I’ve got this little secret. It’s totally embarrassing. And I’ve kept it under wraps since roughly the end of 7th grade. It’s the kind of nightmare scenario you just wanna forget. (And really hope everyone else does, too.) They make movies about this brand of teenage atrocity and it usually ends with someone choking on a jawbreaker or drinking Drano.

I tried out for cheerleader.

And didn’t make it.

I grabbed for the brass ring in a protracted herky and fell short. Quite miserably I might add. My dreams of cheering, bouncing, and prancing the halls on Fridays in a cute little skirt were dashed on that unceremonious afternoon in the junior high gym.

At the time, what I didn’t realize (other than the judges were chosen by school board members who all had the daughters that DID make cheerleader) was that I didn’t care all that much about being a cheerleader. Other than the cute skirts. I was never really afraid of being left out or picked on or ignored if I wasn’t one.

What I was afraid of was not having influence.

Of course in the 7th grade, influence was just another spelling bee word. I didn’t sit around my bedroom outlining strategic plans to increase my influence. I just knew in my limited 13 year-old brain that if you wanted to be heard and respected, you needed to be a cheerleader.

You needed to be someone that people follow, admire, talk about, and emulate.

Fortunately, my desire for pee-wee pep rally fame was quickly replaced by the discovery of track, basketball, photography, yearbook, theatre, and the debate team. My high school career played out like the opening scene from Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. In a pubescent haze I must have thought the only way to make up for not being a cheerleader was to be everything else.

But then we grow up. And we realize being popular doesn’t define us. It’s all the other things that reflect our value.

And then we wake up and realize life isn’t nice and neat like an after-school special. This is the real world. And dammit, popularity matters.

So forget whatever they’ve told you. The world runs on influence. Which of course is fueled by popularity. And if you’re not building yours, you might as well hang with the slackers smoking behind the band hall. (That’s the world talking, not me.)

Now you might ask, “Who really cares?”

A few months ago I would have said probably no one (or maybe Fast Company.) But after interviewing Klout for a tech innovations article I discovered something really interesting.

Employers are starting to consider Klout scores in the job screening process.

At a recent Klout-Up in NYC, an HR recruiter was overheard talking about how they’re starting to use Klout to evaluate job applicants. When questioned by a Klout employee, the recruiter said they were using a score of “around 30″ as a gauge of minimum influence.

Yeah. Not only are they looking at your resume, Linkedin, Google footprint, Facebook activity, and Twitter feed… they’re also looking at where you stand in the social influence hierarchy.

So you can add one more thing to the expanding number of balls you need to juggle to maintain your “personal brand.”

Who’s Doing It, Who’s Not
Do you really need to worry about your Klout score? Could it really help you get a job or possibly keep you from getting one? I interviewed a handful of leaders from the ad industry and social mediasphere.

Here’s what they’re saying:

Landor Associates

Russell Meyer of Landor says he doesn’t make decisions based on Klout score because of how hard it would be to reduce a full range of competencies down to a single number. But he does say, “as a candidate moves from the HR department into talks with managers in departments, their on-line profile becomes much more important.” Russell said the inclusion of a Klout score in the hiring process would be specific to certain types of new hires, such as strategists and digital directors. He didn’t see junior designers or finance personnel being assessed on their online influence. But for certain types of hires, influence is something Landor examines:

R/GA

Shannon Moorman of R/GA puts a lot of stock into a mobile/social candidate’s online presence and feels the best way to identify candidates is “through their diversity and depth of engagement” in the social media community:

Saatchi & Saatchi

When I asked Tim Leake, Creative Director at Saatchi and Saatchi, New York, he was skeptical of Klout’s ability to accurately score candidates and feels the system is somewhat arbitrary. He says it’s “only good at measuring what it’s built to measure,” and doesn’t put a lot of stock into it because he sees Twitter users that he feels are more influential but who have lower Klout scores.

Mullen

Edward Boches of Mullen had some interesting insights and shared his opinion of Klout as well as what he values when hiring. At Mullen, he says they don’t use Klout because it’s not scientific and it “emphasizes pushing out of content,” which he doesn’t see as a good indicator of all the skills needed to be good at social media in an integrated environment. Further emphasizing his hesitation to embrace Klout in the hiring process, in a recent post he says:

Beth Harte

Beth Harte, a respected social media leader who created and writes at the popular The Harte of Marketing Blog is also skeptical of judging employees on their Klout scores:

I also communicated with Melanie Mahaffey at GSD&M and Scott Monty at Ford, and they both said their companies aren’t currently using Klout scores for hiring.

