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Our Klout Stars series highlights top influencers and how they got to where they are today.

About: Tom H. C. Anderson is managing partner of research consultancy and text analytics firm Anderson Analytics (OdinText). A pioneer in text mining, he is an award winning blogger and frequent speaker at voice of customer industry events. Tom manages one of the largest discussion groups on LinkedIn related to ‘Next Gen’ market research and has almost 50,000 followers on Twitter.

1.How did you get started in social media?

While I’ve always believed in the power of networking, my original reason for blogging and tweeting was solely to better understand online sentiment from the perspective of the very consumers our clients were asking us to analyze. I really had no idea of the opportunities it would eventually lead to. It turns out that when you study what other brands and online influencers do it’s hard not to get kind of good at it yourself.

2. What does influence mean to you? Who influences you the most online?

I think influence means different things to different people. Initially bloggers were credited with an undue level of influence. As the social web has matured I think everyone is contributing and shaping products, services and brands via their networks.

However certain people are definitely more influential in specific areas than others. When I first started using Twitter for Instance, Guy Kawasaki @GuyKawasaki was a huge inspiration in how I started using Twitter. I was also impressed by how approachable he was, and I reached out to him on several occasions for advice.

These days I’m influenced by hundreds of colleagues within my network on a daily basis as they share their own thoughts and experiences as well as relevant articles, many from sources I would not have been likely to come across myself.

3. What advice do you have for someone who wants to take their online presence to the next level?

Interestingly my advice to someone starting out is really the same whether they are an individual or larger brand. Pick one or two examples you admire and look at what they are doing. When you first start out you’re not going to have a large following, just a small group of people who already know you. If you over think it and worry too much about the content initially chances are you’ll never get much out there. Choose one or two channels that are easiest for you whether it’s a blog, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter and start there. Don’t overthink it initially and allow yourself to make some mistakes, you’ll find the social web is rather forgiving if intentions are pure.

As you get more comfortable sharing a lot more ideas and opportunities will arise. This is when you may want to fine tune your strategy. Online strategy by the way is something that necessarily should evolve over time as your options and experience change.

I find online influence, even if it’s a personal brand is a lot like formal marketing. It’s about quality content (honesty), frequency and reach. That’s one of the great things about what Klout is doing, it takes into account the fact that YouTube, LinkedIn, facebook etc. are really concentric circles of influence. Those that understand this can relatively easily increase both their reach and frequency and eventually their overall influence.

But you should never forget that listening is at least as important as talking when it comes to online influence.

Connect with Tom on Twitter at @TomHCAnderson

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Our Klout Stars series highlights top influencers and how they got to where they are today.

About: John is a creative thinker who has achieved significant accomplishments in science, medicine, marketing, and the creative arts. He has been published in the American Heart Association and The American Journal of Physiology and has lectured at Harvard Medical School and The Fashion Institute of Technology. John blogs at http://www.johnnosta.com/ and is an Executive Vice President at Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide

1. How did you get started in social media?

My involvement in social media was a very deliberate choice on my part. As a Chief Creative Officer for a large advertising agency, the digital writing was on the wall and it was essential that I embraced these changes. There were two key drivers. First off, it allowed my competence to grow and become more conversant in new media. Additionally, my involvement gave me a “stronger voice” in the advertising community and resulted in a direct increase in my value in the marketplace. The second driver was the business itself. My clients all were asking about web sites, Twitter, smart phones and alike and I felt that my responses were somewhat removed from the reality of the media–my replies were often canned and not based on direct experience. It became obvious to me that I needed to walk the walk and tweet the tweet. Finally, healthcare was a dynamic and growing part of our economy and business. It was a perfect market where ground-breaking innovations could provide powerful interactions and tools to save lives!

2. What does influence mean to you? Who influences you the most online?

Influence, for me, is the unspoken volume of your communication. And by volume, I mean the “intellectual loudness”. It’s the respect that you’ve earned by providing great content and value over time. And that’s important because the perception of WHO you are can be as important as WHAT you say. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there…is analogous to a brilliant blog post or tweet that no one reads!

I’m influenced by a lot of people and engagement peaks my interest right away. People who retweet or comment on my posts / blogs always get my undivided attention. It might spark a relationship or just fade, but you have to “be there” and “be social”. I’m also greatly influenced by “thought-leaders” in various areas. These are the big thinkers and have the established equity that draws me in. And the secret here is that I don’t limit these personal influencers to a specific topic or category. I get great ideas from physics, art and news—all applied to my area of healthcare communications. The real magic for me is when I make a connection with a thought-leader and build a new relationship. And marketing tells us that the most powerful influencer is one in your specific social network. That’s certainly true for me! Today, I have a robust relationship with physicians, patients, scientists, creative thinkers to names a few. And this makes me a much more informed healthcare marketer.

3. What advice do you have for someone who wants to take their online presence to the next level?

Taking your online presence to the next level is all about building your own personal brand! And branding is something we actually do every day. From the clothes we wear to the words we voice–it all builds a personality that we project into the world. In traditional brand-building, typography is sometimes referred to as the “voice of the brand”. The type face becomes the deep and credible voice of a news reporter or the light and airy tone of a small child. Each word strikes a creative cord that defines us. After all, different people can utter the exact phrase yet articulate completely different messages! Now today, we see the emergence of the e-brand–an electronic personality that establishes you (and your brand) in the e-world…and by extension, the real world (if there really is any difference!). Twitter is your speaking voice, in real-time and broken up in short conversations. It’s not your college essay, it’s not your carefully worded press-release, it’s your short burst of personality.

