To recap: last time we noted we can count human behaviour parameters (apply a hard number...however specious) or we can classify it (place that experience with respect to other, similar or dissimilar experiences.)

As social influence marketers, the leap is that---for the first time in the history of media---we can now do both. Why? Because we can listen TO and WITH our audience, because media is now interactive.

And if we're listening collaboratively, as we say around Fresh Baked HQ...we can walk with 'em anywhere they go.

And that's gold for a marketer: we can actually watch word-of-mouth grow and incite other interactions. 

There is a HUGE bitchin' flaw in this sunny scenario, however: there is no coordinating language to bring the counting together with the classifying.

What we're doing is listening but the statistical language doesn't yet (fully) co-exist with a classification language for the behaviours that ensue when people interact with story.

It's the SAT score fallacy, right? If you're worrying about Twitter efficacy, well, Klout scores are...a great way of measuring Klout. They may have no interpretative value for your brand or the way folks are tweeting about your brand.

We can't (yet) divine just what a specific word-of-mouth narrative thread will do...unless we benchmark it, tag it with a coupon or a poll response or a bonus. (If that sounds crude for state-of-the-art technology in 2011...well, it is.)

In sum, this is why so many of our clients are asking the questions they are: they have little inkling the game has changed radically, under their feet.

Real deal social influence mavens like Beth Kanter, Mitch Joel and Seth Godin have for years now warned : "you don't own your brand"..."your audience doesn't care about what you push at 'em but rather at what they're pulled to"...but in my view all too many clients are ill-served by what we're telling them.

That they don't get it isn't their fault: it's ours. How to fix that relationship next time.

Written By:  Brendan Howley, Fresh Baked Entertainment