The Future of Klout Scores
Currently, Klout is only gauging influence through Twitter interactions (and recently added Facebook to the mix), but according to Megan Berry, the company’s Marketing Manager (and also a writer for Mashable,) they’re working on incorporating other social media channels such as Linkedin, Plancast, bit.ly, personal blogs, and other social networks. Klout currently has 650 API partners. That’s huge.

Regardless of the potential, most hiring managers and department directors are still looking beyond influence during the hiring process, but because many of them are aware of Klout and recognize the importance of online engagement, it’s only a matter of time before Klout becomes a ubiquitous screening tool. When you have 100+ applicants for a job, how easy would it be to quickly eliminate 75% of them?

The temptation is there. As we see in every other technology space, human nature drives development. People naturally feel a need to categorize, rank, judge, and weed.

Given all of the online information about an individual, and all of the interaction and engagement between people, something that assesses and categorizes was bound to emerge. And as much as it feels intrusive (and admittedly I’ve had and still have my reservations) you have to hand it to Klout for seeing beyond the horizon and being prepared to leverage the social media community’s obsession with influence, and the human desire to be popular.

Or at least associate with whoever is.

Klout CEO Joe Fernandez puts it this way:

He also says that while Klout is aware that the number of Twitter followers or retweets doesn’t tell the full story, they’re performing “significant analysis” on each individual’s interactions, and are now doing it across other social platforms (Facebook just added, more to come).

Joe says Klout will be making the information available to users in the future to help them better understand and leverage their influence.

Whether we argue that Klout is a superficial reflection of influence or that it fails to capture the full range of talents and the basic essence of an individual, it’s going to turn into a pretty big deal as it evolves. How could it not? We have Google Rank, Alexa Rank, Twitter Grader, Blog Grader, and all manner of other graders for accounts and websites, so it’s logical that grading individuals is a natural progression of our assessment habit. Or as Megan Berry said: “It’s Google PageRank for people.”

The good news: Klout won’t just measure whether you made cheerleader. Once more of our social media activities are tapped, we’ll all have a chance to channel our inner Max Fischer.

And apparently, we’ll also be getting Klout badges to prove it.

How do you feel about being judged by your Klout score? Does your score seem accurate?

Do you think influence should matter to a company when hiring?

What do you define as true influence and can algorithms successfully measure it?

We all had a good laugh this week when JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater used profanity over the plane’s announcement system, stole a couple of beers, and slid down the emergency slide after a passenger cursed at him. (And in a stranger-than-fiction moment was arrested by police at his home while reportedly in flagrante.)

Now that the guy is out on bail, you’d think the whole thing would blow over in a couple of days. At least after the requisite articles, parodies, jokes, and late show appearances.

But something happened that’s pushing this whole thing back into the spotlight. At least from a social media case study perspective. A few members of the JetBlue Twitter team responded to some obviously tongue-in-cheek tweets and got called out for lacking a sense of humor.

Not a big deal, right?

Oh yeah, the tweeter that JetBlue responded to just happened to be famed satirist and reporter Andy Borowitz of The Borowitz Report.

Acknowledging his tweets is like poking a stick into a wasp nest. Doing it without a sense of humor is like sticking your whole arm in there.

The JetBlue Twitter responses weren’t necessarily social media smack talk, and certainly nowhere near the level of Nestle’s little Facebook tirade a few months back, but considering that responding to a Borowitz jab is the equivalent of pressing the big red button to confirm WWIII, you have to wonder what the JetBlue tweeters were thinking. The JetBlue Twitter responses lacked JetBlue’s familiar light-heartedness, and did little more than encourage a Twitter throwdown.

Borowitz ran with the ball and continued to tweet JetBlue jokes, leading followers in the Twittersphere to dub it a “Twitter War.”

JetBlue’s Twitter stream went dark for about 10 hours after the Borowitz incident and the next update simply stated JetBlue would not be commenting on an ongoing investigation.

Um, little late for that. It’s already gone from zero to take-off.

In the ensuing hours, a more polished social media response began to emerge that resonated with the JetBlue brand in a way the Twitter responses didn’t.

On JetBlue’s blog, the writer embraced the situation in a self-deprecating voice… with just enough humor to remind you that you love JetBlue almost as much as Southwest.