Connect with John on Twitter at @JohnNosta

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Our Klout Stars series highlights top influencers and how they got to where they are today.

About: Jessica Gottlieb is an award winning mom blogger in Los Angeles. You may have read about Jessica in the New York Times, LA Times, or the Wall Street Journal. You might have heard Jessica on NPR or seen her on The Daily Show. She is a featured panelist on the web series Momversation and a YouTube partner. Jessica has a robust following on Twitter and Google Plus.

1. How did you get started in social media?

I’m not sure that I ever “started” in social media. When I was in college (and dinosaurs roamed the earth) we had an intranet with some pretty fun usergroups. I suppose that’s the baby pool for social media.

Before moving to professional blogging I was an eBay Powerseller. In order to make the most of my time on eBay I had created communities both within eBay’s walled garden (eBay groups) and outside (email marketing and forum participation). I’m not convinced that Social Media is a recent trend so much as that it’s a recent name.

2. What does influence mean to you? Who influences you the most online?

Influence can be positive or negative. For instance, this week a Girl Scout video influenced me to buy Girl Scout Cookies. I HATE girl scout cookies, but I hate the message of the proposed boycott more. Influence is an unwieldy sword and trying to manage it could be a full-time job. It’s probably best to respect the fact that we all influence someone and trying to not be a jerk is a good start.

My mother is my biggest online influence. She’s a voracious reader and before I wake up in the morning, she’s already found the best news stories of the day and delivered them to my inbox.

3. What advice do you have for someone who wants to take their online presence to the next level?

I’d advise you to think about WHY you want to have more online influence. Do you have something to sell? Do you have a political agenda? Is it just feeding your ego? There’s got to be an endgame to all of this, and if you don’t have a goal in mind it’s easy to spin out of control. Spend your energy wisely.

Connect with Jessica on Twitter at @JessicaGottlieb

Why do you want to increase your online influence?

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Our Klout Stars series highlights top influencers and how they got to where they are today.

About Alister: I’m Alister Cameron and I call myself a Blogologist. I’m an Aussie who grew up on US air bases in West Germany (among other places). I’m on the wrong side of 40 and I’ve been into computers since 1984, when I was recording BASIC onto cassette tape on my trusty VIC-20. I’ve been working online since 1995, when I built my first website (it was awful!). I’ve built a stack more awful websites since then, and a few good ones too. After many years of consulting, I’ve just started as the Head of Digital for WorldVision Australia, which I’m really excited about. I’ve been a child sponsor since 1989 (hint: they need the money more than you do!).

1. How did you get started in social media?

In late 2006, I made a spontaneous decision to get serious about blogging, which I had been doing very casually since about 1998.

On the day in December that Time Magazine announced their 2006 Person of the Year (if you recall, it was “you”), I came up with the idea of creating an unofficial Person of the Year seal, which a whole bunch of other bloggers happily pasted into their blog sidebars and webpages. Not being a complete fool, I created a cool-looking graphic and ready-to-copy HTML code, which included a couple of links back to my own blog. Within a week Google found hundreds of blogs with the Person of the Year seal linking back to my blog. Google started ranking my blog for pretty much anything I blogged about, and I was immediately hooked on blogging as a way of doing effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Not long after that I registered a Twitter account and did nothing with it for a couple of years. Then at some point in 2008 I decided I needed to grow my Twitter account and have been consumed with Twitter ever since. I have well over 300,000 followers now, but who’s counting?!

2. What does influence mean to you? Who influences you the most online?

An old mentor of mine once made the very profound point that the more influential you want to be, the more narrowly you have to focus. I guess parenting is the ultimate supporting evidence of the wisdom of that statement. In my case, I’m a single parent of four kids, and I am completely sold on the idea that my best chance to change the world is to establish four young lives on a solid footing.

Strategically, I teach business to build their brand and buzz in a very broad and indiscriminate way, while at the same time laser-focusing on those few individuals or stakeholders who matter the most. Social media lets you do both incredibly well!

In my early days of blogging, when I felt like a total newbie, I was blessed to have a few leading bloggers who took the time to encourage me and help me make sense of things. Darren Rowse and Liz Strauss were both very kind to me, and years later, you can see what quality thought leaders and “stayers” they both are.

3. What advice do you have for someone who wants to take their online presence to the next level?

There is so much I might like to say but let me make just two obvious points.

Firstly, obsess more about your customer/reader/follower than your product/blog/content. One thing I wrote many years ago hit a nerve and I’m proud of it. It’s in reference to blogging, but it applies to everything online. I said at the time, “The real reason why nobody reads your blog is this: massively successful blogging is about establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships. It’s all about who you know.” So take the time to be personal. Engage the little people. Be kind. Listen.

Secondly, I’d remind you of what the sociologists call “participational observation”. This is the idea that you can’t really properly (and deeply) understand something unless you, as it were, roll up your sleeves and get stuck into it… personally. So everywhere I go, and everyone I talk to, I ask the same questions. Are you actively on Facebook? Do you have a YouTube account and have you tried creating silly personal videos? The social web is passing many people by simply because they’re not getting close enough to it to ever understand it. And when authenticity means everything (and it does), looking and sounding like a faker is not good enough.

Connect with Alister on Twitter at @alicam