marketing dollar of social networks? It’s here.

We call this process Influencer Network Analysis (INA) and we can now very quickly discover connections that might have previously gone unnoticed. We can discover:

the relationship and influence between various media (e.g. blogs, wire, TV, print, etc)

issues where competitors may be trying to establish leadership (or points of weakness)

thought leaders on key topics or in particular geographies (e.g. financial performance, tech trends, disease awareness)

key commentators on topical and longer term issues along with their relationship to each other and to media

patterns of how certain types of stories (e.g. a merger within the media industry) play out over time so that we can predict what is likely to happen after a similar announcement

effectiveness of campaigns over time (e.g the above YouTube example)

For me, they are just as sexy as the not-for-business stuff!!