The JetBlue Facebook Page discussion area also filled up with posts calling for mercy for Steven Slater. JetBlue tastefully posted a link to the blog post within the Facebook Page, and continued to allow discussion without giving any appearance of censorship.

Everything that JetBlue has done AFTER the initial tweets has been right on target:

1. JetBlue used its venues strategically and soundly, choosing to communicate a response in a blog post instead of blanketing its channels with defensiveness.

2. JetBlue kept its voice real and human and didn’t switch to stark language and tone.

3. JetBlue left its channels open for comment and engaged in the discussion.

So what happened on Twitter?

In an Advertising Age article, JetBlue’s Twitter response is defended, asserting that not responding to Borowitz would have reflected a nonchalant attitude about the issue and encouraged lawsuits.

Considering there were other tactics engaged that handled the crisis both professionally and in-brand, it’s more likely the corporate tweeters were shut down after making personal decisions to respond to Borowitz.

From a brand perspective, a community channel isn’t the right place to break brand or scold a follower or commenter. A well-defined channel strategy that clarifies the purpose and boundaries of each venue is essential to the foundation of a social media effort. And a mandate that community managers stay in brand voice on all channels at all times should be the prime directive.

Conversing in social media may seem like a “just a conversation,” but it’s so much more than that. Every tweet and every response has to come from the soul of the brand. Even in the face of crisis or criticism.

1. How should a brand respond to a crisis? Do you think breaking with established brand voice is justified in certain cases?

2. Should a community manager or channel manager be expected to have an intimate understanding of the brand before taking over the community reigns?

3. Is there a right place for a brand to respond sternly to followers or commenters?

Imagine this. Your agency comes in on a Monday morning and tells you they have a proposal. Hear them out. They want to produce 180 commercials over the course of two days. They’ll make the media placement with no discussion of CPP or CPM. They’ll write the scripts two minutes before going into production. You don’t get to approve anything. The storyboard is one frame. There’s no music. Barely a wardrobe.

And props will be picked up on the fly by interns dashing down the street to the closest CVS.

Now sign here.

Sound like the kind of campaign you’d ever approve?

Just running down the list of what must have transpired between Wieden+Kennedy and the Old Spice marketing team almost seems like an advertising fairy tale. For any of us working with clients in the real world, we can’t get a print ad approved without layers of review and no fewer than five revisions.

A TV commercial with a blank creative check? Dream on.

We’ll never be quite sure who had to promise a kidney or which executives had to be tied up in back rooms last Tuesday and Wednesday, but the Old Spice viral video campaign was incredible. And not just because of its pure strategic genius and the apparent invincibility of its lone acting talent. The campaign was ground-breaking because it showed clients the scary things that can happen when an agency has their trust, and permission to act in the client’s best interest:

Total videos made: 180+
Total video views: 5.9 million (first two days)
Total comments: 22,500
(via Mashable)

Now remember that this all came from a two-day shoot with a concurrent media schedule. A media schedule that basically consisted of a protracted Twitter feed and a YouTube channel. Both free. Both completely without followers, no links in, or no blog support. And of course, with no pre-assurance from Comscore.

But guess what?

TOUCHDOWN.

The Old Spice viral video campaign wasn’t just a win for Old Spice and Wieden+Kennedy, or a permanent page in the record books. It opened a conversation between agencies and clients and created a precedent for stronger relationships and greater trust. Social media is doing more than bringing brands closer to the consumer. It’s also bringing brands closer to their agencies.

And despite initial reports that sales were down, a report from BrandWeek showed a body wash sales increase of 55% over the prior three months, and 107% during July. There have also reportedly been a total of 110 million views of the Old Spice videos since the campaign launch, an incredible number that puts traditional media to shame.

Why It Matters
Social media isn’t a medium where you can spend months in approval and weeks in post-production. Brands that want to lead the way in social media (or at least not get left behind) will have to keep their creative firepower close… building the kind of trust between agency and client that’s usually reserved for only members of an in-house team.

Do you think more clients will start trusting their agency partners to be autonomous in social media?

Will clients that don’t trust their agencies have a competitive disadvantage?

Will new levels of trust result in a rise in engaging consumer experiences like Old Spice’s?

