What's YOUR definition of an 'influencer?'

In advance of the June 3 conference on PR Measurement in Washington DC, PR News Online is asking for definitions of an 'influencer' in social media.  

PR News will 'feature' the top 10 answers at the conference and on prnewsonline.com

Here's my answer:

Influencer=5 P's

• Popular:  visible, vocal, has a substantial following, reach.  In-bound links, trackbacks, subscribers, bookmarks, followers, friends, views, listens, saves, downloads, etc. 
• Polarized in tone:  neutrality does little to drive influence way or the other.  A clearly positive or negative  view will polarize readers/followers and is more likely to drive cohesion and mobilize advocates and have those advocates coalesce around a core theme, idea, or call to action.    
• Prolific / Relevant / Frequent:  raw author contribution and # of on-topic, related posts
• Prominent / Authoritative:  are they an idea starter or spreader; source or spider?  They may be prolific but are they prominent?  Are they highly inter-related, inter-connected, and centrally located in the network?  How engaged is this person’s following in a dialogue?  How much dialogue is there and what is its nature?   Here we need to reconize, though, that authority is contextual and topical.  One might be an authority on PR measurement but not on 18th century Russian literature. 
• Promoter / Advocate:  how many of the followers/commentators active contributors advocating, endorsing, advancing (or the opposite) your position?  Are they adding links, tags.  Is the nature of the language they are using inter-connective, expanded, clarifying, reinterpreting?  RTs, digs, fans, votes, buzzups, up/downloads, shares, likes, invites, favorites, embeds.  (More active than the metrics in popularity)

Of course, measuring influence (or potential to, really) is only part of a more systems, network analysis, social capital-informed approach to social media measurement.  For that, we need to consider the:

The 7 C's of Social Media Measurement

What's YOUR definition?

How Are Measurement Results Best Used to Adjust Campaigns?

PR Week recently asked us for our perspective (what's yours?) on this question.  Here's the article:

The 7C's of Social Media Measurement

Folks chatting / tweeting about social media measurement love to apply cute acronyms or use alliteration to articulate their thinking or their model on how to measure social media.

Generally, I find that approach lacking.  Great for marketing hyperbole, but light on oomph and methodology.

Prime example:
I read a tweet yesterday about the 4 Is:

All were ambitiously and interestingly expressed as a return on…

…insight
…interaction
…investment
…impact.

OK.  I’m feeling a need to break my own rule and reciprocate with the 7Cs of social media measurement:

1.  Counting (site and search metrics–all the appropriate stuff we can and should count)
2.  Content (analysis, that is.  quantity and quality)
3.  Conversations (or as I like to sometimes call them conversationships)
4.  Cohesion (are folks agreeing with you?  with each other?  more importantly, are they coalescing around a core theme/idea/call to action, etc?)
5.  Community
6.  Connectedness (via network analysis:  how inter-connected, inter-related are the highly engaged/key influencers/advocates in the conversation?  how centrally located are those highly engaged / key influentials / brandvocates?  how far and and how fast is the spread?)
7.  Conversion (the so what factor…getting beyond the output and outtake into the outcome or impact zone…and here I don’t strictly mean conversion to a tangible like sales…it could be conversion toward any measurable MarCom or PA/issues/advocacy-based objective.  Hint on method:  have a look at Tealium or Sysomos Audience.

So how do you measure all this?

1.  Combine several approaches (content analysis, search and site metrics, network analysis, primary research), and
2.  Have those approaches be flexible enough to account for/prioritize/weight different objectives and campaign types.

Thoughts?