I grew up in Texas. (It’s no secret if you hear me talk). Forget the podcasts, my relaxed language is tinged with y’alls and drawls. And yes, y’all has both plural and possessive form in case you were curious. I do a pretty good job of keeping it on the down low at work, but there’s always that occasional “fixin’ to” that gives me away. Well, the thing about being a girl growing up in a rough-and-tumble state is that you’re taught to be one tough little cookie. I was playing baseball (the hardball sort) when I was 7 or 8, riding my PawPaw’s horses at 4 or 5, and roughing up the neighborhood boys during tackle football games.

I don’t think I realized I was a girl until at least 14.

My first brush with discovering my X-chromosome origins came when I was about 6 years old. I inadvertently discovered that boys and girls are different after taking my shirt off while outside on a scorching summer day.

While my mom was out getting some much-needed sanity, I was at the baby-sitter sweltering in the sun playing hide-and-seek with the neighborhood kids. So as the boys started taking off their sweat-soaked shirts, I, of course, thought it was okay for me to do the same.

Imagine my surprise when I was sternly grabbed by an arm and whisked off to hastily locate my top.

“BUT HEEEEEEEEE DID IT?!” I’m sure I wailed.

“WHY CAN’T AYYYYYYYE???”

I had just been unceremoniously introduced to the concept that “life isn’t fair.” Especially for girls.

So when I came across TEDWomen this week, it was a mix of excitement and reservation. On the one hand, I soak up TED Talks like some people soak up Appletinis. Gotta have my daily fix, and watching TEDs over lunch is becoming habit-forming. My podcasts always feature my latest favorite Talk, and some weeks it’s hard to decide which one to choose.

There are so many incredible people and TED knows how to find them. TED rocks. (There’s a concert idea in that).

But at the same time, since my sunny days as a rabble-rousing girls-libber in the Lone Star State, I’ve always been firmly against segregation or propping up. Singling out specific segments of the population in veiled (or blatant) coddling efforts does more harm than good.

Making special allowances is the equivalent of saying one group isn’t as able, isn’t as driven, isn’t as intelligent, and therefore needs a hand up.

I can feel that 6 year-old seething inside.

While it may improve things in the short-term (and there’s no arguing that Affirmative Action has helped a lot of people and you can’t paint everything with the same brush), in the long-term it generally reinforces the negative perception that created the disparity in the first place. I’m against discrimination and strongly believe pointing out differences in an effort to make compensation only perpetuates the behavior or attitudes you want to discourage.

It seems women haven’t made it as far as we’d thought. Reading from the TEDWomen web page, I felt us go slipping backward about 30 years.

And then there was this line on the website that felt like it was either catering to a right-brain/left-brain stereotype, or the ambitious, competitive, testosterone-fueled hunter male vs. the communicative, nurturing, berry-gathering female. Do we really need to go back there?

I thought that’s what the original TED was about, except for the part about focusing on women being different. Every speaker on TED is different and unique… different nationalities, different ages, different educations, different genders. In past events have women’s speeches been less innovative and dynamic? Is women’s thinking less relevant to the broader audience?

Now my inner 6 year-old is really wound up.

Or maybe TED just wants to create a venue where women can talk about “womany” issues like poverty, sickness, art, and motherhood. If they’re truly ideas worth spreading, why wouldn’t they be integrated into TED? Or create topic-driven events like TEDBusiness, TEDSocial, TEDCulture, or hey, TEDucation.

TED is about bringing together a wide variety of perspectives and influence, and until TEDWomen, I thought it was also free of borders and conventional boundaries. It always felt like TED was about great ideas rising to the top, no matter where or who they came from. Now that there’s a separate event, it’s only going to encourage further segregation, and ultimately a watering down of the TED brand.

Or worse, the original TED will be viewed as the pinnacle event, with presenters at the top of the thinking in their fields, and TEDWomen being viewed as the also-rans.

I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, but the way to honor and highlight women isn’t by separating them. It’s by deeper inclusion. And considering TED is all about ideas, there was bound to be a better one for achieving it.

Will women resent having to choose between attending a TED conference and a TEDWomen conference?

Will female presenters feel they’re being slighted by being invited to TEDWomen instead of TED?

Will male presenters be invited to TEDWomen?

What are some ideas that would have highlighted women thinkers in TED without segregating them?

One of the things that’s so inspiring about the Information Age is that the possibilities for an individual are limitless. A college drop-out created one of the world’s most powerful companies. A college kid came up with a billion dollar operation out of his dorm room, (and at 26 years old he’s running it). A child from a broken home who didn’t know his father grew up to be president of the United States.

Is there anything that can’t be done? When ideas are what create success, can we afford to judge anyone based on their pedigree, education, or age?

As was predicted, in the new millennium ideas became currency.

In an environment that has evolved to value ideas, every day is a new opportunity to change the world, to be a catalyst for growth, to build something amazing. The ease and speed at which we’re now able to connect is what makes most of these dreams possible.

What’s small is big, and what’s big is flat. Ideas spread like a blaze in the wind, and the strength of our connections allows us to leverage those ideas into something greater, faster.

That was until the chilling effect of “influence.”

It’s ironic that Fast Company, a brand known for highlighting the speed of great ideas, would create and promote an idea like the Influence Project. Because it’s ushering in a new craze over superficial influence that’s unhealthy to the ecosystem that supports the growth of ideas, and it threatens the intricate and delicate networks that allow ideas to move so quickly.

The new fascination with who’s influential, who’s not, who’s got clout, and who doesn’t, and the ability to filter people out of your life based on a number is unhealthy for a community. The long-term result of the Influence Project, as well as Hootsuite’s Klout scoring and filtering, is going to be a social media ecosystem that gets even more strongly segregated into cliques.

Am I the only one who hates cliques? Or having your value as a thinker, idea person, and sharer crunched into a cold, inhuman number?

With Hootsuite’s Klout tool, it’s too easy to filter out followers, and limit conversations to only people who are in the highest quartile of “influencers.” Does this honestly benefit anyone? Or does it encourage us to all become focused on influence?

With a rise in artificial influence-seeking behaviors like spamming contests and ignoring followers who have low Klout scores, the sharing and mixing of many disparate people and ideas (something we just recently gained) and the quest for social media trust will both be lost, and the new currency will no longer be ideas, but numbers and the perception of influence.

Sure, filtering by Klout can be useful to brand community managers who want to identify influencers within the community for strategic seeding. But when everyone in the entire community is using the technology to shut out “the noise” of everyone below the Klout number they “respect,” we’ll have a community that’s no longer driven by sharing and connecting, but by popularity.

The loss will be great.

In this TED video by Matt Ridley, “When Ideas Have Sex,” he talks about how important it is that ideas are shared and combined. I especially loved his concept of the genetic inheritance of an idea. By allowing them to co-mingle, the best parts of ideas come together to form a new, better idea.

A lot of ideas that could have and would have connected, won’t. A lot of people who could have benefited each other (in ways that have nothing to do with influence) will never come together because at least one of them couldn’t be bothered.

It’s actually disheartening. I’ve seen remarks about annoyance with “followers seeking validation” by trying to connect or be heard. (Connect? Be heard? How dare they?!) Or the other blogger who tweeted how the people trying hardest to connect “probably deserve it the least.” I’m guessing those are the types Klout was designed for. It shouldn’t be a surprise they both have high follower counts. But what they’re gaining in “influence” they’re losing in trust, relationships, and access to ideas outside the echo chamber.

Join the Conversation…

Has Klout scoring affected who you interact with and how you interact with them?

Is there an innovative way to counteract an unhealthy focus on scored influence?

Does crowdsourcing represent the physical embodiment of the democratic sharing and mixing of ideas?

Will there come a time when Klout scores are automatically attached to our name on interactions across the internet?

Hootsuite. Old Spice. Ann Taylor. MailChimp. The First Amendment. Did you miss anything last week? Keep your finger on the pulse of social media and what’s next in marketing with The BrandForward Top 10 Podcast. It’s packed full of the week’s top stories, video memes, TV spots, and breaking social media developments on the web. Everything is condensed into a news-style podcast, available on iTunes each Monday. To subscribe, search “brandforward” in the iTunes store.

Podcast

Please note: This embedded player is Flash-based. iPhone, iPod, and iPad users can access the podcast directly through the iTunes store.

Podnotes

10. Award-Winning Creative is 11X More Effective.

9. Writers Beginning to Circumvent Traditional Publishers, Go Directly to iTunes Store.

8. 2010 Holiday Shopping Season Predictions Point to Curtailed Spending.

7. Apple Defends Against “Antennagate” Accusations.

6. MySpace Recreates Profiles to Resemble Facebook.

5. U.S. Appeals Court Strikes Down 2004 FCC Indecency Policy.

4. Hootsuite Launches New Features, Inspires Criticism.

3. Man Sues Facebook for 84% of the Company.

2. Old Spice Viral Video Tweets Take Internet By Storm.

1. Reports Show Creativity in American Children is Dropping.

BrandForward Recommended: Blog Posts & Articles

Adweek: “Maybe the Midlife Crisis Isn’t Bogusky’s” by Warren Berger

Advertising Age: “It’s Time to Prepare For the End of the Web As We Know It.” by Steve Rubel

BrandForward Recommended: TED Talk

“When Ideas Have Sex” by Matt Ridley. 16 minutes

BrandForward Recommended Presentations:

This Week’s Apps

Google App Inventor

FaceTime Portrait

Firefox Home iPhone App

This Week’s Spots to Watch

American Express: “Open – Reveille”

Videos Worth Watching

Google “App Inventor” Demo




Facebook Theatrical Trailer




Apple Fan Video: Antennagate




Brigham Young University: BLL Library Old Spice Parody Video

Marketing Technology

MailChimp Adds Facebook Like Button To Email Campaigns

Consumer Technology

Apollo News Aggregator

Social Media Promotion

Ann Taylor’s “25% Off For Mayors” Foursquare Promotion

To report a news story or event, or to recommend a book, blog, or video for next week, send a tweet to @michelletripp or label your tweet with #brandforward.

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DDB Sweden earned one of three Cyber Grand Prix awards at Cannes with the whimsical, yet acutely strategic “The Fun Theory” campaign. But there’s something more at work here than just clever consumer amusement. This is an example of a brand and agency engaging in the future of marketing by crafting a brand experience and bringing it to life.

Beyond the stated goal of creating interest in its BlueMotion technology, Volkswagen illustrates the strong tie between the brand and the brand experience. Helping commuters have fun while getting from one place to another… an ingenious symbolic connection between a spontaneous moment while walking to where you’re going, and the act of driving from one place to another in a vehicle.

The video of the slide shows how the Volkswagen team converted a long flight of stairs into a big red slide.

And here’s another example where stairs were turned into piano keys. Commuters were encouraged to make music as they walked up and down.

It might seem like fun and games, but there’s something a lot deeper at work than child’s play.

It’s obviously not just about helping consumers get from the top of the stairs to the bottom, or making music on steps. And while it’s supposed to be about BlueMotion technology, I don’t see a compelling connection between the Fun Theory “experiment” and educating consumers on BlueMotion. It feels like it’s missing some legs.

But it really doesn’t matter. Because the campaign did something much more profound. It reminded consumers that getting from one place to another should be fun. And showed them that there’s a choice. Take the boring stairs or go down the fun slide.

And that Volkswagen understands this and creates that same sense of fun and enjoyment in its vehicles.

Are creatives in the industry ready to think like event marketers?

Now more than ever, brands must be in touch with their core value and true promise in order to create relevant experiences that capture the essence and drive the brand. But they also need to see far beyond traditional advertising, look past the buzz of online social media, and understand that today’s consumer isn’t going to respond to brand lip service. They’re going to respond to being engaged… being physically, mentally, and emotionally connected through real interaction.

Whether it’s Ford’s Fiesta Movement or Old Spice’s viral video event. Whether it’s a Farmville game or Foursquare. As advertisers, we’re no longer just managing the message, increasingly we’ll be driving brands through creating experiences.

Can you think of any other agencies or brands that already get it? What are they doing that genuinely engages the consumer?

These days, trends pop fast. And they fade fast. Before you’ve even had a chance to run down to the mall, the latest craze is already sitting in the garbage bin out back. Tossed aside like last season’s undersized clutch. So, what’s this year’s latest has-been item? Apparently it’s “authenticity.” It was all the rage 10 months ago, everyone had to have it. But now the mere whisper of authenticity and you get tweyeballed like the kid who wore Garanimals to 8th grade.

Yes, authenticity is apparently over. But never fear, just like the fashion world always has something new to replace the old, social media is trotting out its new must-have accessory:

Influence.

And the first superstar to strut it down the runway, Fast Company.

You know how there’s haute couture… artfully designed, carefully handcrafted, and respected for its simple elegance…. there’s also the knock-offs. Cramped and flattened in a fluorescently lit back room with a 6-foot ceiling in Chinatown. The ones that scream “Buy me! I’m only $50!”

Versus the ones you’d have to save for dutifully before being able to own.

Well that’s pretty much the gist of the Fast Company Influence Project.

Grab it now, grab it fast, grab it cheap. It’ll fall apart on you in a couple of months, but it looks really shiny right now!

Before I proceed to rail on the Influence Project, let me first say that I love Fast Company. Since the day I picked up my first issue I’ve been hopelessly attached to it and everything it’s stood for… brilliant entrepreneurs, technologies that change the world, innovative ideas and strategies that create empires. What’s a girl not to love?

So when happening upon the Influence Project, I was intrigued. Although, the name did give me a little pause because I’ve already been hesitant to embrace the whole Klout thing. But that’s another story.

After a few minutes of inspection, the first offense in this whole Fast Company “digital don’t” was readily visible. The experiment has a misleading name. Not sure how that happened, but I’m guessing someone didn’t have the dictionary app installed on their iPhone.

Because the definition of Influence is very different from the activity and result promoted in the Influence Project.

Influence:
1. A power affecting a person, thing, or course of events, especially one that operates without any direct or apparent effort. 2. Power to sway or affect based on prestige, wealth, ability, or position.

(From freedictionary.com)

Frankly, I don’t think they meant the “ability” to schedule auto tweets or mass DMs.

I’m not sure how “tricking, spamming, or begging people into clicking on your link as many times as possible” is anywhere near the same universe as influence. At least not true influence. And to see social media tweeps discuss their “formula” for trying to win the competition only reinforces its superficiality.

What would have been more befitting of a pro-business, pro-ethics, pro-future publication that’s trying to maintain relevance in the face of stiff digital competition would have been an experiment in something more profound and meaningful:

Engagement.

Well, they were scooped. Because a mere week after the flimsy Influence Project rolled out,
Old Spice p0wned the influence space with its viral video tweets. Real influence through real engagement. It couldn’t have come at a better time, making a clear distinction between “white hat” influence and “black hat” influence.

It’s really sad that Fast Company felt it needed what amounts to a “rickroll for business geeks” to get people to click onto its site. Fast Company is better than that. And a lot of the people who’ve signed up for it are better than that. I’m on that list. I’m an unapologetic social media joiner. I’m not going to say “Oh gee whiz, I wish I hadn’t signed up but oops! I already did so now I’ll just sheepishly apologize as my photo grows bigger.” I was curious. I was interested. I thought it seemed a little sketchy. But I did it anyway.

I posted my link on Twitter a few times until it started to feel icky. Icky as in I didn’t want to have to post it 20 times a day to make sure every follower saw the link and clicked on it. I didn’t want to get my hands dirty by doing something that went from “innocent fun” to not feeling right.

I didn’t want to sacrifice relationships just to send people I care about to a project I don’t believe in. I didn’t want to artificially leverage trust for something that’s really nothing more than an opportunity to see who’s got the biggest ego and the most lemmings. Or how high Fast Company’s traffic can shoot up between now and August 15th when the competition ends.

Me and my connections have better things to do with our time.

Like participating in the “real” influence project… tweeting the Old Spice man.

YouTube, Facebook, Domino’s, Fast Company, Nissan, Bing. Did you miss anything last week? Keep your finger on the pulse of social media and what’s next in marketing with The BrandForward Top 10 Podcast. It’s packed full of the week’s top stories, video memes, TV spots, and breaking social media developments on the web. Everything is condensed into a news-style podcast, available on iTunes each Monday. To subscribe, search “brandforward” in the iTunes store.

Podcast

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Podnotes

10. Twitter Exploring Possibility of Promoted Tweets for Individual Users.

9. YouTube Aiming To Become Entertainment Content Portal.

8. Facebook Users Experiencing Facebook Fatigue.

7. Teens Experiencing Facebook Fatigue.

6. One in Four Americans Surf Internet While Watching TV.

5. Google Secretly Invests $100 Million In Zynga to Prepare For Launch of Google Games.

4. Domino’s Launches “Real Beauty” Campaign For Pizza.

3. YouTube Looking For Reality TV Style Content on July 24th.

2. Foursquare Launches Layered Locations Feature.

1. Fast Company Launches Controversial “Influence Project.

BrandForward Recommended: Blog Posts & Articles

Mashable: “5 Social Media Trends to Watch Right Now” by Barb Dybwad

CFO.com: “The Cost of Social Media Phobia.” by David McCann

BrandForward Recommended: TED Talk

“Let’s Raise Kids to be Entrepreneurs” by Cameron Herold. 22 minutes

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